picaroon – From the Spanish word for rascal. Usually applied to a form of verse about pirates that was satirical or humorous.

  THEY GATHERED ON the top deck of the Edinburgh. The planks had been cleared away and swabbed with holystones, and chairs had been arranged in a big circle around the capstan. John sat beside Ben, watching him, watching the others for treachery. Ben shined his own boots, waiting. Oddsummers had already been made to stand at the center of the circle and address the Pirate Kings, and tell them all the why-nows. Why had he come to Nassau now? Why should they hear him now? Why come to the Caribbean now? Why leave his service to the French and throw in with Caribbean pirates now?

  John only half listened to the strange man’s words. He heard enough to know Oddsummers was a gifted orator. John’s attention was divided between the Pirate Kings and Ellis. His old friend was present for the proceedings not because he was a Pirate King—he wasn’t—but he was a vital component to the pirates’ operations in the Bahamas. Father Ellis Cockrell had often given them a safe haven back when things had been tense between the Kings and England, and he’d offered his church’s cellar as a storage house for much of their booty, and Ellis used his religious connections throughout the Caribbean to gather gossip for the Kings.

  John did not like Ellis’s presence here. It rankled him. But he saw no other way to move this conversation forward—Ellis had long spoken highly of the Ladyman to the Pirate Kings, and he had arranged this meeting, just as he’d sworn to John he would.

  There were seven Kings present, but that was merely a handful of the true number. The Republic of Pirates had more than thirty Pirate Kings currently, but, as would be expected, the majority of them were at sea, engaged in pursuits elsewhere. It wasn’t even known if they’d survived the Second Cataclysm.

  It wasn’t even known if England had survived.

  Or the Colonies.

  For all they knew, the World had ended and they were all that’s left.

  But not even Caesar made it. Where is he?

  John looked around. To his left was an empty seat—it belonged to Oddsummers, still walking about, still orating like a Roman senator. But to the left of that seat was Captain Connor Belling, one-eyed, one-handed, and grey-headed, freshly from the raids in the Virgin Islands that burned almost every village to the ground. To Belling’s left was Captain James Kidd, young and brash, with long curly brown hair that ran over both shoulders, and with fingernails painted black and ringed with gold and gems. Next to him were the twins, Conroy and Oliver Alexander. Oliver’s fire-mangled face made him look like no brother of Conroy’s, but Conroy himself had been mangled, part of his nose bitten off by a Beast that came through Nassau during the Long Night. The bloated Russian, Captain Kuznetsov, was to his left, dividing his attention between Oddsummers and the pet monkey he had on a leash. The Lebenev captain’s grey beard was braided down to his bare, tattooed belly, and he scowled at the whole world. Finally, there was De Vries and Janssen, co-captains of the brig Bloody Fin out of the Netherlands. The two were known for having nearly killed one another three or four times, and the scars across their necks attested to how close it had been for each of them. Never were two men closer.

  John knew each of these captains in passing. He’d been to Nassau enough times to have run across them and other Kings, but he’d never been one to demand much respect from them. Not until now. Not until Ellis had spoken for him, and they’d heard about the assault on Bateria de la Lanza and had seen the proof in the few treasure chests he’d kept in the Hazard’s hold. Some of that treasure had been used to purchase their patience for the Lively’s captain and crew. But no such deal had been made for Oddsummers, nor would John have tried to make one, but the plague-masked captain seemed fine commanding an audience on his own.

  While the captains sat as captive audience, John could not but wonder if he would have received such attention had his original plan worked when he came to Nassau weeks ago, before Munt had told him he must rush to Port Royal if he ever wanted to see Ben again. I only wanted a seat at the table. To be a King…but now their eyes glitter with this new promise. Libertalia is their new dream. Oddsummers has caught the mood. I can already see it.

  Already the visions of the Behemoth were coming to mind and John was thinking up ways to exploit Port Royal’s destruction. Surely there must be treasures left there in the warehouses by the beach. The Behemoth did not destroy everything, and the leadership fled the city. Think what could be left—

  “And so, my captains, there you have it,” Oddsummers concluded. “Our chance to make a dream more than just a dream. As the World crumbles, as cities fall and nations struggle against the currents of the firmament, there is a gap here. An exploitable weakness we’ve never seen before and shall never see again.”

  “Why do you say this, comrade?” asked Kuznetsov, stroking his braids.

  “Because food will be scarce. Scarcer than it has ever been in the history of our World.”

  “It can’t be like this everywhere,” said Captain Kidd, leaning forward with elbows on knees. He spat on the deck. Disrespect meant for Oddsummers? “The whole bloody World can’t be sufferin’ so much that their navies will turn their eyes from us.”

  “Oh, they won’t forget us, you can be sure on that. But they will turn their eyes,” Oddsummers promised. “They’ve no choice. They will have to tighten their belts, secure what crops they can so that the noble houses and wealthy don’t all starve. You’ve seen cannibalism already here in Nassau—”

  “I refuse to believe England, powerful as she is, has no answer.”

  At this, John sighed, and spoke up, though he didn’t know why. “Mushroom farms.”

  Kidd swung to him. “Sorry, what the bloody fuck did yeh jes say?”

  “When last I was in Port Royal, I heard men talking. Fungus is all that grows well in darkness, my Kings. Just need enough water. Some of the nobility have already been sending out people to see how the people on St. Lucia manage their mushroom farms. They’ve already got pigs to sniff out truffles. The rich folk, I mean.”

  John looked at each of them meaningfully, wresting back some of Oddsummers’ control.

  “They’ve got a plan to survive these Long Nights. Some are spreading word to other wealthy families to dig trenches all around their estates, making special gardens for mushrooms. They’ll keep their own cattle, feed them mushrooms, as much as they can, and hope that works.”

  Oddsummers paused to look at John with renewed interest.

  Next to him, Benjamin’s face winced as though in disgust. “Dear God, John, is that true?”

  He shrugged. “It’s what I heard, just before the Behemoth stormed Port Royal.”

  Captain Belling used one hand to scratch the stump of the other wrist. “That ain’t a bad plan, you know?”

  Conroy nodded. “Lotta Caribbean islands are perfect for growin’ mushrooms. They grow like mad in some places here, some of ’em are unusually tasty, I hear—”

  “We could be sitting on a goldmine here, my captains!” said Oliver.

  “That’s what I’m saying, Oliver. And what have I said about interrupting me when I’m—”

  “Just underscoring your point, brother.”

  The two of them started to fight.

  “That was the thinking of the men I spoke to in Royal,” John said, feeling some momentum swaying back in his direction. The wind was in his sails now, away from Oddsummers. “There is an opportunity here, my Kings. Something is happening that has never happened before. I think we now know it isn’t going to stop happening.”

  “So, what, are we mushroom farmers now?” Kidd laughed. He stood up and paced the deck, shaking his head skeptically.

  “The Ladyman is right, we have a rare opportunity here, gentlemen,” said Oddsummers. “One I’d like to pass along to the other Pirate Kings. I want this rumour to spread to every island in the Caribbean. I want it to spread all the way to the Colonies, so that George, Philip, and Louis eventually hear us. All of them should hear.” He tapped his head. “An Empire at Sea, just like you’ve always dreamt about but never dared to seriously consider.”

  “A pipe dream,” Kidd called before he went belowdecks.

  “Perhaps before now, aye.” Oddsummers pointed to John and Benjamin. “But now you’ve got three windfalls plopped right into your lap. The Ladyman’s treasure from the fort, Munt’s knowledge of Levasseur’s treasure, and my knowledge of the Indian Ocean.” Oddsummers looked at them all. “There is no worthwhile rebellion without funding, my captains.”

  Captain De Vries spoke up for the first time. “Wait a moment, rebellion? Who said anything about a rebellion? I thought we were only talking about creating a new port-of-call in the Bahamas. Libertalia, yes? That would show England we merit a second look. But rebellion…that word insinuates much more. Smacks of open war.”

  “Yes,” his co-captain, Janssen, agreed. “And if you piss off England, then the bitch’ll leave us to the wolves. The French, the Spanish, even the bloody fucking Dutch will know we’re completely unprotected. At least at the moment those countries dare not openly declare war on us because they can’t ever tell if we’re pirates or privateers, or whose side we’re. But that will all change if we declare ourselves independent, and England just says ‘Fuck the Caribbean’ and abandons us!”

  Oddsummers suddenly threw his head back and laughed. They all looked at him as if he he’d grown a second head. “I’m sorry, but you all want revolution without struggle. You want to run miles without first labouring in inches. You want open waters without fighting the tide or the wind.”

  John was glad when Benjamin finally stopped cleaning his boots, and spoke up, “If you want something you’ve never had before, you must do something you’ve never done before.”

  John looked at him in surprise. It was the exact same thing he’d said to Ben back in Port Royal, just after surviving that first Long Night, and just before he executed his plan against Raymond Smith’s plantation. It astonished him that Benjamin had remembered it, and it shocked him that Benjamin had said it in a way that seemed in support of Oddsummers’s cause.

  The Villain smiled and nodded. “Now there’s some words to etch into your planks so your men read them each day! Captain Vhingfrith has the right of it. If you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done. Bravo, sir! Bravo!”

  Captain Kidd returned from belowdecks with a bottle of wine (presumably one of Oddsummers’s bottles, and he had not asked for permission) and spoke as if he’d never left. “Levasseur’s treasure, you said? And what of it? Let’s assume it isn’t some fairy story, what exactly would all that coin mean for our Republic? How can it help make Libertalia real?” He laughed skeptically, and popped the cork on his bottle.

  “You’ve all been in control out here so long you’ve forgotten how you get things done with politicians.” Oddsummers leaned against the capstan and removed his plague mask. “And politicians are the ones you will need to bribe. Slowly, over time. While at the same time buying ships, or building your own. Sending men out to St. Lucia to study these, eh—mushroom farms you said, Ladyman?—and spread that knowledge across the West Indies. Make ourselves self-sustainable.”

  “Ourselves, you say?” said John, standing up. “You’re not on the account, Captain Oddsummers. You’re a pirate, true, but not of the Caribbean.”

  “Da, what the fuck are you?” said Kuznetsov.

  “Why don’t you tell them all about yourself, and the benandanti?”

  If Oddsummers was afraid of the ambush, he impressed John by not showing it. “Very well,” he said, and launched into an explanation of his Order and what they represented—their beliefs, their goals, and their explanation of what had stirred up the firmament. This took until the sun was past noon, and when he was done, Oddsummers stood before the Pirate Kings and said, “Well?”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Captain Belling. “You wish to save the World by reorganizing its power structures, fighting back against these, eh, malandanti, or whatever, and make a profit while you’re at it?”

  Oddsummers gave a disarming smile and held his hands out palms up, as if to present the logic. “Heroes can’t get paid for their good deeds? Constables do it all the time, do they not? And priests?” With a glance at Father Cockrell.

  John caught Ellis’s eye, and Ellis remained stoically leaned against the mizzen.

  “You’re a priest now, Oddsummers?” said Kuznetsov.

  “Actually, yes, of a sort. But my Order has many ways of defining the term, so I wouldn’t put much stock in my—”

  “Before we set sail, you said your Order has prophecies, that you knew this was coming,” John said, pacing. “How could you know the firmament would happen?”

  Oddsummers smirked again. “Would you believe math?”

  “Math?” Kuznetsov scoffed. The others chuckled.

  Oddsummers shrugged. “None of you put faith into mathematics when you gauge the stars, when you count the fathoms beneath you? No? It doesn’t come into your calculations at all?”

  They all went silent.

  “Benandanti math is nothing sorcerous, only far more involved than what you’re used to.”

  They all remained silent.

  Captain Belling finally said, “All these words…they’re just that, words. We’ve heard what you have to say out of respect for a fellow pirate. But you are not one of us. You are not of the Republic.” He slapped his knees and started to stand. “I don’t see any more good use of my time here, lads, so I’ll just—”

  “Libertalia,” said Kidd. John suddenly remembered the young captain was there. He leaned on the portside rail and sipped wine and belched. “Look me in the eye and tell me you believe in it.”

  “I believe in it,” Oddsummers said convincingly. “In fact, I’ve seen it.”

  Kidd blanched. John stopped pacing.

  “What?” said Benjamin. “You mean you’ve actually seen it. I thought you said it was only a dream, not yet made real—”

  “It is. It was. But it has a seed, and that seed begins to grow. I’ve seen that seed. A small path leading up the shores of Madagascar, deep into the jungle. Ships come and go from an inlet there, but they always arrive during the night and are gone by morning. Sometimes half a dozen ships at once. No docks, no shore presence of any kind. I went ashore once with a boat, snuck past a village of Caribee natives, and saw what some captains have already started assembling from the remains of shipwrecked vessels pulled inland. It rests upon an island at the center of the lake.”

  “Madagascar is already an island,” John said. “An island within an island?”

  “Just so, Ladyman. Just so. But let’s be honest, it’s merely a secret cove right now, a place dreamt up by Blackbeard and Steve Bonnet and others like him. A pipe dream, like Captain Kidd over there said.” Oddsummers put his thumbs in his belt, and tilted his head quizzically at their assembly. “Right now, Libertalia is nothing. It’s a hiding place for a handful of pirates like Captain Teach, who have kept up their piratical activities without being on your account.”

  “Teach is there?” John said. It felt like ages since he’d seen the man. Few people had seen him in recent years. Almost impossible to imagine him now, still alive, still pirating, still moving about on the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

  “Libertalia is a gorgeous dream,” Oddsummers said. He reached a hand out to the air, like he could almost touch it, or pluck Libertalia from a tree branch. “But it can be more. So much more.”

  John looked at the man’s twinkling eyes, and for a moment he almost believed it. When he looked over at Ben, he saw him leaning back in his chair, one hand stroking his chin in the same way it had when he’d first encountered the Long Night and tried to suss out what exactly the firmament was.

  “It’s a pretty dream, aye,” said Conroy.

  “Aye,” agreed Oliver.

  “But what’s our part in it?”

  “Aye, what’s our part?”

  “I told you,” Conroy said to his brother warningly. “Stop echoing me.”

  “You want to be a Republic of Pirates in deed and not just in concept,” Oddsummers said, in his closing statement. “This is the way you do it. Bold movements, history-making consequences, taking advantage of a boon brought on by the sorcerers in the malandanti. Your enemies are scattered now, worrying about their citizens turning into cannibals. I’ve told you what’s happening in England, the Disease and the Tam and all of it. They will be suffering the same crop failures as us. They will be starving soon. You’ve heard it from the Ladyman, the Caribbean makes excellent mushroom farms. Our population is far less than those of mighty nations, so we need less food. And all of us are built around sea life and plantations. And our people are a people made for adapting and surviving. We figured out the sugarcane plantations. We figured out the slave trade, and how to work with former slaves to crew our own ships. We are the halfway point for trade with the Colonies, all others must come either through or close to our waters.”

  John noticed Oddsummers kept say “us” and “we”. A clever way to keep the others forgetting he wasn’t from here, nor on the account. He’s good. He’s very, very good. John hated him more by the minute.

  “What would it take?” Benjamin asked. John looked at him. “What would it take to fully undertake this journey to the other side of the world and find Levasseur’s treasure?”

  “A small fleet of ships. Three or five good ones, fully crewed with the best men in the Caribbean.”

  “The locket…it isn’t even fully deciphered yet.”

  “I understand your man Munt knows a woman who has been working on that.”

  Benjamin said nothing for a moment. Then he nodded. “He does.”

  John said, “You want my crew to spend their treasure—a fortune many of them lost friends for, and could retire on—to fund your expedition instead?”

  “I’m asking every pirate here to just think about this new World we’re in. And consider the opportunity,” Oddsummers said. “I’m asking everyone present to spread the word. The pirates in the Caribbean are a force to be reckoned with. Hell, we’ve even got a pirate captain with a pet Leviathan,” he laughed, pointing at Benjamin. “Ol’ Charley they call him, eh? Do you think he’ll be at your beckon call all the way to the Indian Ocean?” The Pirate Kings all laughed. John could see Oddsummers was winning some of them over. “And he’s the same bloody captain who dubbed the firmament in the first place. The Devil’s Son! And his lover, the Ladyman, who fucked the Spaniards up their arses like no one’s ever done before!”

  There was a short silence. But most of the Pirate Kings nodded approvingly. John had braced himself for ridicule but relaxed when he realized it wasn’t coming. No one here cared about his and Benjamin’s intimate relationship. Indeed, the Villain had just covertly used it as a benefit in his call to arms.

  “But yes, Captain Laurier, I am asking you to commit. I’m asking all of us to commit. You know Levasseur’s treasure is no pipe dream because the French themselves are committed to finding it. If we find it first…just think of it! So much wealth that France is counting on it to save their economy! Think of that treasure in our hands! Think what we could do with it!”

  “A-hooooo-aaaahhh!” shouted Captain Kuznetsov, and stamped his feet.

  De Vries and Janssen joined him.

  John was shocked by this.

  “We could be our own nation,” said the Villain. “A true Republic of Pirates.”

  “A-hooooooo-ahhhhhhh!” shouted Captain Belling.

  John looked around him, and realized which way the winds were blowing. Oddsummers had caught the mood, and was feeding their dreams. Their fantasies.

  “Hell,” said Oliver, “like you said, if you want something you’ve never had, you gotta do something you’ve never done.”

  They already think it was him who said that. Not me, not Benjamin, but Oddsummers. They credit him with that statement.

  A couple more cheers went up. Captain Belling stomped his feet.

  Oddsummers wasn’t done. “Levasseur’s treasure is real! Believe it, brothers! The treasure is real! Our power is real! Nassau’s destiny is real! And soon, Libertalia shall be real! Look out there!” He pointed east towards the open sea. “That is Libertalia out there! Can you see her?”

  “Aye!” said Belling. “Her teets are the most beautiful in the world!”

  “And jes look at her ass!” cried Conroy.

  “Aye, that ass o’ hers!” Oliver agreed.

  More stamping feet. Now even Captain Kidd joined in.

  John looked around at Benjamin, still sitting, still stroking his chin.

  “And there is one other thing our enemies do not have, my captains,” Oddsummers announced. “Mr. Bainbridge, if you please.” He gestured to one of his yellow-skinned crew, the Edinburgh’s first mate if John wasn’t mistaken.

  “Aye, thirrr,” the plagueman slurred. He went belowdecks, and re-emerged a moment later carrying the mangled body of a man, his entire lower body missing, simply blown off. His yellow flesh had turned blue and grey, his eyes lolled back into his head, and rigor kept him stiff as a log, arms out to his side and locked into place. From the gaping cavity of his lower torso there was red viscera still dangling.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The Pirate Kings had all seen dead men before, but not like this. They held their breaths and stood up and took several steps back. Only Benjamin remained seated, John noticed, and leaned forward curiously.

  “This man was struck by cannon when we came to the Hazard’s aid,” Oddsummers said, reaching into his coat and withdrawing the vial of pink liquid he’d shown John and Ben days before. He popped the cork and said, “This they call Tam. At least, that’s what the priests in England are calling it. There are two ways to end up if you contract the Disease, my captains. Either you survive and end up looking like me and my sallow-fleshed friends here, or else you die, and slowly come apart, melting, until you become this substance here, which has a few peculiar qualities. Observe one of them.”

  He tipped the vial, and a dab of the pink Tam fell onto the forehead and neck of the dead man. What happened next caused Captain Kuznetsov to lose control of his legs and stagger over to the railing to vomit, and caused Captains Belling and De Vries to draw their swords and aim them at Oddsummers.

  With his Corrupted hand, John unconsciously clutched Ben’s shoulder. Ben, who still sat in his chair. Ben, who leaned forward even more and narrowed his eyes in concentration. Even after all John had seen from the firmament, the sight of the arms on the dead man suddenly twitching and the head looking around made him feel faint. Ben reached up to touch John’s Corrupted hand reassuringly, even though John could not feel it.

  The dead man waved his arms like he was trying to swim in air. With his own sword, Oddsummers stabbed the dead man many times, in his chest, in his throat, in one of his eyes. Nothing stopped the dead man from moving. Oddsummers sheathed his sword and walked around like he was giving a lecture. “The Resurrected feel no pain, and they are not violent. From what I’ve seen they will do as they are told by whomever they bond with first upon resurrection.”

  “What—what—?” said Captain Janssen, unable to form words.

  “We shall soon see the full properties of Tam, once our scientists have had time to fully examine and experiment with it. I’m told it allows one to conduct great power.”

  “Scientists?” John said.

  “Oh, apologies, it’s a relatively new term. Eh, the men at the University of Cambridge coined the term to denote one who is a ‘cultivator of natural sciences.’ Benandanti have taken to calling many of our more gifted ursulas by this word. Has a more official ring than ‘Men of Letters.’ ” Oddsummers stepped back slightly when the dead man tried to touch his boots. “You see what we have here, my captains? You see what a leg up we have? I’ve just given you knowledge that Tam is a resource you can use, while much of the World still does not know the full uses of Tam.”

  “A resource for what?” asked Kidd, kneeling, at a safe distance, to gaze upon the Resurrected.

  “For whatever, Captain. To inject fear into our enemies. To have crew that have no need to eat or drink, who cannot die, who will not refuse an order, no matter how dangerous.”

  “You can’t be serious!” said Captain Belling. “You want that—thing—reefing our sails?”

  “I’m only telling you of the possibilities. And I’ll remind you all that you know very goddamn well that if it can be exploited, governments will exploit it. What I’m suggesting—”

  “This is blasphemy!”

  “What I’m suggesting is that we get ahead of this. By making raids on those places where the Diseased have been. London is dumping thousands of barrels of Tam into the sea every month. Get your hands on that, lads, and see how far you can go. If you don’t like the idea of raising the dead, then think of what this substance can do, how it’ll change the World once electricity itself is mastered—”

  “Elec-what?” said John.

  “Electricity,” Benjamin said, and they all looked at him. “From Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica. From the Greek ‘elektron’, meaning ‘shining light’. A theoretical power behind lightning. Clever men in both Britain and the Colonies are angling to harness its power. Men of letters.”

  “Impossible!” said Kuznetsov. The Russian’s face had gone pale. “You cannot harness lightning! You cannot take what slips from God’s own fingertips—”

  “My captains, my lords of the sea,” Oddsummers said, corking the vial and returning it to his coat pocket. “I bring you news of the greater world, of a momentous time of change.” He stamped his foot. “I’ve shown you what there is waiting for you, what opportunity is to be seized.” He stamped his foot. “The Ladyman and I have told you all of how the wealthy intend to survive on mushrooms, while we all scramble in the dark.” He stamped his foot. “I’ve shown you power beyond comprehension, and extended an invitation from the benandanti.” He stamped his foot. “This is destiny calling. It’s godly work, you picaroons. Will you shrink from it?”

  He waited to hear from them.

  Then, Captain Janssen of all people stamped his foot. And he kept doing it until his co-captain De Vries did the same. They stamped in time with Oddsummers. Then Kuznetsov regained himself, wiping vomit from his chest and laughing. Laughing madly. It was like he was drunk. He stamped his foot. Then they were all stamping and cheering, while John watched the Resurrected man still moving, searching for purpose, searching for anything, it seemed. A strange spell had been cast here, and its incanter had been Belardino Oddsummers.

  John started to walk away. Then, while the others cheered, Ben stood up and spoke close to John’s ear. “We need to talk.”

  ____

  They left the Edinburgh and went inside the Hazard’s captain’s quarters. Benjamin dressed himself in fresh clothes John provided him and sat at the large desk, staring at charts. John sat on the opposite side of the desk holding a brandy in his hand but not drinking it. The two of them had said little since excusing themselves from the palaver. They both knew that topside, servants of the Pirate Kings had been placed on deck as guards, making sure Benjamin did not go anywhere. They may have listened to Ben’s small input, but he still was not on the account.

  “Well, what do you think?” John said.

  Ben looked at him. Remembered he had his own brandy, and took a swig. In his mind he heard his father saying, Head for the Colonies. When you find you have no friends left in the world—except for that Laurier boy, he’ll never leave you—take what you can and make for Massachusetts. Do you hear me? Yes, he heard the old man still. And yet.

  “I have thoughts,” he said at last. “Lots of thoughts about what Oddsummers is offering. There is something happening within me, John, that I cannot explain. I have seen the open ocean and know that it is now becoming something else, transforming by God’s will or Someone Else’s. A god that we missed.”

  “A god that we missed?”

  “Something Scarecrow said to me. An entity unaccounted for. The Master behind all of this. Our seas are changing by the Master’s power, and I can empathize with their struggles, because my own soul is still in a state of becoming. A constant state of becoming. Becoming what, I don’t know. But before I say anything else, I want to know what you plan to do with that diving bell.”

  “Diving bell?”

  “Yes. You went to a great deal of trouble to get it, as I understand, and spent most of your share of the Spanish treasure to buy it off of…what was his name? Braithwaite? So, what do you aim to do with it?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because everyone knows the Ladyman has a hundred reasons why he does anything. From the beginning of all this, you had a plan. You got my help from me to take out the Nuestra, but you didn’t sell the slaves. At first, I thought that was peculiar, but then you showed me. You showed everyone. You took Akil and all the others and recruited them to help you attack Raymond Smith’s plantation, and you took even more slaves from Raymond, and got some passphrase or other about a fort that my father told you about.”

  John kept quiet. Benjamin watched him closely, trying to see the Ladyman’s mind.

  “Then you sailed to the Colonies to do what, train your new slaves? Train them to reef and hand and swab decks? Then what? You spun that success into the next venture, by sailing with them to Panamá, and got some of them killed before you escaped with an enormous fucking treasure most pirates could only dream off. But you weren’t done yet. Next you sailed to here, to Nassau, and you bought a fucking diving bell and used your new clout to summon the Pirate Kings to a palaver. So, tell me, what has all this been about?”

  Benjamin watched John closely. The Ladyman drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment. Then he seemed to come to a conclusion and sighed, “Fine. If you want to know, I’ll tell you. But you must promise me not to share it with anyone until I’ve decided if I want to tell anyone.”

  Ben nodded. “You have my word, John.”

  “Do you recall when we sat at that coffee-house in Port Royal last year, and I told you my plans come to me like dreams? That they come to me in fits and starts?”

  “I do remember.”

  “In a dream, you have some semblance of where you’re going, a logic to what you’re doing, even if your conscious mind wasn’t thinking it when you went to sleep. It is like a fog lifting ahead of you, a road with more detail revealed as you go. And in the dream, you know you had a plan for being here, you somehow knew what to expect before you even arrived. But you didn’t know that before. It’s like your dream wrote the script without your knowledge, but once you arrived at your destination, it’s like you always knew. Do you understand?”

  Benjamin shrugged. “Mostly, yes.”

  John nodded. Scratched his chin. “My whole life has been a dream, Benjamin. At least it feels like it. But all along the way, the path was being made clearer and clearer. I had no idea that when I served aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge and listened to Blackbeard go on about Libertalia and heard Braithwaite talk about the sciences that I was going to do something with all that knowledge. And yet somehow I did know. Knowing and not knowing all at once, the fog being slowly lifted, the book of my life being written with my input but not by conscious knowledge. And every time I get a new piece of information, it adds to my goals, expands them in ways I never dreamed.”

  Benjamin looked at the Ladyman and suddenly thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. Such an exquisite specimen, both masculine and feminine, strong and vulnerable, a madman and a genius. Good God, how does anyone resist this allure?

  John sipped his brandy, and stood up to look out the window at a westering sun.

  “Braithwaite told me ages ago about a Spanish treasure fleet that went down out here somewhere,” John continued. “It happened ages ago, before I ever met him or Blackbeard. Only one ship, the San Luis, survived a savage storm, and Braithwaite alone had heard from one of her crewmen, a man named Salazar, where the Silver Train ships went down. It did not matter, you see, because it was the middle of the ocean and no one could ever dive that deep. So the treasure was assumed lost forever.”

  Ben arched an eyebrow. “But?”

  “But, as fate would have it, Braithwaite himself happened to be a Man of Letters, a man of no mean engineering skill, and while he served aboard the Revenge he was busy creating something called a diving bell for exploring the ocean floor.”

  Benjamin stood up and leaned on the desk. “How much is down there, John?”

  John did not answer him immediately. He sipped his brandy. Watched that westering sun. “According to Braithwaite, Salazar claimed that particular fleet of ships was the largest of the Silver Train at that time. At least two large ships— Santa Rosalía or the Santa Eva Maria—went down, their bellies loaded.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know how much is down there, Benjamin, but I do know that there is no way the Spanish could have ever reclaimed it. It’s in highly contested waters. Deep waters. And nobody has the capability to dive down and get it all back up. Even if you had the best swimmers in all the world, even if they could hold their breaths that long and retrieve it piecemeal, the endeavour would take weeks. Months. Perhaps even years to get it all. And in no time an English ship would eventually spot any ships lingering there overlong.” John poured himself more brandy.

  “But surely the Royal Navy will have found it?”

  “How? Only Salazar knew where it was, and he died soon after telling Braithwaite about it. I bought the information from Braithwaite, along with the diving bell.”

  Benjamin rubbed his head. “But surely it doesn’t cost—”

  “The treasure I took from the fort wasn’t just to pay Braithwaite for a diving bell. It was to pay him for his only working bell, and to fund him to finish making the ones he started when he first came to Nassau. But that’s not all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You asked me how much is down there, and I cannot even guess at a number. But, Ben, if it is true, and it is the wealth of the largest of the Spanish treasure fleets, then what lies below those waters is the treasury of an entire country. Perhaps even more than what Levasseur hid. Nations function off that kind of silver.” John sipped his brandy.

  It suddenly dawned on Benjamin. “Ships. Once the treasure is pulled up from the seafloor, you’ll need ships to haul it all. Lots of them.”

  “At least two ships went down at that location, maybe all four, all of them fat with silver. Probably other jewels taken from Mayans, other natives, French and Dutch enemies, English nobles, who knows what else.”

  “How many men can fit inside a diving bell?”

  “Two comfortably. Three if you cram them in.”

  Benjamin began to see the plan, the many layers the Ladyman was working within, and it was astounding. “Your plan is to buy a few more ships, equip them with cranes and diving bells, then use the diving bells to send down men who can swim, collect the treasure, tie it up in nets, then use the same crane you used for the diving bells to haul it all back up. Good God, John…”

  “We’ll need at least three ships to haul the treasure, and two more to defend us against attack if we get spotted doing our work.”

  Benjamin paced. Then he looked at John. “And what will you do next?”

  “What?”

  “After you’ve got the sunken treasure. Assuming you get it all, what will you do next? You’ve just told me these plans reveal themselves to you as you reach a new part in the path.”

  John downed the last of his brandy and looked at the empty glass clutched in his Corrupted hand. “There’s a new world upon us, Ben. The Villain was right about that in his great speech. God knows what’s next for us all. I suppose my plans will depend on the firmament, and the Long Night.”

  “I’ve got an idea for it,” a voice said. They both turned and saw Oddsummers striding into the room, smiling and looking very satisfied with himself. “Sorry, I was coming to talk with you both, and heard you from out in the companionway, and I just couldn’t help myself—”

  “What do you want?” Ben asked.

  “There’s something else the Ladyman isn’t tell you, Captain Vhingfrith. I spoke to his father, and he said that when Arthur Vhingfrith came to London and brought Laurier here with him, to speak on his behalf, Laurier told your father about his plans for the sunken treasure. Didn’t you, Laurier?”

  John said nothing.

  Ben watched the Ladyman closely.

  “Laurier said he wanted nothing to do with working for your father, that he was done with sea living and he wanted only enough money to fund this expedition beneath the ocean. Laurier here didn’t want to be a privateer or a pirate, he wanted to return home. But once he was turned down, he had nowhere else to go, and so he took up with your father permanently, and, well, things took a turn when the Ladyman struck out on his own. He wanted that sunken treasure. He’s been planning this since before you ever bedded him, Captain.”

  Benjamin looked over at John, whose face was one of stone. He looked back at Oddsummers. “What do you want, sir?” he repeated.

  “I came all this way to catch up to both of you. But now that I’ve overheard the Ladyman’s tale…Munt’s treasure hunt is enticing, but so is this Spanish treasure. What an endeavour! I’m here to offer my ship, my crew, and my services in your effort, if you will but come with me, across the World, to find Levasseur’s treasure, and to use that coin to establish a new government. An Empire at Sea.”

  Ben looked at John.

  “Three captains. Three ships. That’s a good start for your sunken treasure,” said Oddsummers. “Just one or two more, as the Ladyman said, to lend support in case we are attacked in our mission—”

  “That treasure is mine!” John rounded the desk and Ben saw the Corrupted hand flash wide, talons flashing in sunlight coming through the window. “It is mine, do you hear? Mine.”

  “And so shall it remain. I only ask for a deal. You see, I’ve been recently put on the account. Yes, me! Captain Oddsummers of the Republic of Pirates, a pleasure to meet your acquaintance.” He held out his left hand, with the cut he’d taken for the blood oath. He stuck out his other hand to shake but neither of them took it, so he reeled it back in. “I should think you men are used to pacts by now. God knows you’ve helped one another out enough, especially during that battle with the Nuestra. All I’m suggesting is that you recognize I saved your lives at Port Royal, and that without me the Hazard, and very likely the Lively, would have been destroyed.”

  “We don’t—”

  “I’m going after Levasseur’s treasure with or without you. I already have all that I need. But I came a long, long way to find you both, and stuck my neck out for you. You’ve seen I’m a man of will. I can put together a ship and a crew in the time it takes most people to put on their pants in the morning. Lacking resources doesn’t hinder me. I can do a lot with a little. You’ll need that. You’ll need me.”

  Oddsummers pulled out the vial of Tam.

  “And you’ll need this.”

  “Get that away from me,” John said in disgust.

  “What good is waking the dead when it comes to hunting treasure?” Ben asked.

  Oddsummers sighed as if to summon all his patience. Then he shook the vial. Hard. And the more he did, the more it glowed. First pink, then a hot, burning red. Benjamin could even feel the heat from it. “Tam has many fascinating properties, or didn’t I tell you? You’re going to go beneath the waves, Ladyman? You’re going to be swimming into the long, black holds of crumbled ships? How are you going to see down there? Lanterns? Lanterns need air. Even if you found some ingenious way to seal one in glass, it would suffocate and gutter out before you reached the seafloor.”

  He shook the vial again. The Tam burned brighter, casting one side of Oddsummers’s smile in grim shadow.

  “Now tell me you’re not thankful to have run across me.”

  “What if we just kill you and take the Tam and your fucking ship?” John said.

  Ben held up a hand. “John—”

  “You could,” the Villain said. “But why would you? I’ve a loyal crew. I’ve connections to the benandanti. I’m a beyond capable captain. Why waste perfectly good resources like those?”

  John said, “We’ll need to think—”

  “No you don’t.”

  “I said we will think on it—”

  “We’ll do it,” Benjamin said.

  John shot him a look.

  “Excellent. I’ll just go above and tell the Pirate Kings the news.”

  “The Kings?”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot to mention, the real reason I came to pay you a visit. The Pirate Kings have made a decree. They have a drawn up a Declaration of sorts, of their intent to make Libertalia real, and assert the entire Caribbean as the sole province of the Republic of Pirates. Isn’t this jolly exciting! By Jove, I think I haven’t been this thrilled in ages. Shall we make our announcement jointly, or would you prefer to make it yourselves? We should do it soon if we want to pick off the best crewmen in Nassau.”

  “Give us a moment,” John said. “We need to discuss something amongst ourselves.”

  “Of course. Take all the time you need. I’ll be on shore when you’re ready, at The Settled Inn.”

  ____

  John was fuming. “I don’t trust him!”

  “Neither do I,” Ben said.

  They stood at the Hazard’s damaged prow, leaning on stays and watching the sunset. Laurier wondered if he’d ever see it rise again. He supposed he would always wonder that. “Then why are you so eager to help him, Ben?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m eager, but John…we need friends right now. Allies. The world is so uncertain—”

  “The world has always been uncertain for men like us.”

  Benjamin sighed. “It has been, but you’ve actually hit my point right on the nose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My father always told me that someday I’d have to run. My mother told me someday I’d have to hide. You’ve even told me that. I tried to love England as my father did, and you mocked me for it. I hated you for that. God, how I fucking hate to see you proven right.” He sighed. “But you were right. You, my parents, even Jacobson. I was never going to be accepted, not in the pre-Cataclysm world. It just wasn’t in the dice for me.”

  “What are you saying, Ben?” John moved towards him, reaching out to touch him, but remembering his Corrupted hand and stopped himself short, ashamed.

  If Ben saw the motion, he didn’t show it. “They’ll know I’m alive, John. The leadership of Jamaica, they all fled to Kingston. Right now, they’re just trying to survive and figure out what to do about the Behemoth, but eventually they’ll settle down and someone somewhere inside the Admiralty Board will wonder, ‘Did anyone ever execute that bastard Vhingfrith?’ They’ll receive word that the Lively is still on the sea, captained by a half-Negro with a cat’s-eye. They’ll know, John. And then they’ll come for me.” He added, “And they’ll catch me.”

  John shook his head. “I won’t let them. Do you hear me, Ben?” Tears were in his eyes but he kept them at bay. “I won’t let them.”

  “It’s not your choice, John. Not forever. But if I’m going to increase my chances, I’ll need friends.”

  “You’ve got me—”

  “That’s a good start, but I’ll need others.”

  John shook his head. “You’re not thinking…about going on the account, are you?”

  “John, I—”

  “Goddamn it, Ben! I know I’ve teased you about your love for England famously, but…fucking hell, I’m trying to get bloody Dobbs out of this shit life! I tried to do it for myself when I went back to England with your father. Oddsummers was right, you know. I tried to find a way back. I…I tried to…” The tears welled up now, then flowed down his face.

  “Then why didn’t you stay in England? John, you could’ve done so without much money. You could’ve started a new life, with a new name.”

  “I was going to,” he said, wiping a tear. “But then I sailed with your father. I thought it would only be a for a while. And then I met you.” Another tear fell. “And so I stayed.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a locket. Benjamin’s locket. He returned it to him. “I stayed for you.”

  Benjamin’s face fell. He reached out and touched John’s chin. Wiped his cheek. He pulled John in and kissed him and John let himself feel it. Then John tried pulling away but Ben put a hand around his waist. Their tongues met.

  When Ben finally pulled himself away, he stared at John’s blue eyes, then guided him belowdecks, guided him by his hand, then when they were back inside his cabin he kissed John deeply before putting a hand on his head and guiding him down to his knees. John felt himself swelling while looking at the growing bulge in Ben’s breeches. “With your teeth,” Ben said, and John obediently pulled at the drawstrings with his teeth, then bit down on the cloth and pulled Ben’s pants down to his ankles. He marveled at his cock, kissed it, took it in his left hand. John ran his tongue along the shaft and then took it in. Ben moaned and John opened the back of his throat to admit all of him. “Yes…John…yes!” John took him in. All of him. Until Benjamin was down his throat and John ran his tongue along his lover’s balls.

  Ben took handfuls of John’s curly hair and started pumping him, his breathing becoming heavy. John could not help but be enraptured, feeling privileged and lustful and hungry. His chin became went and it ran down his neck and chest as Ben pumped savagely. He fucked John’s mouth with total abandon and John held his Corrupted hand to one side and gripped Ben’s ass with the other. He had never felt subservient to anyone, but he wanted to be Ben’s servant. Bent thrust and thrust, and he did not stop until he arched his back and let out a final moan and was spent in John’s mouth and John was kissing his shaft lovingly as it settled back down.

  Moments later they were lying in the hammock where John usually slept, and Ben caressed John’s hair and kissed his forehead softly. John felt protected and sheltered as he never had before, and rested his hand on Ben’s chest, keeping his Corrupted hand well away from Benjamin’s body, afraid the talons would cut him. They both listened to the ship creak and moan.

  “This makes sense, John. You know it does.” Benjamin continued their conversation as though it hadn’t ever stopped.

  “Goddamn it, Ben. Why not do as Arthur told you, and just go to the northern Colonies?”

  “To where? To Massachusetts?” He kissed John’s forehead. “They may reject slavery more than most, but I’ve heard plenty of stories of black men, women, and children being abducted and taken to plantations in the southern Colonies. I don’t know that I’d be any safer there than here.” He looked up at the ceiling. “And there’s other scores to settle here, John. You know that about me. The Santo Domingo. She’s still out there, and captained by the man who killed my father. I vowed never to leave the Caribbean without settling up with him.”

  Laurier wiped his eyes. Touched Ben’s fingers with his un-Corrupted hand. “I thought I was going to lose you. When Munt told me about…I thought I was going to lose you, that I’d arrive in Port Royal and find out I was too late and that you’d already been hanged.”

  “But you weren’t too late, John, my love. You weren’t late. You came for me.”

  John said nothing. Then he wept and fell into Benjamin’s arms. It felt like a release of everything he’d been holding back since he left England on the Equinox. It felt good, and yet it was agony. He hugged Ben close and sobbed. In all his dreams, where his plans were revealed to him through fog, he’d never once seen a world in which Benjamin Vhingfrith wasn’t in it. The horror of that thought outmatched any horror he’d seen from the firmament.

  Finally, Ben gently pulled away, and kissed his hands. Both his hands. Then he got up out of the hammock and guided John, by his Corrupted hand, back up to the prow of the ship. They both looked out over the water.

  “When they write about us, they’ll do it with less and less words, you know,” John said, sniffling.

  Ben blinked in confusion, smiling. “What?”

  “Down through the centuries, I mean. Because history books are already filling up with names. Our names are just two more, and they won’t have room on the page to say everything about us that needs to be said. So they’ll write less and less. After a while, they just use two or three words to describe a person. Alexander the Great. Sums it up. Olga of Kiev. William the Conqueror. John the Ladyman. The Devil’s Son.”

  He touched Benjamin’s cheek.

  “It doesn’t matter what crimes we’ve committed, or what good deeds we’ve done, because they’ll all just be forgotten. They won’t care about you, Ben. Or us. They can’t care about us, any more than you can care about them, because they haven’t been born yet, those people who will read our pages. You’ve always been worried what long-dead men like your father and not-yet-born men like these historians think. Fuck them all. They’re either dead or don’t exist yet. What say do they have in this moment you and I now occupy? So let them write, Ben. Let them all disapprove. And please, Ben, please, just let me hold you. Can you do that?”

  The world held its breath for these two.

  At last Benjamin said, “I can, John. I can for a while. But there will come a time when I have to return.”

  “Return to what?”

  “To my job, John. What else?”

  “Your…?”

  “I’m no pirate, I’m a privateer. For the moment I accept this, eh, errand we’re on and I am grateful for the help. But I cannot do this forever.”

  “So you will try to go back? To them?” He pointed east, and meant England. “Why? They want you dead. All of them.”

  “Not all of them. Not yet. And even if they do, who says I cannot seek redemption?”

  John scoffed. “I cannot believe you! Ben, where will you go when they—”

  “Where will you go, John? Hm? You’ve raided and sacked from here to Antigua and back. English, Spaniards, French. Small fishing villages. Forts. Brigs and galleons. Where will you go when the victims of your predations come seeking their well-deserved vengeance? How many innocents have died for—”

  “Innocents.” John said the word like the end of a funny story. “What innocents? You mean in Porto Bello? You mean the soldiers who daily enforce the cruel taxations of—”

  “Men providing for their families, John. That’s what they were. And how many more have to die in this growing scheme of yours to have a ‘Free World’? As if anything in this world can ever be truly free. You mocked me for chasing after a dream, but at least mine is not a delusion that has me believing there can every be equity and freedom for those such as us—”

  “So you seek acceptance instead of vengeance. Acceptance, to act as chameleon with sophist guile, changing your bloody fucking colours to blend with shit-eating poppycocks that have you scrub their floors before they’ve—”

  “There is such a thing as having a lot in life, John! We are assigned these things at birth. Our lots. And we cannot change them! The best we can aspire to is some semblance of legitimacy and respectability, to minimize our exposure to the bloody whims of gods or tides or the firmament or what-have-you!”

  John’s eyes narrowed. “You want to be one of them,” he said.

  “I don’t want to be hanged, John,” Benjamin laughed ruefully. “Are you listening? Is that so bad? I don’t want to end up at the end of a noose. Better the sea take me. Or the firmament. Or a sword. Or a spider bite.” He added suddenly, “And I want you.”

  John shook his head. “Well you can’t have me, not if you want to walk in their world. We are destined for two different places. You cannot have me in your world, Ben.” He smiled. “But in Libertalia?”

  Benjamin looked at the sky, avoiding John’s gaze. Then he looked back at him.

  “Meet me there?” John said. “When all this is over. Promise me that, Ben. Meet me there?”

  Benjamin sighed, and looked away again. “Contemptible man. As if I can could ever be rid of the one thing that gives me joy.” He held John’s hand. “I’ll meet you there. Wherever ‘there’ is. Libertalia or no, I’ll always find you. Wherever you are. And even when you are gone, and your bones lay mouldering at the bottom of Galt Trench, I’ll be there with you, as well. And on to Fiddler’s Green.”

  “That’s good.” A tear fell from John’s cheek, though he tried to remain stoic. “Because I don’t want to be alone. I want to know someone somewhere is thinking of me. And loves me.”

  “It will always be me, John. Contemptible man. You should know that by now.”

  “Swear it to me, Ben. For I am devoted to you as much as I am this dream. Swear it, and I’ll know your love for me is real. Not merely a physical distraction, but real.”

  Now Ben touched John’s cheek and felt the prickly bristles. He kissed him. “You will not be alone. Wherever you go, I will find you. And should you die beyond my sight, I will find your bones, and there will lay mine, as well. I swear it, my love. It cannot be any other way.”

  Benjamin drew him into a kiss, and suddenly the sun flickered as though it was thinking of dousing, thinking of another Long Night. But it stayed. Just now, it stayed.