Steel

She recognized the shape of the land, the long shore and sheltered inlet, the curved spit that would someday become Paradise Island, the hill that someone would look at someday and decide it would make a good fort, and the crowd of trees and vegetation, of which only a tamed remnant remained in the modern world. The forts had vanished—they hadn’t even been built yet.

A dozen ships anchored along the harbor, a forest of masts. There was no large pier yet, so the ships staked out their own area of clear water and their crews rowed small boats to shore, where a narrow wooden pier provided access. A settlement covered a clear section of land. There were streets, buildings, wooden structures that seemed solid enough, with roofs, porches, doors, and windows. Smoke from a dozen cooking fires rose up. The tropical sun blazed down on the scene.

People moved through it all. She could see figures on most of the ships, and the shore was packed with people, workers loading and unloading stacks of barrels and boxes from ships, streets packed with carts and pedestrians. It was almost a traffic jam.

All those people looked just like the crew of the Diana: loose shirts and trousers, beards, unkempt hair, rowdy dispositions. They couldn’t all be pirates, could they? But like nearly everything else she’d encountered since falling off the tour boat, the place seemed dangerous—even deadly. Still, she had to go ashore. This was where she’d started, where she’d found the rapier shard.

“Any navy friends?” Cooper asked.

“No,” Abe said, studying the ships and shore through the spyglass. “Clear as can be.”

“Any sign of the Heart’s Revenge?”

“Not a hint of her,” Abe said.

Cooper shaded her eyes and nodded out to a vessel at the far end of the harbor. “God, is that Rackham’s ship?”

“I believe it is,” he answered.

“Bloody hell,” she said. “Wonder who else is about?”

Jill wondered who Rackham was.

“Ready to drop anchor, mates!”

The crew came to new life, simmering with smiles and laughter, excitement about the chance to go onshore, to see faces other than the ones on the ship, to eat fresh food and drink clean—or at least cleaner—water. They were all so at home here, when Jill kept seeing threats.

She was standing at the prow, watching the crew drop anchor when Henry came up to her, the rapier she’d been using to practice in hand, along with a belt and hanger.

“Nassau’s rough. You’ll need a weapon if you’re going ashore,” he said.

“Am I going ashore?”

“Why not? You’re crew. But you only get to wear it if you can walk like you know how to use it. Otherwise folk’ll treat you like a target. Think you can do that?”

She took the rapier and belt. “What do you think?”

“Right, then.” He seemed pleased.

They tendered ashore using two rowboats. Just enough of the crew, a half a dozen, stayed aboard to “keep anyone from thinking they could steal her, but not so many that they’d want to steal her themselves,” Henry said with his usual smile. Everyone else seemed all too happy at a chance to see civilization again. If historic Nassau could be called civilization. Jill wasn’t too sure about that.

A wooden pier extended from the shore; smaller boats could tie up here. Rowboats, longboats, fishing boats with long oars and single masts. The waves lapped against dozens of hulls, and noises from the shore carried over the water. Donkeys and horses whinnying, goats bleating, chickens in crates clucking as they waited to be carried aboard ships heading out. Dockmen with rough leather shoes and caps, loose trousers and shirts, much like the pirates themselves, worked carrying wooden boxes and barrels, the cargo that had become so familiar. Everyone, from drovers on the street to fishermen in their boats, paused to take in the newcomers, Captain Cooper with her belted coat and her rowdy crew of pirates. Jill could almost see the rumor traveling from the docks through the streets to the town. The attention made her want to hide; but if she had to be here at all, she was grateful to be part of a group that seemed to inspire awe. Maybe people would leave her alone.

“Stand up straight, Tadpole,” the captain said over her shoulder at Jill.

Jill had been slouching, skulking, really, under all those gazes. Glaring at the captain, she rolled her shoulders back and tried to look cocky, like the rest of them.

Saul accompanied them to shore. The stump of his missing left arm was swaddled with a thick bandage, giving no clue as to what the wound looked like underneath. His face was pursed, knotted with pain. Every few minutes he took a swig from a flask, no doubt filled with rum. He stood tall and looked straight ahead, glaring almost, daring anyone to feel sorry for him. On the dock, Captain Cooper handed him a bag of coins—it was part of the articles, bounty for a lost limb. He took it, awkwardly holding the flask under his good arm while he shuffled the pouch of coins from hand to pocket. The captain squeezed his shoulder, said a few words, and the injured man nodded curtly.

Then he left the crew for good, walking off into town alone.

“Stay sharp, keep your ears to the ground. When it’s time to leave it’ll be in a hurry, so you’d best keep close,” Captain Coop

er told the crew. With that, most of them scattered, moving off in small groups.

“You’re with me, Tadpole,” Cooper said to her, and Jill blinked at her, startled. Cooper took the broken piece of rapier from her pouch, let it dangle, and checked its direction: east, it settled. “He could be anywhere,” she muttered.

“Where are we going?”