LASCARS BAY

[The Chapman]

LASCARS BAY

story thread

[The Chapman]

PROLOGUE

THE INDIAN OCEAN, THREE YEARS EARLIER

BYRD

The Samuel drifted in the current, sails furled but with men ready to jump to work. It was night, and there was no moon; but the stars shone bright, it was clear, and it was simple to see.

The men watched, and waited.

The storm two days prior was bound to turn up damaged or limping ships; and it made perfect sense to lay in wait, near to the common lanes, lurking with guns loaded and ready. All lights and lanthorns were extinguished, and silence was imposed. Hatches were opened to see below deck, but the starlight filtering into the lower levels was meager, and movement was done by memory and feel. The prisms were useless; the starlight was too diffuse, and could not be focused through the port holes.

There was no sleep; this was a time of concentration, of the hunt.

Byrd watched his small quadrant of sea until he began to see things, then rested his eyes and deliberately blurred his vision, so as to use his peripheral eyesight, and not become obsessed with phantoms. Phantoms.

He had not been prepared for the demons from the fever; when he had been burned by the sun, and cooked, the fiery torch had touched his brain, and the faces had come. Edmund, the gig, the white-bosomed slave… the others. They had been woodcuts on paper, thrown in the fire, never to be seen again and gone forever; but then they had come back. They stood before him, pouring lives: Edmund with his head a-dangle, the gig pegged to the door of the hovel, the merchant’s children, mooning, sightless, circling and mocking in a limitless field of pink lilac flowers, bloody and dead but walking and reaching for him…

“Monster!”

Byrd started, and the ache coated him on his still wounded skin. He heard the purl again, “Monster!” He looked around for the source of the accusation, half expecting to see some apparition flowing madder, arms outstretched for him, desiring his entrance into Cold Helle. He realized it was the boy on the second fore swivel gun, and he was unwrapping the canvas from the tube.

Thomasse rushed forward and furiously hissed, “You touch match to that gun, lad, and I’ll cut off your ----!” The boy froze his actions, but with eyes like spectacles, pointed shaking: “M-monster!”

And so it was.

A lump of dark flesh, rolling just under the surface of the water, appeared huge, with white teeth and glistening fangs. A sinuous, snakelike appendage with an empty, pale eye at the end of it regarded them, waving menacingly, threatening. Men crowded the side, astonished. The large man called Jack crossed himself, and turned pale. Byrd approached. First the rising of the dead, tormenting his damaged senses, and now this, the appearance of this THING to savage them all, because of him. He stared at the fantastic beast for a long while, a small spark of memory rising, and finally said:

“T’s an Elefant”.

Jack turned and stared, rising larger (for he did not like Byrd), and eventually stated, “You’v springed SHYTE, Merchant Man”.

Byrd answered him, “No, ‘ts an elefant. It’s swimming”.

Thomasse walked over to them. “An Elefant? How in the – Jesu Wot? Cann’t be, we’re leagues from land! How in the ---- is this thing here?”

Byrd said, “…I don’t know. But ‘ts an elefant and it’s swimming”.

After a long, dumbfounded pause, the man Jack said, “Fetche Billy, he’ll knowe what this Thingge Is”. A scuffle ensued for men rushing to find the Billy man; Byrd waited, now hunching over the side, studying the animal, thinking of something. Thomasse watched him carefully, the Merchant Man Byrd and his convulsed and poisoned mind.

Shortly Billy appeared, dragged bodily by Jack and two others, they demanding of him, “See thayre? See thet? Wot is Thatte Thingge? “. Billy studied, after his initial bewilderment, and then raised his arm, said “He-li, He-li”, and pantomimed… an unmistakable Elephant.

Jack said, “G-- Damme us all!” and then, “well… how long… yah.. how far… can thes thingge swim, any waye?” Byrd answered him, “I don’t know, but it likely didn’t come from land”. Thomasse jumped on him, “What d’ye mean, not from land? Wheyre’d ‘t comme from, thenne, Fool? The ----- SKY?”

Byrd felt dizzy. He turned and walked to a mast base and bent over painfully, then sat down like a sack. He waited to catch his breath, and said, “I shipped an elefant for the Companie, once ‘time. Thye put it on deck, rop’d in place, with its ryder. We shipped it on a Companie vessel”. He paused to let that information sink in, then continued, “The Creature was a gift, along with a hold full of others, and the Man who shipped it was very, very wealthy.”

“If that Creature came off the deck of a Merchant Ship, that Ship is likelie in trouble or crippled; and the ryder may have freed the Creature to save it from harm. You maye be looking for a damaged Ship with much treasure aboard”. He stopped. He was done.

Thomasse considered this new information, and the elefant now forgotten, turned to announce a redoubled effort for locating a prospective victim. As he opened his mouth to speak, the man in the Nest hoarsely whispered:

“Ship, fifteen port”.

[The Chapman]

The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and no visible clouds. Light danced on the Caribbean water. The only evidence of motion below the surface was small eddies of thinly spread foam, whirling briefly in bold isolation before vanishing, dissipating into the reflected beryl sea.

The mass of buildings, some dirty, some gleaming with chalk coating, with the occasional flash of Muscovite or even genuine glass, laid inchoate along the shoreline. Tall boxes of rude grey wood and coarse block chunked in places, holding inside them the evidences of nations and peoples. Sneaking rambles of wood escaped the land to form platforms, capturing ships and extracting their guts.

Figures moved objects: round, cubed, unshaped, misshapen, long, short. Crosses with lines attached, twirling crucifixes empty of grace, yanked twisted innards from holes trepanned in the ships. A tall, sloping hill, topped by parapets and walls, overlooked the racket. Shortish black stubs protruded from evenly spaced holes in the walls; they didn’t look at all like what they were.

Among the ships at rest the light sloop crouched, waiting, seeming to think. With the sails furled it gave the appearance of delicate nudity, the masts and spars set as arms and legs, exposed to unaccustomed, and unwanted, view. The ship had no flag in the moment, unusual for a vessel with such a perfect collection of them: yellow, red, black, and many others. A few men stirred on deck, lazy, playing a game not really of indolence, but showing the behavior of men used to having a great deal of work to do, and presently finding none.

On the bow of the sloop was inscribed the word ‘SAMUEL’; below that prophet’s name, and roughly painted, almost faded away, could just be discerned the scrape, ‘Speak Lord, thy servant hears thee’.

A man leaned on the rail of the Samuel, pipe cradled in his hands. He was thinking, remembering. He was African by appearance, but wearing the Englishman’s clothing of a sailor. His skin was quite dark, his features well defined; he could pass for handsome, but perhaps too thin, wiry, and somewhat short. His hands were narrow, with long fingers and oval nails, almost womanly in the proportions; but they were calloused and scarred. They were working hands. The English and the others called him ‘Billy’, but that was not his name; their thick tongues could not wrap themselves around or into his true name, and at any rate, he did not want them sharing his selfhood.

In the absence of activity, images flowed through his mind, washing over each other, fading, displacing, roiling. He studied his hands, gauged their firm steadiness, not like so many of the men on ships, ruined by rum and white men’s habits. He struck tinder, his last match flaring. It was fine to be on deck, smoking where he liked. It pleased him, a simple pleasure, but good none the less. The clay bowl warmed to the touch, the sun caressed him, and he puffed happily, well satisfied.

“Hoy, Billy”, the white man called Byrd said quietly, in passing, nodding his head slightly, “How goes”. He moved on, to his spot. Billy did not respond. He was busy with his pipe, and was thinking again, now remembering the man’s first memorable action. He knew that white man wasn’t like others. Byrd could pronounce ‘Billy’s’ name as it really was, and for all he knew was the only other human in the world who knew it. The man was intelligent, true, but something about him was off. He wanted to say ‘cruel’, but that seemed not right, ‘specially in light of some of the others’ behaviors, himself no exception, and at the beginning…

Three years prior, Billy had been sold from his home, and put on an English merchant ship for transport to their Colonies.

The hull of the merchantman was jammed with Africans, side to side, back to front, dying in pieces at a steady rate; sharks followed the hulk, feasting on the bodies tossed over. About half way through their odyssey, the transporters allowed their cargo on the deck for inspection and air, and Billy rushed the dividing fence, bent on taking one of the guards.

He had miraculously lived through the attempt, and they had not killed him nor thrown him overboard. But they beat him with a cudgel and a corded whip, not ceasing even when he stopped moving and lost consciousness. He was severely mauled, and could best be described as half alive; or maybe half dead.

The pyrates, or whatever they were or called themselves, had overtaken the lumbering slaver in a sloop, their sails trimmed to run so fast they couldn’t be beat anyhow; they had been Billy’s salvation.

They looted for what they could find, taking no niceties about questioning, then dragged their living spoils on deck for examination. They began throwing the sick over the side. When they got to Billy, he dragged himself to full height, his pain obvious, and pointed to the nearest man’s belt knife, then to the ship’s master. He both asked and demanded, in his own language, the only he knew, the right of an eye for an eye, or better. The pyrates regarded him with some curiosity and bemusement, and made to jettison him, but one of theirs had stepped in, a Black man, and knowing some of Billy’s talk, explained what he asked. After some discussion, and with laughing and gestures, they gave him the knife and let him go.

When confronted the master put on a bold face, spit dramatically, contemptuous of his lesser, and steeled himself; but Billy had the dedication of a man making balances; and was more than equal to the challenge. He strung him up by one ankle and cut him to pieces, an inch at a time, discarding bits overboard for the sharks while the blood ran down like rain. The slaver passed into his Christian Hell screaming hideously, and no longer recognizable as a man.

Billy did not find any sense of what the whites called ‘revenge’, really. He was simply evening out. If the slaver beat him, he would come back with same. It was only fair. But the pyrates found his actions most amusing, and diverted from their newly found merchandise, had gathered to watch, vastly entertained, cheering and waving their arms. They gathered coins and money and swopped it back and forth.

At the end, exhausted from his efforts (which had taken some time), when he sat down to rest and ease his oozing wounds, the pyrates unmindfully pounded him enthusiastically and dragged him off, splashing fiery liquid in his mouth and on his face, and shouting in celebration.

He had become a pyrate.

Now he was on the ‘Samuel’, in Lascars Bay, watching activities unfold, hulks of ships unloading for some distance before him, and at the moment without much to do but figure a time to go ashore and find entertainments of satisfactory kind.

He tapped the ash from his pipe into the water below and walked along the deck.

[The Chapman]

Billy strolled the deck.

He had been told the Bay was always bustling with activity, and he was not disappointed. It would be some time before they could unload what they had with them, and then, the other vessels waiting for the word… He was mildly surprised at the Samuel’s crew - altho’ likely not to be a crew for long, each of them deciding their separate way as soon as cargo unloaded – and at their unhurried, almost silent patience.

A song echoed from below decks, faintly… a familiar tune, but someone else’s tune…

‘Pillycothe

pillycothe

sate oan a hille

If he’s not gone

He sittes thayre stille…’

The voice continued for some time, slurring words, missing phrases. In defense, Billy hummed, tapping his fingertips to his thumbs in rhythm, his own song he remembered from home, a lifetime ago.

‘Ay see say yango,

Ay see say yango, eh…’

It was quiet enough that from some distance away he could hear the sound of a land walker losing their repast, and wondered how anyone could become ill while sitting in port; or if they had drunk that much so early into the day.

[The Chapman]

Captain Thomasse of the Samuel stumbled onto the deck. Bleary-eyed, he lurched his head from side to side, searching. He had to stop his rotation to focus a time or three, finally fixing on Billy.

“B-rillie”, he said. “Com’ere”.

“Wha for this now, Thomasse?”, Billy asked. It was a democratic reply; he owed the captain no particular regard, outside of fighting quarters. The man had been elected, not ordained by any God. He added, “You b’drink”.

The captain winced, clamped his eyes shut; bugged them out again, focussed, lost focus, stared into the distance, downcast, done. But no. Suddenly revitalized by the actual recollection of what he needed, he announced, “Y’mus’ takemeto…..SHORE…yes!”

Billy folded his arms across his chest. He was about to answer ‘no’, his pride offended by the crude commands, when he realized this was what he wanted: shore. A house, a certain kind of house…

“S’ur, Cap’n. I take you shore”, he said.

Thomasse, having momentarily forgotten what they were talking about, answered, “Shore? Why? ….Oh, yes yes yes yes… Shore, the Governorgovernorgovernor yes”. That’s right, shore, and officials, he had business to attend to. Nothing was being done with their damnable cargo until he smoothed the way, greased the quay, popped off the hub and slapped a bit of beef tallow, down the hatch… What? Oh yes.

Billy stared at the man and grinned widely. “Wha for we leeve, Thomasse? Wha for boat we take? We walk, yo? Walk on sea, no, like th’ Jesus man?” He knew the answer was the gig, he simply felt need of amusement, and Thomasse was filling his bill.

He jumped at a voice behind him. Byrd said, “Giet the Captain the damn gig and get his drunken pot on land”. He added, “…and you and me have a deal to do, ‘member?”

Billy nodded. “Yo, I ‘member”.

Thomasse drew himself to his full height and emitted a thundering bellow: “BYRD! I sah’t ha’e this PERVERTED ROGUE LEWD SQUEAK”, and his voice gave out. “on my boat”. Byrd and Billy stared. They stared, dumbfounded, then helplessly burst out laughing, and found themselves unable to stop. Thomasse turned purple, then purpler.

Eventually they were both able to calm themselves, and Byrd went to prepare the gig. Billy asked of him, “Yo come now?” Byrd shook his head. “We’ll address tha is’ue another morrow. Sit tight on tha fool and watch he don’t light tha match”.

The captain, the noble, voiceless captain, swayed on the deck. Damnable swine, he needed rid of them all… Just one interview, ONE, and he’d be back speculating on property in London Town, shuck of it all… hang them. Hang them all.

[The Chapman]

The gig moved smoothly through the water of the bay. Thomasse glowered at the man before him: Billy, who was ignoring the elected captain of the Samuel. The damned scoundrels. Damn. He was beginning to sober up, damn it. His mind flittered and fluttered, winged, from one thought to another. They had outvoted him. It had not been his idea. They had forced it on him. He had tried to talk sense, to resign as their captain, they wouldn’t listen, they refused, he had to do it, they’d have killed him…

The merchant ships, the ENGLISH merchant ships… the last one, the bloody hell one, and that G—damn Byrd and his pistols… that bloody butcher, and they all stood there and let him do it, and pocketed their shares, saying nothing. Byrd. They were all bad, rascals, but Byrd was the worst. He tried to shake his head; it developed to be a poor plan, and he stopped the motion. How was he going to talk his way out of this? Bribery? How much would it cost to pay his way out? This thing his miserable crew of reprobate murthering Levellers had foisted off on him?

Who had ever heard of an elected captain? It ground on him, he hated them all, and he feared them all, as well.

Billy sang softly.

Foun-gah a la feeyah…

Ah shay! Ah shay!

Foun-gah a la feeyah…

Ah shay! Ah shay!

Thomasse muttered, his voice partially returning, “How low is my station, that now I am serenaded by a Blackamoore?”

Billy looked up from his rowing and spoke, his voice not melodic. “Watch yo, Thomasse. Yo no more big man than no body”. Thomasse glared, gave up. “Keep your rowing”, he said. “Let’s get this over with”.

Their disagreement over, Billy continued his song, rowing rhythmically and welcoming himself to Lascars Bay:

Couw-ah, eye la ba…

Ah shay! Ah shay!

Couw-ah, eye la ba…

Ah shay,

Ah shay.

[The Chapman]

Thomasse was muttering to himself. It didn’t usually bother Billy, but insulting him was beyond the pale and the captain should know that. The man was done, and they all knew it. He had gone over at the last prize. It was apparent.

Billy said, “All right yo, Thomasse?” There was no reply, the man merely started a bit and stared down at the inside hull.

“’Ey, Thomasse, yo see all right, yes?” Nothing. Billy decided to resume ignoring him, humming under his breath again, and he could feel his death-charm rocking across his chest. Thomasse was most certainly not all right.

The last prize had been bloody hell bad.

They had almost broken off the fight and taken the Samuel off, the cost being too high; but it was already well on, and disengaging the two ships would likely prove impossible. There was nothing to do but keep at it.

Directly after boarding Billy had seen at least as many men go down as he had fingers on his hands; and in the ensuing minutes had stopped taking notice. The merchant man, undergunned, had allowed them to close and then flung up swivel-gonnes from nowhere, blasting the first men over the rail into the sea in a violent, encompassing fog of choking smoke. Billy had not been touched, for which he thanked his neck-worn charm. But this could not go on for long, and if the mad opposers somehow fired their magazine, that would be the end of it. He crouched low and swung his long knife in chopping actions below the fog, slicing legs and bellies, to what greater effect he didn’t know.

He thought of his hope not to collide with Byrd in the confusion, that with his penchant for going off his nut in fights. The smoke cleared around him, and he was standing starkly in front of a gaping muzzle: one of the swivels, with a saucer-eyed youth gripping the breech-end, a match in his white-knuckled hand. The hand lowered and Billy threw the only weapon he had left, the long blade, which struck cross-wise and split the boy’s face. The gun spun off and discharged, deafening, the concussion blowing Billy back a length. He kept his feet and turned sideways, running crablike back to the rail. He was now at a loss.

[The Chapman]

Thomasse saw the blast from the swivel catch poor Jack, the man who had not believed the elefant, square in the body.

He was standing just down from Thomasse, and the big man flew to pieces, the center of him instantly vaporized in a puff of crimson dust. Jack’s left arm, upraised, flew completely off his body and flung with force into Thomasse’s breast, bowling him over. Thomasse splayed on the deck, stunned, the impact knocking the wind out of him, watching his crew oozing forward. His mind slowed and things moved around him as if underwater, slowly and smoothly: as if time itself had become mired and lethargic. After what seemed an eon he struggled to his feet, discovering he had lost both his pistol and his cutlass. He looked distractedly about, peering through the eerie sheets, until someone came up behind him and shoved him aside, against a mast he had not noticed.

As he was trying to regain control of his thoughts, a sword sliced down and inflicted a minor cut on his left forearm. And that was all. It was then gone and over; but blood fought its way out of the gap, and dripped down his fingers. He felt he was dying, the air around him sucked away; he couldn’t breathe. Thomasse clamped his free hand onto the cut and clenched, but blood appeared through his fingers, and his breathing quickened and he felt faint. He tried to run but found he was trapped, his feet had grown roots, and he was unable to move: frozen, an icicle attached to the Thames in winter.

[The Chapman]

Byrd ran past the captain of the Samuel, that man’s face a pasty mask of ivory, eyes darting wildly, his chest heaving with effort. Byrd paused, just for a second, and considered killing Thomasse as useless, but continued on, firing the saved charge in his second pistol into the body of a big man before him. The three balls did for him and Byrd kept on, hacking now, fighting through the smoke and slipping on the deck, made now of poor footing by bodies and blood.

He thought he’d never seen anything like it, this fierce, and from a merchantman. But it could end only one way. And with the damage and death the other crew had inflicted on the Samuel, that ending would not be fair or equable. He kept at it, at one point cribbing another, short sword from a hand, twirling one above the other, knowing it was dangerous and hoping the enemy crew concealed no real swordsmen within it.

It ended, after far too long. And not until the remaining crew of the merchantman were cornered into the stern, with the Samuel’s crew standing before them with grenades ready, spare muskets ready with buck and ball.

Then the decision-making began.

[The Chapman]

Billy thought Thomasse had been useless after the battle. He had been capable as captain, and sailing, and such, but so far as the fight, it had ruined him: his nerve was gone, and he drank. No-one held it against him; he wasn’t a coward, really, but his day was over. Thank the saints that was the last ship taken before the cut and run to Lascar.

Billy watched the captain, wary. There was no real telling what he might do. He hadn’t shown any sign of double-dealing, or other possibilities, but there had been opportunity at sea. Now they were soon to be on land, and who knew?

The gig was drawing near the dock, and Samuel’s voyage was at an end.

[Caudley & Higgs]

“Common en.” Sara Caudley called cheerfully.

She didn’t turn from the pot she stirred on the stone hearth. She knew exactly who it was blocking the morning light through her window. Same time every day, it never failed.

“Mornin’ Goodie Caudley.”

“Morn’ Goodie Higgs. ‘Ow goes da dye pots taday?” An apple cheeked child darted near the cook space, too close actually. Caudley’s pudgy hands grabbed the loose knot at the back of the child’s dress. He landed with a thump back at a safe distance. “Stay out da way Jonas boy!” she reprimanded as the boy scrambled off.

“Fair, fair. My en-dentured girl run off agen.” Sara Higgs made herself at home in the small room, as she did every morning. Tattered basket and straw hat were set down on the central table, the knot on the scarf at her neck loosened. Clay pitcher of small beer was tipped into the waiting clay mugs. Higgs sipped the drink slowly; today she was in no rush.

“Thray time this munth eh.” Caudley frowned. The expression made her round cheeks puff out like two pink pillows. The still steaming wooden spoon in her hand waved about as she spoke.

“Yup.”

“If ye’d ‘ad wun o yer own dis wonna be a problem. Much as dey like, kids kent get way frum der mudder.”

The skinny girl, who until then had been quietly knitting in the corner, gave a little laugh at her mothers comment. Caudley raised a sparse brow at the child, “Ow, git on. Brin’ dat brudder o yers ‘is supper!” Wooden spoon waved at the child until she scattered out of the house and down the hillsides dirt path.

Higgs laughed at her friends antics, her sharp cackle matching her horse like grin. There was never a dull moment at Caudley’s house. They were an unlikely pair, Caudley and Higgs, as opposite as two women of their age could be and yet the closest of friends.

“I keep telling ye. Gev me one o yers. Honour, o even Martha mehbe.” Higgs countered as she always did when Caudley suggested she marry or have her own family. The truth was, Higgs’ liked her feme sole status too much. The thought of giving up her freedom for a couple of kids and a man, just didn’t interest her.

“Bah! All ways wan da good uns ye do Goodie Higgs. Why not Patience eh. Shay’s not dat bad. Eh, Eh!” The mother called as three barefooted children raced through the room on each other’s heels “Tek it ow-side ye lot! N don go gettin en Goodman Cranston’s garten agen neither!”

“I best be goin too. Kent leave da pots fer too long ye know.” Higgs gathered her things again before wishing her friend good day.

“Till ta-morrow den” Caudley knew the answer, of course. There hadn’t been a morning in their decade long friendship that Higgs hadn’t stopped by for a chat. She’d even come by the day a few years back when it had been so cold frost covered the side of the hill.

“Yup.” Higgs called out of habit as the heavy door shut behind her.

[The Chapman]

Billy looked at Thomasse again as they glided to rest. For the first time he noticed the man’s coat was buttoned two holes off, and the sides were uneven. Also, he hadn’t shaved himself well at all. Even in his plain clothing, Billy felt he cut a finer figure than Thomasse. And that man was shaking again. Billy looked away, it being bad manners to goggle at another’s poor estate.

Billy quickly secured the prow of the boat to an available ring and hopped out to finish the job. When his feet hit solid surface he immediately felt a weird uncertainty, unsure as to how to proceed exactly. He reflexively questioned,

“Thomasse, hou’ long we bin ot?”, as he walked foot over foot, trying to anticipate the rolling that was no longer there. The ground was solid and throwing him. He stopped for a few titch, and waited…

[The Chapman]

The boat secured, with a sullen-looking boy hired to watch over it, Thomasse and Billy walked through the streets of Lascars. Billy had never been to the place, and looked around with great interest, while the other man moved ahead with some knowledge of his direction, but apparently reluctant to arrive anywhere.

The first thing of note was the women; there were many. Second was the congestion, the crowding of people surprising Billy, and obviously aggravating Thomasse, who vengefully swung the end of his walking-stick low, knocking the shoes of passers-by. This moved Billy to step away a bit in case one took offense. Suddenly, Thomasse stopped in the midst of the crowd and said,

“I am hungry”,

and rushed into a tavern doorway. Billy chased after him, nonplussed.

[Heinrich Skau]

Heinrich Skau was having a bad day.

The brawl the previous evening had wrecked a great share of his furniture, and as much as he hated, he would be compelled to pay a carpenter to fix his chairs and tables.

Now Patience had left for the day, announcing, “Oy’m SICK of yer FACE, HenReek!” God, how he hated the way she spoke to him! The nerve! And him of fine stock. Left in this cesspool. Oh, his innards pained him, and he felt his need to void build, and his misery increased. The apothecary… later today, mayhaps. Patience had gone to see her rotten acquaintances, those gabbling geese on the hill-path, leaving HIM to clean up the blood and vomit and beer… and he knew, he knew, one of his tormentors of the previous night had been the one’s HUSBAND, for Saint…oh, now he couldn’t think of a saints’ name! Look what this place was doing to his Christian soul! He was going to Hell…

Well, he hadn’t cleaned it, the mess, he’d dropped sawdust and straw on it. The smell was terrible, but some herbs burnt might help…

The door opened. The one nodding sot in the corner wobblied up his head, then dropped it again. A man, respectably dressed, although his coat was buttoned quite wrongly, stepped in. He was followed by a Black man, probably his servant. Heinrich welcomed him:

“Hello. Velcom to mine tavern sir. How mite I help du?”

[The Chapman]

“Mutton”.

“Mutton?” asked Skau.

“Yes, yes, mutton!” insisted Thomasse, and he sat down at a table with a chair, leaving Billy standing alone. Billy glanced around; there was only one other chair in the place, aside from the article supporting the old sot, and it didn’t look sturdy. He considered walking out into the street to find his own amusement, but Byrd had warned him about the hazards of a Black man walking alone in Colonial towns. Slave once was enough. He walked to a wall and leaned against it casually, keeping his eyes on the doorways.

Thomasse insisted: “MUTTON! And bread. With butter.”

“Boiled mutton”, said Skau.

Thomasse glowered. “Good enof”.

The windows of the place were tallowed paper, giving a dim glow to the room. The entry fenester shined incandescent, but the position of the sun did not allow entry of direct light. It instead gave the impression of overshooting the structure, missing it, to continue on in its blazing chariot into the far sea. Billy absently looked out the doorway, watching figures pass and gleam, like angels passing through gossamer, seeming to glide through space on their way…to…to…

…nothingness, in a blonde halo of flaming Hell; and he thought about Byrd’s slave woman, the one who destroyed itself, but only for a moment, and then the moment was gone.

[The Chapman]

On the Samuel, Byrd worried.

They had to get to their middler. They had three ships’ worth of trade goods on top of the metal and coins, which was easily divided and disposed of. But Thomasse, Thomassse, what was he about? He wouldn’t speak to anyone in depth, nothing since the last fight, when he had suffered his little scratch and gone stone statue except for gibbering under his breath. Beyond understanding, that; the man had been brave up to the point, and all the sudden, there he went, from no more blood than would come from a pinprick on a baby’s ass.

Nilda, the middle cutter, the money exchanger, in the Bay in his token place, waiting, or he was assured to be waiting, to broker their haul of merchandise. The Brazil man, or so he was supposed, waiting to take his users’ slice of the profits…

Maybe they were being too greedy, going for the other two ships’ contents promptly, instead of parceling it out; they could most all swing on the hemp cord. But why not? ‘I should have been dead when my ship was taken’, thought Byrd. And dead at any one of the prizes. Dead like that little Girl.

The little Gig.

The Gig…and what? Four years past? How long had that been, when that little whore appeared in his fever, before seeing the elefant…he was back in the room.

The room was small, perhaps ten feet square. The walls were stone, with one small window through which the new dawn could be detected, and a rough wooden door, the inside bar worn almost halfway through in the latch. It was hot, as it is in that locale, at that season. The one bed was placed against the wall lengthwise, where Byrd had moved it to protect his weak side while asleep.

He sat on the bed, slouched rather, his buttocks just barely catching the straw of the mattress, his upper back against the relative cool of the stone wall. His clothes lay on the floor in a heap, not usual for him, but there were no hooks in the walls, and on the previous night he had been in something of a hurry.

He was naked.

He regarded the whore gathering her things in front of him, also naked, her bending over, standing, bending again. She was young, too young, and dark, her profession undoubtedly the result of her penniless family selling her as a young child to a procuress, or procuror, whichever, it hardly mattered.

By Byrd's estimation she was just barely into her puberty, although the skills demonstrated told of long experience belying her age. It was so hard to tell, and what did it matter anyway, Johnny?

It had been dissatisfying. Disappointing. He wondered why. Perhaps because... because he did miss white women, really; the challenge, the play... The native girls and whores were simply too easy, there was no sense of sweet, dominating victory when the hot poker stirred the fire, as it were. The years of exposure had darkened his arms. He closed his eyes, and an image entered his mind, as though waiting in Shakespearean wings to present itself. It was of white skin, writhing on silk, bare of the trappings of class and style, of his dark arm crossing alabaster bosom, clenching a pair of wrists as he demonstrated Hindoo tricks guaranteed to ruin any proper lady... A particular alabaster bosom, of a particular woman, a woman who by all sainting Lucifer owed him, owed him - that was it.

A slight clinking sound broke his reverie. As his eyes flashed open, he saw the whore, still naked, lifting the door latch, his breeches in her arm, the small coins sewn in an inside pocket ringing together just enough, as they were meant to do. Her eyes went wide as she saw his waking state. Byrd launched forward without thinking, and grabbed her by the hair, shoving her slight body upright against the door. With the knife he honestly did not recall picking up, he transfixed her into the wood of the door, the blade entering her throat horizontally, and making a most interesting 'thunk'-ing sound.

She gurgled once, twice, and began flailing, blood pouring not out of her mouth, or down her breast, but down her back, running on the door to puddle at her feet, a pink froth building up on her shoulders like a coating of lilac flowers in the spring.

Byrd was instantly regretful. Now there would be a payment to be made, restitution for the property he had just ruined. "Vloek", he muttered. "Damn". Why had he been so quick with the blade, over shiteing breeches and tuppence? And it came to him why, the wherefore, and how he hated, oh so hated, business left unfinished. Byrd remembered why, and most terribly importantly, who. As the realization of the reason for his action washed over him, the previous night entered into his mental ledger in the column of 'Satisfactory' indeed. Indeed. And by God, and Lucifer, and the hosts of the beyond, he had work to do, places to travel, a person to see, and reckon with, play with.

The girl had ceased flailing, and begun to jerk her limbs. Byrd walked over to her, and peered at her face, her dusky eyes just beginning to glimpse the mystery of the shrouding darkness, the fear of the unknown gleaming in her eyes. He tilted his head, left, then right, regarding her face, waiting. He felt the warm blood on the soles of his feet, incongruous on the cool floor. He waited. He waited, and at just the right moment, that last chance which he so enjoyed with men (but not, oddly, with women, and this one gave him no good feeling), he said, "Goodbye, my little gig..."

"...Goodbye".

[Heinrich Skau]

“I believe”, said Thomasse, “That this is God Damned Butterine!”

Heinrich Skau glared angrily. Why wouldn’t this off-buttoned fool eat his meal and get out? The man had drunk four tankards of ale, and now he was complaining about his bread? He didn’t seem to be in any rush to leave, and now his Black was sauntering over to inspect the meal. Of course it was butterine. What else would Patience make? Lazy slut…

“I SAYED, This is FILTHY Butterine!”

Heinrich Skau’s patience ran out.

“Gett out! GETT OUT!”

The white man reared back in outrage, and Heinrich Skau saw the Black begin laughing, LAUGHING! Poorly bred Anglican filth and theyre rotten slaves and servants clutterying up mine tavern filthy-

The servant rummaged into his pocket, removed a handful of coins, and tossed them lightly overhand at Skau. The jingling discs pinned through the air, bounced off various parts of his anatomy, and landed in the straw and filth of the floor; the Black might well have thrown them in a privy-hole. Skau roared and began moving towards the servant-man, while the white man in his poorly donned coat lifted up and shouted, “Here now, HERE NOW!”

Skau began shouting. “Gehen Sie hinaus! Sie filthy Goddam Weibchen! Get ott Sie ein en meinen Tavern!”

Billy began laughing again, and reached into his collar, at a faded, blue silk ribbon tied lightly in a noose around his neck.

[The Chapman]

Thomasses’ eyes went wide and he sprang upright, kicking the lonely chair back and lunging between the tavern-keeper and Billy, whose hand was flicking the sash up and out. He just bare made it, blocking the proprietor’s view of a smallish screw-barrel in Billy’s hand, sash tied around the handle to tuck inside a shirt, with Billy thumbing back the cock and laughing like a fool.

The erstwhile captain of the Samuel reeled and shoved the German back, pushing him into a table. It overturned and he sprawled awkwardly onto the floor with a hollow thumping. The man screamed and clutched at straw, hurling a ragged fistful at Thomasse. The coarse scraps contained offal of some sort, which lighted on Thomasse’s already none too clean shirt and splattered, leaving a veinish spread of tobacco-colored smut. Billy entered into conniptions of hilarity, waving the pistol and bent over gasping for breath.

Heinrich Skau shouted, “I’kh KILLe se, se rotten HUNDz!”

Billy stopped laughing and pointed the flintlock at the thrashing man on the floor, who went instantly pale and, in an act of reflex, grabbed an array of stinking straw in his forearms and covered his head with it. Billy, shocked at this bizarre gesture, goggled for a moment, and began laughing again. This gave Thomasse time to extend an arm across Billy and shout, “NO NO NO! NOT HERE!” Billy ceased his expression of amusement briefly, turned his head, and stared at the brown streakish captain.

“Wot?” he asked.

“I sayed, NO, NOT HERE!”

Billy pondered, genuinely confused. “Whoy no’ shoot ‘ym?”

“Because he’s- he’s- COME!” Thomasse grasped the pirate’s shirt-arm and pulled him back. He sorted the wrong sleeve and Billy jerked, the pistol discharging accidentally in a peacock-sized shower of flame and smoke. They both jumped mitely at this unexpected and unintended turn of events, and peered through the right billowing smoke, down at the floor, at the writhing figure...

[Heinrich Skau]

The ball missed the tavern-keeper by at least an elle and found its tunnel-home in the dirt floor, but to his perception, it slapped by his ear within a very zoll-inch, screaming for his blood and sorely vexed at not having found in ‘Heinrich Skau’ its rightful lodgement and castle. He thrashed and grasped armfuls of the foul floor-covering and hurled it up, up, in a spout of filthy dun-yellow straw, unleashing the stench of weeks, so recently covered.

After a few armloads he unscrewed his eyes and looked up, to see the Black, behind a gaping, cave-like pistol muzzle pointed dead at him, his demonic Face awash in a frisking writhe of smoke. The Black opened his mouth, displaying a rank of devouring teeth, and Heinrich Skau’s voiding difficulty resolved itself with no great trouble.

The sot in the corner roused himself from an ongoing stupor and wheezily shouted, “Moy’re AYLE!! MOY’RE AAAYYY-AAALE!”

The Bohemian clamped eyes shut again and noted mentally that at least the floor-cover was so sodden with unbidden dreck it had not set fire when the gun discharged. Oh, if Patience were here! She’d take this pair and wring their filthen necks…

He lowered his head, almost weeping with frustrated anger and shame, and… a quick shadow passed over him, he could sense it, and he opened his eyes. The sot was now peering about, head swiveling, his wrinkled neck and bobbing Adam’s bump rendering him quite like a gin-soaked fowl in appearance. Except for that, and the thin air-rivers of smoke, the room was empty.

His two assailants were gone.

[The Chapman]

Thomasse rushed through the streets, Billy half-trotting after him, few paces behind. The walking-stick tapped on the occasional brick-cobbles, thrusting from the roadbed in wheel-jarring disarray. Thomasse found himself sudden sweating, and cursed Billy under his breath. He heard no hue and crye, and hoped the ale puller would keep his trap closed and consider himself lucky to be alive. He’d seen Billy do too many crazed things in unthinking, placid savagery…

He looked up and about, and knew that he’d somehow lost himself in the crowd. The place was so much larger and busyer than it had been, those years ago; but the streets had to be the same, hadn’t they? Hadn’t they? Damn it! He was misplaced. Billy sidled up against him.

“Whe’ too nowe, Thomasse?”

Thomasse looked, up towards the main island peak, and figuring height would help him find his way, headed uphill. He was in his midstride when a large Mulatto woman, a vicious expression on her face, pushed him roughly aside and kicked his shin, shouting,

“Ste’ aside, Boob!”

Thomasse expressed an epithet and the woman turned squarely to confront him, and saw Billy step up next to the captain. Billy considered her, and she him, gaze roving on him, cracking knuckles. Billy met her gaze in challenge, and the woman turned heel and pounded up the hill. She had reached a pebble’s throw and Billy shouted,

“Yo the’, d’yo knowe th’ whay to B’hare Me’chaent?”

She turned and said roughly, “Where?”

Thomasse looked sour, but recast the question for Billy: “Behar Merchants”. It was not in his plan to go to Alberto Behar first; but since he was lost, and this visit was not going well…

The blocky female pointed coarsely, and addressed her answer not to Thomasse, but Billy: “There, thataway”, and again ran her eyes up and down Billy’s frame, assessing him.

[The Chapman]

Billy regarded this woman in the street. She had good teeth and a decent-enough face, although marred slightly by the remnants of a blackened left eye; and she was big and quite muscular.

She looked well-fed, wealthy, as a woman, or wife, should… and he realized he was thinking ahead, to the time when his share would be disbursed, the crew would be done, and his dream of a farm, or small plantation, would be reaching its reality. The woman spoke:

“Whadd ye LOOK AT?” at turned and stomped away, up the hill, and suddenly burst out into a shrill whistling tune, for no reason Billy could tell, but to his shock, he recognized it as a song he knew from his old and departed homeland. He stood, caught and stopped, for a brief titch; and then a hand was yanking on his sleeve again. It was Thomasse, God damn him, dragging him off down the street, in the direction of the Behar Merchants

[The Chapman]

Thomasse was furious and feeling more than a little desperate. The Behars, first, without going where he wanted to go… But no… He glanced behind him. His crew member Billy followed along, his eyes moving on the people and places in the crowd, checking and rechecking as the river-street of folk spread, dissipated, congealed and emptied only to fill again. Thomasse saw him, and knew he was watching for threats, for pocket-pickers, for all he knew, someone to kill for no reason at all. Murthering…

Billy spoke: “Beh’ar”, and pointed to a small sign with letters in gleaming metal on a door. And they were there.

[The Chapman]

The ship rocked gently and Byrd sat in a gunwale, silently relaxing, feeling the slow movement of the bay. He should be examining the hemp rope and cordage, but with the finish in sight, what was the point? The mild swell was oddly comforting; as violent and unpredictable as the sea could be, it could occasionally be a friend, an old acquaintance too long unseen. It was one of the few things he liked about the life.

That life was about to end. This bay was the terminus of a long, unexpected journey, which had started at the docks of New York. That beginning had been so routine, so meaningless; a few years in the East, at a factory, ousting a drunken fool as had destroyed his humours and potted away like a bitch dog. Byrd had met him, once, before he’d gotten on the ship to rot his way back to that clammy island in the ocean. The man was beneath contempt, and Byrd replaced him.

They’d told him, ‘You must enter dinner quarters; toast the Crown; toast the wives in England’; on and on in nonsensical foolishness. They were fools, roasting alive in the continent of India. They were replaced by the Company as they died off like the ever-present flies. Byrd had known he was disposable to them; but he had money to make and deals to cut. And that is just what he did.

They mocked him for his dress, and he did not care. They died in their black woolens and leathers; he lived in his white linen and rubbed kohl on his eyes. They fussed and fumed openly; he schemed secretly and made his partnerships. The only mistake he’d made was killing that damn girl; but that had been smoothed over, and had gone not only unpunished, but resulted in an advantageous business arrangement for all concerned.

He’d had it all set, his voyage embarked, his career assured; and then it had all been taken away, and they’d left him with nothing but a shirt and breeches, not even his pistols. He’d had to join the pirates to be near his money and goods they’d stolen; and after three years, he had earned it all back, and more, right down to his pair of guns.

There were two other ships waiting away from Lascars, both filled with goods stolen from more than two dozen ships. The Samuel’s hold was the tip of an iceberg. The real loot was in them; and some of it was Byrd’s. Enough of it to make up for the years lost in the Colonies from the rotted merchant and his plotting wife, who had, unbelievably, deceived him in business and left him nearly bankrupted. That vicious woman… he couldn’t believe it, and the thought visited a white-hot fury, and he shook it from his mind before it had adverse effects.

Now they waited, on the Samuel, for Thomasse to deal with the merchants and broker the cargoes, and then they could all make their decisions and go. The last deal for Byrd would be selling Billy manumissions. And that was the end of it.

A crewman walked past and said,

“Thers a Whist Game in th’ Fo’castle. Ready fr’ a set down?”

And Byrd roused himself.

[The Chapman]

The men were arguing, again. They all had names; but Byrd never really used them individually. They tended to blend together in his mind. And at least two of them were too drunk to stand, but refused to quit the game. They had moved in cards from Whist to a game of memory to pass the time, and while generally most of them were on the button, by this time the frustrations and angers were bubbling to the surface. They were impatient to get ashore; and the only reason that action was currently unacceptable was because of the deal amongst themselves, and the men of the other two ships hiding at anchorages: that none would go ashore until all would go ashore.

It was Byrd’s contention it wouldn’t much matter soon for the majority…

A scrabble erupted suddenly. Gaurov the Lascar argued over a card point, and withheld his coin. The White Scot reached over and shouted,

“Get it ouwt!” The Lascar shook his head and leaned back, fist upraised with coin clenched in it. The Scot toppled forward, drunk, and caught himself. He swung with the free arm.

“GET IT OWT!” and it happened so fast Byrd almost missed it. Almost.

The Lascar’s hand dropped the coin and an awl-shaft appeared in it. As the Scot leaned forward the awl pegged his hand to the deck, and the Indian jumped up. The Scot howled and yanked his hand up and off the top of the steel pin. He reached into his pocket and produced a clasp knife, and as he flailed his arm, he slashed the man beside him with no real intent.

The cut man started, as he was quite drunk, and as he gazed almost contentedly at the cut on his shoulder, he pulled a small pistol from his sash and shot the White Scot in the head.

The ball impacted in the softer side of the skull, and folded the man instantly. He sat down heavily and his head hit the deck, his legs still crossed over themselves. Thin smoke hung in the air. The remainder of the men sat, bemused, looking at this new development… and then two, or three, of four, of them leaped up and went for the Indian.

As they caught him, and they had to, for he had nowhere to go, Byrd got up, turned, and walked away, leaving his small coin at the scene. He would reclaim it later, when the dividends of the game were discussed, when all sobered up.

He heard a short scream as Gaurov the Lascar died, and as he rounded the mast on his way to the after deck, he heard his body hit the water.

[The Chapman]

The three men sat in the dark room, surrounded by papers and wooden boxes of papers, the single lanthorn glowing. Why was it so damn dark in here? thought Billy. It was quite seasonable out doors. There were windows, but they were tightly shut.

Behar, the merchant Jew from Brazil, sat quietly, carefully perusing the lists of goods recorded on paper, setting neatly on the table. He folded his hands, opened them like a delicate flower (Billy noted the softness of his palms and finger pads), folded them again. This went on several times, in cycles, as if pleading with his God to release him from the burden of business.

He began to speak, caught himself, cleared his throat, no, no dialogue. Only study.

Riffling through the pages (of there were eight, closely written, some by Thomasse, some by Byrd), Behar revealed nothing. His eyes were dark pools, wells of considerating blankness. It was like playing Hazzard with an effigie, Thomasse thought. Finally Behar spoke, his English perfect in structure but affected with the slow slant of Portuguese.

“This is a very long list, with very large cargoes. Some of it may have to go to the Northern Colonies, I may not risk taking it here.” Thomasse, his eyes wide, straightened suddenly and started to speak, but Behar furrowed his brow and added, “Who wrote this part of the list?” He pointed to a particular section, obviously written by Byrd, with a swirling ‘B’ in a heading. Thomasse replied,

“Some man of the crewe. No-one of importance, but literate enough, I s’posed”.

The merchant nodded, and then looked up from beneath his brows, not at Thomasse, but at Billy. He said, “The penman reminds of someone who is, I’m sure, dead. No matter”.

Behar pushed from the table, adjusting his broad-brimmed hat ever so slightly, to a more advantageous angle, and Billy caught him in a contradiction; between obedience to custom and his vanity. It was a useful thing to know, he thought, that Behar was human and therefore vulnerable.

Thomasse reflected on the man’s statement, and returned to the subject at hand. “Wot d’ye mean, can’t take it here? You have to take it here. Man, look at it! Look at all the goods!” Behar responded with his hand gestures again, flowering, retreating, flowering, retreating. Billy looked over at Thomasse, and noticed his English color coming into his neck. He suddenly felt amused at how this little man was playing with Thomasse; but then the realization that the Behar man was also playing with him, and the rest of the crew, sobered and angered him ever so slightly. He regarded Behar more carefully, assessing the merchant.

Thomasse fought for control of himself. It was true that any delay in selling the three ships would likely result in the crew doing something rash… what was this slimish man up to? He had to sell. The damnable merchant began his hand play again. Thomasse found himself feeling beaten, suddenly, and just ever so briefly remembered the feeling of the last ship, of being rooted to the decking; and it frightened him and he shook it off, thinking of riches and privilege. He spoke clearly and firmly to Behar the Merchant Jew:

“We need your price, as it is my understandings all these treasure are yours for a practical bargain. We need it now. You have until this eve, and we sail away or offer to another middler than you”. Thomasse looked the merchant in the eye. “Agreed?” Behar flipped through the papers again.

And to Billy’s endless boredom, the discussions went on for some more time, until finally he dozed lightly, and he dreamed.