Chapter 262: Jennings’s Glorious Kingdom

The sign of the Drowned Rat hung a stoop scrubbed with smears darker than lye.

Once, James could hear the old Rat from the bottom of the crooked streets, roars like surf on a reef, some hundred voices swearing they had sunk frigates single-handed.

Tonight, only low whispers leaked through the planks. The shutters were barred, the boards patched with three different kinds of timber, and a black scorch spread up the front to the eaves like a hand reaching for the sign.

The place had become a grim stop for cutthroats and dangerous pirates, where hard cases sat with their backs to the wall and minded their own business.

James straightened his muddy hat, and his split right knuckles stung.

The latch wouldn’t move. From his right, Kwaku put two fingers against the planks, like a physician taking the pulse of a terminal patient.

"A bar upon the inside, Captain, in a town that keeps no watch."

His lips tilted. "The old folks say a man does not bolt his door against the thief, but against the neighbor who sleeps beside him. Whoever sits within fears his friends a great deal more than he fears the Crown."

Knocking would likely earn James a blade through the slats and a discussion over who had invited whom, so he jerked his chin at Wesley.

Wesley stepped forward, a wardrobe that had grown legs, and put them to work.

He kicked through the planks like an explosion, and the bar snapped like a topmast in a gale. The hinges tore loose, and the whole door flew inward and smacked the far wall, throwing splinters everywhere like grapeshot.

The whispers stopped in a heartbeat.

Then the taproom broke loose.

Benches shrieked, a tankard crashed against the floor, and a dozen blades came out in one whisper of steel while curses rose in many languages at once.

"Fuckin’ ’ell an’ all its devils! Which cock-suckin’, pox-ridden whoreson’s put ’is boot through me bleedin’ door? Come out, ye pig’s afterbirth, an’ say it to me face!"

James stepped over the splinters with hands open and [Counterargument]’s four barrels shining at his chest, grinning like he came to buy the next round.

Kwaku came behind him, chain dragging, and Tomás followed.

"Put down the steel, you bonnie bastards! Put it down, I say. We’ve come for no fight!"

He flicked a hand at the ruined doorway.

"And as for the door, send the bill to me fancy rock, no harm done."

Behind them all, Wesley plucked a last splinter from his cuff, examined it, and let it drop. He addressed the rafters, mildly.

"Certainly."

The lamplight caught [Discretion]’s black wool and gold cuffs, then the muddy hat.

Recognition spread through the room like a spark through powder, and one name came out of a pirate’s mouth like a bad oyster.

"Calloway."

"Where in the arse o’ ’ell ’ave ye been, eh?"

"Lookee that coat on ’im, lads! Gold on the cuffs, like a bleedin’ bishop!"

"The Scourge... Mother o’ God an’ all the saints, it’s the Scourge himself, come in out o’ the dark."

The murmurs spread through the benches.

Then a scabbed bear of a pirate hauled himself upright, benches shrieking behind him, and the cutlass left its sheath with a long, slow, hungry breath. "Ye bust the bloody door, ye jumped-up whelp o’ a sod, an’ by Christ I’ll shove that rock o’ yers so far up yer arse ye’ll taste moss on the Sabbath."

Kwaku’s iron weight made one slow round beside his knee, and Tomás tightened his grip on his hilt.

James only kept his open hands where every pirate in the room could count the fingers.

The Rat held its breath in tension.

And then some voice thundered out of the back, loud and unhurried as a tide, as if he owned the room so long that no one remembered it had ever been in question.

"Sheathe it, the lot of ye! Sheathe it, I say, ye mangy pack of scabs!"

The pirates hesitated. He let the silence stretch, then spoke again, almost fond. "Put down, before ye give the bastard a reason to start enjoyin’ himself. And take it from me, lads, ye don’t want him enjoyin’ himself."

Henry Jennings lounged at the back table with two hard cases behind him. His scarlet coat had been splendid once, but now its lace hung in grey tatters and a patch covered one elbow, while every finger on both hands still had a ring, flashing as he spread his arms wide.

He winked with disdain. "My, My! Now there’s an entrance, Calloway, and no mistake, splinters and all! Come in, come in, Yer Grace! Yer Excellency! Yer Bleedin’ Majesty!"

The stares accompanied James across the taproom like a firing line.

Above them, the gallery stood empty, and around the tavern the benches had grown thin. On the far one, a whore with her bodice laced loose counted the night’s shilling without looking at anyone, while some stranger at the counter wiped a tankard with a filthy rag.

James dropped into the back chair.

Wesley planted himself behind it like a bulkhead, Kwaku took the left with the chain coiled in his fist, and Tomás took the right with one palm on his blade.

Jennings let his eyes linger a heartbeat too long on the gold thread at the cuffs, then he pulled the cork from a bottle with his teeth, slopped two cups full, and nudged one across the table with a single finger.

"Drink up, mate, drink up. Best in the house, that, and the only house we’ve got left."

James lifted his cup with the split hand, drank, then sprayed the whole mouthful in a brown volley that landed squarely on a pirate’s boot. He wiped his lips with the back of his split hand, wounded to the soul, like he was betrayed by an old friend.

"Christ almighty, lad, did you strain that through a bosun’s sock?

Jennings drained his cup without a flicker. "Best in Nassau, that, and I’ll thank you not to insult her. The fat casks stopped comin’ round, Calloway, ran off with the fat merchants and never so much as wrote."

Without a care for his position, Kwaku lifted the bottle, sniffed it with grave courtesy, and set it down very gently, as one lays down the dead.

"I have known bilge with more character than this, Captain."

The insult was plainly ignored, as Jennings leaned back until the chair groaned and let his rings catch the lamplight one by one, a gambler dealing a hand.

He leered at them. "So what’s the great Scourge of the Antilles doin’ in poor old Nassau, eh? Thumpin’ folk? Come to conquer the old rock and hang her beside yer fancy one, like the balls under your prick?"

The room laughed, grudging and loud, like those who had lost the bet but still wanted to hear the joke.

James planted his elbows on the table and leaned in, as if sharing a secret with the whole room. "Och, keep every rotten plank of her, Jennings, chair and all. I came for a look at the old girl and a wee bit of discretion, if she’s got any to spare."

Across the table, the pirate captain rapped a ring against his cup and watched him in silence. James met it with one lazy eyebrow, tipped his head, and let the silence ripen.

"And how’s the old Nassau faring, then? Standin’ upright, is she?

Jennings topped up both cups, slopping rum, and pressed his thumb to the fattest ring on his hand, a ruby the color of a fresh wound. "One! Too many bloody captains! Every fisherman with a leaky hull run up a black rag and crowned himself admiral. Twice the captains, half the crew each, and every last one a runt."

He rolled a plain gold band under his thumb, like coins he no longer had. "Two, the Flying Gang is gone. Blackbeard, Black Sam, and yerself, ye smug bastard, all moored at yer pretty bay, and Concordia gets first every hull before she’s even sniffed by Nassau’s ships. We get shite, crews, whores, merchants, all pickin’ bones."

His thumb found the green stone, an emerald or glass pretending, and pressed it hard. "And three! This what ye’ll love, Calloway, ye’ll love it like yer mother! Ye sank a man o’ war under two bleedin’ forts, and every governor from Veracruz to Kingston woke in a cold sweat and soiled his breeches!

This time, there was venom and dread in his voice. "Now it’s Guarda Costa sloops thick as gulls everywhere, King’s frigates checking every mast, and not one fat merchant sailin’ alone in the whole bloody Caribbean! Fewer prizes, hungrier men, rats in a sack, mate, rats in a sack!"

James hid the shock behind an easy expression. Concordia’s pirate armada was so packed with firepower he had scarcely noted the rise in belligerence in the waters, but while his city grew fatter and richer, Nassau grew poorer and more desperate.

He had blockaded Havana with a laugh, and here was the bill, being read aloud over rotgut.

"That’s a rare gift for an invoice, Jennings, you should’ve been a purser."

The pirate captain put down his cup, and the grin went out of his face like a snuffed lantern. He folded his hands and leaned forward, and the whole Rat seemed to lean with him.

"I’ve been a pirate too long to swallow a good samaritan, Calloway. So tell me, and tell me true."

His voice dropped to a whisper.

"What the fuck d’ye want with Nassau, if it ain’t to rule?"

Kwaku’s chain lay still.

Wesley loomed behind them, and James’s grin hadn’t moved.

The broken doorway waited, with the night leaning in.