Chapter 202: The Cockpit Beckons

In the end, he managed without the second boat.

James worked it out right there on the planking, one man at a time.

Kwaku came first, and there was no mystery there.

Tomás next, for a simpler reason. All that damned confusion in Havana, and the promise he’d made himself, flat and absolute.

Enzo hardly required the luxury of choice. The man had been talking about Port Royal’s markets ever since they first heard of the place, and a cook that eager to find new ingredients to throw into a pot was bound to wander ashore sooner or later, captain’s permission or no captain’s permission.

Bonnet, James admitted with a fondness he had no intention of hiding from himself, was there because he simply hadn’t possessed the heart to leave him behind.

Not after seeing the look on the man’s face, at the thought of walking streets he’d been reading about since he was a boy who believed piracy was a romantic profession.

And Jim, James couldn’t quite justify even to himself. The best he had was the plain, foolish truth that the man had never once been standing beside him when shite hit the fan.

One ought to take his luck where he found it. There was little sense asking questions after that, particularly when luck had never shown much interest in answering them.

The merry band fell into step and started up from the wharf.

First came a disguised Scotsman murdering an Irish accent. Behind him walked an African warrior with a chain wound twice around his waist where an ordinary man might have worn a belt.

Then came a calm young Spaniard who looked as though he’d rather be kneeling at prayer, a lean Sicilian already sniffing at the air like a hound that had caught something worth following, a Barbados gentleman dressed finer than everyone else on the street, and a weather-beaten liar grinning at absolutely nothing.

Whatever recruiting James managed that day, nobody could accuse him of failing to advertise.

Thames Street made its reputation known as soon as they stepped onto it.

Port Royal once had more taverns packed into an acre than any Christian town had business supporting. Buccaneers could spend the value of a galleon in a week and sleep soundly afterward.

The place still had plenty of the old business, though. There was simply less of it now, and the town seemed less eager to brag about what remained.

The whole street smelled of rum, fried fish, and men who had gone so long without cleaning that admitting it to a stranger would have required more sincerity than most of them possessed.

The merry band had gone no farther than a stone’s throw when Bonnet broke away toward a barrow piled with rusted iron and rope old enough to have forgotten what work was.

The fellow minding it lifted a pitted, blackened cutlass by the hilt and turned it so the last scraps of daylight caught along the surviving blade.

"This here, sir, belonged to Captain Kidd himself. Hanged in London not fifteen years past, and this was the very blade in his hand when they hauled him off his ship."

Bonnet’s eyes opened wide as a boy’s.

"Captain Kidd, you say?"

"Could’ve been Avery. Sailed off with the Great Mogul’s treasure and was never seen again, neither, so it’s hard to swear one way or t’other."

"Remarkable."

Bonnet was already digging into his purse.

"I shall treasure it all the same, whoever last held it."

He paid without haggling and brought the ruined cutlass against his chest as tenderly as if it had belonged to his grandfather.

James stood there watching an actual pirate captain, famously unlucky at that, hand over good coin for a rusty bit of theatrical nonsense wearing the name of a legend.

Enzo went next, dragged bodily toward a fish stall by some aroma that apparently spoke to him in a language nobody else could hear.

"Signora."

He leaned over the cart, and his voice went warm the instant he got a look at the woman behind it.

"This one here. How many days has she been out of the water?"

The stout woman responsible for the stall folded her arms. She looked offended enough to prove she was trying, but not so offended that she meant to end the conversation.

"This mornin’s catch, and don’t ye be tellin’ me otherwise."

Enzo picked up a fish between two fingers, turned it once, then pushed his thumb into its belly with grave attention.

"Two days, at least. Perhaps three."

He looked up at her from beneath his brow.

"Though I confess, signora, the longer I stand here, the less interested I find myself in the fish."

"One day. And keep yer hands where I can see both of ’em."

"Ecco."

He lifted the fish like a piece of evidence in a trial known only to himself. "One day and a half, no more. I can forgive it if you sell it to me honestly instead of making it out fresher than it is."

She named a price. Enzo haggled it down, then walked off with the fish wrapped under one arm, leaving the woman looking more flustered than angry.

James felt a man could lose money simply by standing too close to him in a market, and ought to consider himself fortunate for the experience.

Jim wandered off next, attracted by a game rattling away in a doorway two buildings down.

He lost two reales to the gambler in exactly as many throws.

James caught his eye through the crowd.

Jim came back with a smile, as though he’d just won a purse. "Lettin’ him think he’s got me measured, Cap’n, that’s all. Soften a man with a couple o’ little losses, see, and by the third throw he’s puttin’ down more than he’s got. That’s when ye take him for everything."

"And when does this third throw come, Jim?"

"Any moment now."

It did not.

James let him keep the story, nevertheless.

Tomás peeled away fourth, and this time there were teeth in the business from the start.

A large man who smelled strongly of rum planted himself directly in Tomás’s path.

"Coin, boy. Empty yer pockets before I empty ’em for ye."

Tomás didn’t reach for his blade. He didn’t raise his voice, either. He answered in a low, even tone, and the wind had only pieces of it to James, about patience, about grace that was owed rather than earned.

The drunk went stiff.

Then his face crumpled. Half of it looked like tears and the other half didn’t even had a word for it.

The man wandered away down the street without another word.

Not a coin changed hands.

James didn’t ask Tomás what he’d said. A man had a right to keep some things to himself, and he had long since learned which of Tomás’s words were not his business.

Kwaku came last, and it went exactly as expected from the moment they left the wharf.

One man lounging in a tavern doorway called out, "Oi, careful there, lads. Don’t let the black dog off his leash!"

Kwaku’s hand came around flat and open, and the fellow hit the boards as if his own legs had suddenly resigned from the job. He was unconscious in an instant.

Kwaku kept walking.

"Christ."

The word came straight out of James.

"That’s the very blow Cudjoe told me about."

A heartbeat later the accent came back into place.

"Sure, and it’s a fearsome thing to witness, so it is."

Kwaku snorted.

"It usually is."

James laughed, and made almost no effort to stop.

By the time all five had taken their turn, James went searching for somewhere civilized, if only for one brief and foolish moment. Somewhere with chairs, conversation, and no immediate chance of being stabbed over a hand of cards.

Thames Street had nothing of the kind to offer him. Some counting house stood shuttered for the evening, while some chapel was much too holy for what he was after. Then the coffee house, that watched the merry band through its window while already making the report to the watch.

What the street really offered was tucked into an alley mouth not thirty feet farther on.

Sailors stood around the doorway while whores gestured for the crowd. From inside came the unmistakable clatter of dice and silver, loud enough to carry into the open air.

It was a gambling den doing brisk, shameless business, with a brothel attached besides.

A crooked board hung above the door. Salt and years had softened the paint, but the two words painted across it were still plain enough.

THE COCKPIT

James looked at the sign.

Then he looked at his five fools, still grinning and brushing the dust from themselves, and not one of them any worse for the afternoon’s adventures.

"Right then."

Flynn’s voice came back easy and cheerful, with all the confidence.

"In we go, lads."

He marched the whole lot straight through the door.