William Brand

Don't get me wrong, Bo, if I lived anywhere in between you and the festival I would love cedar poles. I'm 1,300 miles in the other direction. Somebody speak up about the poles. We can always use more materials and options.

Very nice. That would make a very nice period painting, and the rest of the pictures are grand.

I can safely say that I would love some bamboo for my tent. I'll get you the dimensions. Also, if you have the room, the Bone Island Buccaneers might want as much as you can carry for various enclosures and structures for this year and in the future.

Raise a glass! Samantha just had kittens.

Sorry to hear about your mom last year. Consider yourself signed up for this year. I'll add you to the list on the first page and we look forward to having your camp and kit alongside the rest of us at PIP.

The one with her name on it is already down to a slice. Besides, Tracy transcends mere names or titles.

Today's special is guava cake in honor of my delicious bride.

We'll be serving guava cake all day on the Kate! Slices all around!

A very happy birthday to my one and only love, my best friend and my constant companion, Tracy. May your day be a happy one. You've certainly given me my fair share of happy days. Raise a glass!

The pomp and circumstance of the Spaniards, especially Damien Thomas as Don Alfonso de la Torré, really drives this one home for me.

And just to be perfectly clear on the Three Year Rule in the Mercury camp... ...there is no such rule. I'll explain. We wanted to set a goal for ourselves as a pirate group. We chose the three year goal in order to set a milestone for ourselves that we might have improved kit for future events. We set this goal to encourage ourselves and others to strive for better kit over time instead of all at once, both to educate our group and others and also to save money in the hobby. The goal starts when a pirate first joins the crew. Any pirate joining us this year at PIP will be encouraged to improve their kit over the next few years from that time forward, not from three years ago until now. It is only a recommendation for people who want to shoot for the best possible kit over a comfortable period of time. Learn and grow. Adding as you go. Any and all pirates are welcome in our camp anytime, assuming we're still awake. The more the merrier.

Soooo...anyone on watch with me gets twice as much beer and I have to carry them back to camp.

No toast was given as Tudor came and went more than once with a fresh bowl and pitcher. Instead, they drank and talked about the prevailing wind and the best course from Martinique. Dorian sat at the table with one leg on a chair, allowing his tired back some respite. William had propped himself into a corner of the stern bench and seemed content to watch a shrinking St. Pierre. Durand stood opposite Dorian at the table and bathed his face and hands. With his sleeves rolled back he revealed many altercations from his past. He was riddled with numerous scars of brawls, battles and not a few relationships more intimate. He was also possessed of arms bigger than any man aboard. As the frigate began her slow turn Southward, William raised his glass. "A toast, Gentlemen." Durand stopped toweling off his face and plucked up his glass. Dorian raised his own. "To any place but here...no offense given to all France elsewhere." Durand smiled ruefully. "Damn Martinique and damn the rum trade." "Here, here." Dorian agreed, then muttered something about 'bloody barons' into his glass. Tudor, the ever present steward, well practiced in the art of absence while in the room, made no reply. She simply refreshed the water, restored the emptied glasses and William dismissed her to a well deserved rest. He smiled at her warmly as she went. With Tudor gone, Durand plucked out his eye and rinsed it in the basin. It was hard for any man not to stare at such a casual, gruesome, but somehow fascinating act, but Durand did not seem to mind the quiet that noticeably visited the room, and now that his eye was removed they had their first real look at it. Without being asked, Durand passed it to Dorian who received it at once. "Well, well..." He murmured, peering at it admirably. He put it near the lantern to see it better. "May I?" William asked from the window and Durand nodded, already distracted by the wear and condition of own his shirt. Dorian stepped over to the window, but not before one pronounced groan as he went from sitting to standing. Dorian said something in Gaelic that William took for 'sodding horse' or something equally terse. Dorian passed the unusual eye to William before taking up the other end of the bench with a raised glass in the direction of the port falling away off their larboard. "It's...a cabochon." William said, surprised. He rotated the strange brown-black sapphire appreciatively. "A man might lose his whole head for such a stone." It was an observation and a question all at once, for while the stone now explained one of the many reasons that Durand's gaze could be unsettling, it still begged the question 'Why this before glass?'. Durand shrugged. "The Almighty affixed me with two...très...precious orbs, Capitaine. As I ze fool lost ze first, I sought another." The French in Durand was showing more as he drank. "And should you die...?" William asked, trying to keep a smile from his face. "I shall swallow it first." Durand returned without pause. Dorian raised his glass. "More work for the mortician." They all took this for a toast and drank their glasses dry.

Please tell me that you're taking a good camera.

Cool. Discretely ask about madak without getting arrested.

I'll take a cup and a boat ride.

Their homecoming was busy and brief. All were brought aboard as quickly and carefully as possible, with a good number of volunteers to bear the men to the surgery. Joshua and Ajayi were welcomed in turn with the expected looks of relief and sympathy they had earned in their absence. William dismissed all the others to sleep if they desired it, but Tudor would not take rest before offering to fetch soap, water and a clean shirt for every man present. William did not refuse her generosity, nor did he ignore the sideward glance she gave to Durand as he stood with his blind side to her. "Mister Warren..." William began, turning to Jim. "...Monsieur Donatien Durand." Jim nodded, and with his uncanny ability to be cordial with even the most unpleasant of persons, greeted the man as if for the first time. "Please see what accommodations can be found for our guest." William added. Jim did not pause as he said 'Aye, sah' but he did wonder for a fraction of a moment if William had intended 'guest' to sound less hospitable, suggesting that Durand was their prisoner. Durand put out his hand and this thought passed at once. Jim passed on William's orders as William began orders anew that would see the Watch Dog borne into an encroaching tomorrow.

Aye. Running around with two patches might lead to...well...two eye patches.

Trust me, Syren, you would have to be dressed up like a really bad, knock-off pirate muppet doll to even approach offending anyone at PIP. PIP is way too laid back.

You can't harbor a secret...publicly.

Snuff was first observed by Europeans in one of Columbus' voyages. It was used during the 1700s, but enjoyed less popularity than smoking tobacco.

This is an excerpt from the book Narcotic Culture by Frank Dikötter, Lars Peter Laamann, Zhou Xun... "The Spread of Madak c. 1660-1780 Engelbert Kampfer, a Westphalian physician working for the Dutch East India Company, recorded that the Javanese soaked their tobacco in water that made the head 'spin violently'. The opium required for this preparation quickly became the most precious traded commodity in Batavia. The first traders to introduce opium for smoking to China were probably the Dutch between 1624 and 1660, first to their trade posts in Taiwan, and from there to Fujin. During the tumultuous decades of the Ming-Qing transistion, opium (madak) smoking was confined to the Taiwan Strait, and not noted by the Qing authorities until Xaimen was captured in 1683. Javanese opium was blended with roots of local plants and hemp, minced, boiled with water in copper pans and finally mixed with tobacco: this blend is called madak. The mixture was prepared by the owners of smoking houses and fetched a prices significantly higher than for pure tobacco. Opium house owners in Taiwan also provided the smoking implement: a bamboo tube with a filter made of coir fibers produced from local coconut palms. Early reports from Taiwan indicate that they often offered the first smoke of madak free, serving copious amount of appetizers, food, and desserts. Travelers to Fujin and Taiwan observed that honey, candy and fruits were eaten as the opium was budding and crackling above the lamp. Contemporary observers such as Zhu Jingying also mentioned the opium (yapian) originated from parts of Southeast Asia which correspond to Indonesia and the Philippines today. The same author described the first opium pipes: made of tobacco, round, slender and with a fine opening, with a mouthpiece made of china clay. The substance was smoked with a hollow pot made of yellow clay, which was used to cook the opium. While the cleaning tool and the opium box were made of bamboo, opium paste scrapers were based on either iron or bamboo, flat or curved. Althought these early reports were condemnatory, the habit of smoking madak spread throughout the coastal provinces of South China, even though never exceeding the popularity of tobacco. A precise chronology is not possible in the absence of reliable source material. The first references to opium smoking date from the early eighteenth century and come from Fujin and Guangdong, the same ports of entry as for tobacco: 'The opium is heated in a small copper pan until it turns into a very thinck paste, which is then mixed with tobacco. When the mixture is dried, it can be used for smoking by means of a bamboo pipe, while fibres are added for easier inhalation. There are private opium houses where people gather to lie on couches and smoke in turns by passing the pipe around. This carries on till late at night and goes on night after night without a break' Another description is provided in a memorial sent to the Yongzheng emperor in the 1720s: Opium (yapian) is produced overseas, and the foreign merchants who import it as medicine (yaocai) derive a lucrative business from this trade, in particular in the Fujianese districts of Xiamen and Taiwan. Shameless rascals (wulai guntu) lure the sons of good families into [the habit] for their own profit. The opium is boiled down to a paste and blended into tobacco (yan) in order to produce smoking opium (yapianyan, i.e. madak). Privately run inns are established, where [smokers] congregate at night, only to disperse at dawn (ye ju xiao san), leading to licentious behavior. The truth is that youngsters become corrupted (xie) by smoking (xi) it until their lives collapse, their families' livelihood vanishes, and nothing is left but trouble. If one is intent on extirpating this evil (hai), one must tackle it at the root by ordering the imperial officials of Fujin and Guangdong to be strict in prohibiting the trade. Strict legal measures...will prevent any resurgence of the opium trade and lead to the closure of private opium houses." There's a little more, but I'm tired of typing it up.

The term 'recreational' is a relatively modern term when applied to drugs of any kind, but the use of opiates was common enough socially to be considered relatively public in regions such as China and India. For example, Opium was used socially as early as the fifteenth century in those parts of the world, but it was not used 'widely' due to expense. Opium became popular enough in China throughout the 1600s that prohibition was introduced by 1729 and references to the use of opiates in the East can be found all over the place by many Chinese historians down through the ages. This is all well and good for someone portraying a pirate in the Far East, but use of opium as we think of it in the West was limited to medicinal purposes such as laudanum from 1527. Opium dens would not arrive in force until the 1850s. Now, if you want to talk about smoking tobacco of the South seas, you may wish to study madak (or madat), which was tobacco mixed with herbs that often contained amounts of opium. Madak was the most widespread addictive substance that pirates might have used if traveling to those parts of the world such as Java, China, Taiwan, India and the Philippines. Pirates who travelled to the South seas, such as Kidd, may have seen or even used madak, but I have not found a reference to it. It could be argued that trade would have brought madak outside of this region to other parts of the world, so watch for it as you read.

August 5, 1704 - The Docks of St. Pierre Ajayi and Wellings were brought to the docks like so much delicate luggage. Ajayi tried several times to bear himself, but William would have none of it, insisting that both men should be born to the small boats. Durand and his men followed and William was at a loss for those words to make a proper farewell. Durand had done them much service and he wanted to make his gratefulness known. Still, as hard pressed as William was to explain himself, he was rendered utterly speechless by an unexpected, sudden and mysterious request from Durand upon reaching the water's edge. "Would you do me the honor of bearing me hence to Trinidad, Capitaine?" Durand asked even as William extended his hand to bid his farewells. William could only repeat the question with a question. "To Trinidad, Monsieur...?" "Oui." William exchanged a look with Dorian who was waiting for William at the dock's edge. Dorian paused as he was handing a musket to Tudor. William looked back at Durand. "What business brings you there, Monsieur?" "My own, Capitaine." William nodded. "But surely you will be missed, Monsieur?" "I have explained all." Durand returned, removing a letter from vest pocket. William had seen Durand penning a letter that very night while the Doctor had attended to Ajayi, but had thought nothing of it. Durand stood waiting. Unable to think of any significant cause not to take the man into his company, especially one who had proved himself invaluable of late, William was obliged to say 'yes' and found that he was glad to do so. "I would be honored, Monsieur." Durand smiled after his own fashion and passed the letter to a somewhat bewildered Babineaux. They exchanged only a few words, for Durand would not let himself be plied with questions. Instead, he paid his men handsomely and sent them with instructions to ride hard to St. Louis with his letters of explanation. He would go with the company of the Watch Dog and perhaps send more word from the Cul du Sac Royal. Only the briefest of farewells followed as Durand gathered those few belongings he had with him. Then Durand, Dorian, William and their company pushed away from the docks, bound for the waiting frigate and her welcoming watch lanterns.

Well, we'll have to get you together with some other award winning dancers that I could name at PIP this year.