Steel

“We’re going to track down the gossip on Blane.”

A group of them went into town together: Captain Cooper, Abe, a couple men of the crew, Henry, and Jill. The streets were packed mud, rough and rutted. They kept to the side to avoid the carts and horses that traveled back and forth, wagons hauling crates, or travelers on some mission. Henry explained there were settlements up and down the coast, plantations that a few hearty souls tried to keep working—despite the fact that the pirates had been running the island for years now, since the British governor had packed up and left. Now the island was essentially lawless. The pirates liked it that way just fine—they could bring their stolen cargos here and sell them to merchant ships with captains who didn’t much care where the goods had come from, only that they were cheap. Industry to support the pirate trade had also moved in—carpenters and ship-wrights; suppliers of food, ammunition, rope, and sails; and taverns, just waiting to cater to crews who had been at sea for weeks. Lots of taverns.

Cooper took them to one of these. They’d walked for ten or fifteen minutes from the docks, along the wider main street, then turned a corner to a narrow lane, then to an unpainted, sprawling house tucked into the first edges of wilderness—leafy shrubs, woody underbrush, stretches of grass and sand. A sign hanging above the door showed a painted ship and sea; it was the only clue that this wasn’t just a house. Henry was grinning like he knew the place and was happy to be here, but Cooper seemed grim. She led them through an open doorway.

They walked inside and it was like the sun shut off. The windows were blocked by drapes or shutters. The haze of tobacco smoke added to the sense of claustrophobia. For a moment, Jill couldn’t see anything. Slowly, her eyes adjusted, painfully blinking into sight.

The room was packed with pirates. She could tell without asking, just by the way they held themselves, the way they looked back at her, like they were sizing her up, judging her worth. And by the sly curves to their lips, the smiles that said they didn’t care about a damned thing in the world. She’d lived with pirates for weeks now, and she recognized that look. It was Henry on that first day, hefting a rapier and looking right through her. She understood what he meant now about only carrying the sword if she could carry the attitude along with it. These people had to believe she could use it or they’d never stop picking on her.

When the pirates saw Captain Cooper, they shifted and murmured. A few looked away, as if hoping to avoid drawing her attention. But the ones who met her gaze straight on, who drew themselves up, seeming to offer a challenge—Jill paid attention to them.

Mostly, though, she hid behind Cooper and hoped she blended in as just another part of her crew.

“It’s a bloody reunion. Everyone’s here,” the captain muttered to Abe.

“Then we should learn something of Blane,” he replied.

“Everyone?” Jill asked Henry. “Everyone who?”

He was studying the crowd as well, and without his usual cocky confidence. He was trying to cover it up, but he seemed wary. “If the Royal Navy surrounded this place right now and burned it to the ground, there’d be no more piracy in the Atlantic and whatever captain was in charge could buy a title with the reward money. Everyone’s here. Look.”

He pulled her into a sheltered corner behind the bar that ran most of the length of one wall. The spot kept them out of the way but gave them a view of the room. Head bent close to her, he explained.

“There’s Bellamy of the Whydah, and Stede Bonnet, who’s really just a crazy old man but he’s got a ship, so there you go. Charles Vane. Martel and Kennedy. Names to strike fear in the heart of any honest merchantman, though there’s no such thing as an honest merchantman, as we say around here.” He winked at her, like he expected her to laugh at the joke. Continuing, he nodded to a man sitting in the far corner. She’d noticed him already, a huge man, broad through the chest; he couldn’t help but draw attention to himself. He wore a three-cornered hat over an immense nest of hair, long, black, flowing over his shoulders and continuing over his cheeks, jaw, and chin, covering his mouth. The thick beard grew halfway down his chest, and the man had knotted ribbons in it. He smoked a pipe with a long stem and gazed quietly over the crowd with dark, shining eyes.

“That there’s Edward Teach. Even you’ve heard of him I expect.”

“Blackbeard,” she said, and couldn’t help being in awe. “He’s Blackbeard.”

“Aye, he is. And may you never cross his path in battle.”

She would just as soon never cross his path at all.

“And over there, the ones the captain’s speaking to.” They could see through a wide doorway into another part of the building, a room where a boisterous party was in progress. Captain Cooper stood over a trio in the corner. A man sat in a chair, mug in one hand and pipe in the other; he was outrageously dressed in a brightly colored jacket and flowered trousers. The two with him were women—at least Jill thought they were, though they dressed as men, in jackets and trousers, hats on their heads and hair bound up. One of them sat in a chair next to the man, arms crossed, glaring. The other stood behind them both, back to the wall and hand resting on the butt of a pistol tucked into her belt.

“That’s Calico Jack Rackham,” Henry said. “And the two pirate queens, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. As fierce a pair of witches who ever sailed. But not as fierce as our Captain Cooper, are they?”

“Are there many women pirates?” Jill asked.

“Hard to say. There’s plenty who don’t want to be found out, like Bessie and Jane, and no one hears about them. Only a few put themselves forward like them and Captain Cooper.”

Jill thought they were powerful and frightening all at once. Anne Bonny, seated, had dark red hair that caught the light. And she studied Marjory Cooper closely as the captain spoke, as though if Cooper said the least thing wrong Bonny would spring from her chair, sword drawn, and run her through. But only if Read didn’t get there first with her pistol. Read had dark hair and was more stout, more physical than Bonny. Bonny would use tricks in a fight; Read would just pound you.

Cooper, of course, didn’t seem intimidated by either of them.

Mary Read looked over and caught Jill staring at her. Jill almost fell over; fear more than anything kept her rooted in place, staring back, wondering what she’d done to draw the pirate’s attention, scrambling to figure out what she had to do to get away from it.

Then Read looked away, turning a smile as if chuckling to herself, and the spell was broken. Jill could breathe again.

Henry nudged her and put a mug in her hand.

“No, no more rum,” she said, groaning. She was tired of rum. She wanted a nice cold Coke more than anything right now.

“It’s not rum,” he said.

She tasted it, an amber liquid, bitter and frothy. Definitely not rum. No—this was beer. It still wasn’t a Coke, and it wasn’t cold, but she sipped it anyway.

Jill imagined that this was where the pirates made deals. For all the talking, laughing, and drinking going on, for all that the gathering seemed on the edge of turning rowdy, it never did. People sat close, chairs pulled together, bent over tables, talking. Maybe forming plans to raid together, maybe selling stolen cargo, maybe trading information about where their enemies had last been spotted, which ports to avoid and which were clear.