Jesamiah Acorne, four-and-twenty years old, Captain of the Sea Witch, sat with his hands cradled around an almost empty tankard of rum, staring blankly at the drips of candle-wax that had hardened into intricate patterns down the sides of a green, glass bottle. The candle itself was smoking, leaning to one side, as if drunk. As drunk as Jesamiah.
For maybe ten seconds he did not notice the two grim-faced, shabby ruffians sit down on the bench opposite him. One of them reached out, snuffed out the guttering flame and pushed the bottle aside. Jesamiah looked up, stared at them as vacantly as he had been staring at the dried river of candle-wax.
One of the men, the one wearing a gold, hooped earring that dangled from his left earlobe, and a battered, three-corner hat, leant his arms on the table, linking his tar and gunpowder-grimed fingers together. The other, a red-haired man with a beard like a weather-worn, abandoned bird's nest, eased a dagger from the sheath on his waist belt, began cleaning his broken and split nails with its tip.
"We've been lookin' fer you, Acorne," the man with the earring said.
"Found me then ain't yer," Jesamiah drawled. He drained his tankard, held it high, whistled for Never-Say-No Nan, a wench built like a frigate, and who had a reputation that implied she was kept as busy as a barber's chair.
She sashayed over to Jesamiah, the top half of her partially exposed bosoms wobbling close to his face as she poured more rum.
"What about y'friends?" she asked, nodding in their direction.
"Ain't friends of mine," Jesamiah answered, lifting his tankard to sample the replenished rum.
The man with the earring jerked his head, indicating that she was to be gone. Nan sniffed haughtily and swept away, a galleon under full sail, her deep-rumbled laughter drifting behind as another man gained her attention by pinching her broad backside.
"Or to be more accurate, Acorne, Teach has been lookin' fer yer."
Half shrugging, Jesamiah made a fair pretence at non-concern. "I ain't exactly been hiding, Sam Parker. I've been openly anchored here in Nassau harbour for some weeks now."
Since August in fact, apart from a brief excursion to Hispaniola, which Jesamiah was attempting to set behind him and forget about. Hence the rum.
"Aye, we 'eard as 'ow ye've signed for amnesty and 'ave put yer piece firmly into Governor's Roger's hand now," Parker sneered.
"Given up piracy," Red Beard scoffed, "Gone soft 'ave yer? Barrel ran dry 'as it? Lost yer balls eh?" Added, "Edward Teach weren't interested in fairy-tale government amnesties, nor 'ollow pardons." He drove his dagger into the wood of the table, where it quivered, as menacing as the man who owned it.
"That's his look-out," Jesamiah thought but said nothing. He had no intention of going anywhere near Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Black Heart would be as appropriate a nick-name. Even the scum and miscreants who roamed the seas of the Caribbean in search of easy loot and plunder, avoided the bastard of a pirate who was Blackbeard.
Aside, Jesamiah was no longer a pirate. As Parker had said, he had signed his name in Governor Rogers' leather-bound book and had accepted His Majesty King George's royal pardon. Which was why he had nothing better to do than sit here in this tavern, drinking rum. Piracy, plundering, pillaging, none of that was for him, not now. Now, Jesamiah had a woman he was about to marry, a substantial fortune, and had become a respectable man of leisure. He was also bored.
"You owe him, Acorne," Red Rufus said. "Teach wants the debt paid."
Jesamiah raised the tankard to his mouth, pretending to drink. He had been drunk, now he was suddenly stone, cold, sober. Only he was not going to let them know it; safer to pretend otherwise for Sam Parker and Red Rufus were Trouble. With a capital T. Anyone who willingly sailed with Teach was either as crazed as a man who had quenched his thirst with salt water, or had brains boiled dry by the sun. In the case of these two dregs, both instances applied. They were lunk-heads who punched first and asked questions after. If they assumed Jesamiah was drunk, they were less likely to err on the side of caution.
Two more men slithered from the smoke-grimed shadows and sauntered up to the table, stood behind Jesamiah. He could smell the nauseating stink of their unwashed bodies, the badness of their breath.
"Our Cap'n wants what you owe, Acorne. An' you'll be payin' up, one way or t'other," Sam Parker said, black menace insipid in his sneer. He nodded, a single discreet movement towards the two men behind Jesamiah - and all Hell broke loose.
As one of them went to grab at his shoulder, Jesamiah was coming to his feet, his right hand drawing the cutlass at his left hip, hung from the leather strap aslant across his chest. The bench he had been sitting on tipped over, and his left hand shoved the table, lifting it up, crashing it on to Red
Rufus and Sam Parker, who were that heart-beat instant too late in reacting.
Jesamiah's reflexes were honed to a quick and precise speed. Half turning to his right, in one, fluid, movement the cutlass swung upward and slashed the face of one of the men, blood spattering in a gush of sticky red. He continued the turn, the blade, reaching the end of its arc, coming down and forward again through the weight of its own momentum to cut straight through the arm of the second man, slicing flesh, sinew, muscle and bone as efficiently as a hot knife goes through butter.
Stepping back, Jesamiah wiped the blood from his weapon on the coat of one of the fallen men, who lay groaning his last few breaths on the floor. He dipped his head in acknowledgement to Parker and Red Rufus, scrambling, furious, from where they had been tangled behind the mess of the table.
"Tell Teach that if he wants to speak to me, he'll have to come
in person. I don't deal with his monkeys." Jesamiah sheathed the cutlass, bent
to retrieve his hat from where it had fallen, and flipping a coin towards Nan,
sauntered from the tavern as if nothing had happened. His mind, however, was
racing.
Teach was not a good enemy to be having. He was
unpredictable, savage and vindictive. Rumour had it that he had shot his own
mother for the price of a bottle of rum. To keep his crew in order he hanged or
shot one of them, at random, once a week. But Jesamiah was an optimist where the
sea and piracy were concerned. Teach had one failing - he was usually as drunk
as Bacchus. If he shot you, you were unlucky - nine times out of ten he was
aiming at the blurred image of his inebriated double vision.
All Jesamiah had to do was stay sober, stay out of the way and
watch his back. Hah! All!
Outside in the cool air of the night, he leant
against the brickwork of a wall, his head back, eyes closed, willing the breath
that was catching in his throat to calm, the bloodflow of adrenaline scampering
round his body to ease.
~ Are you alright Lover? ~
The voice of his beloved woman, Tiola, a midwife, healer and White Witch, came into his mind.
~ Aye, but that was close, ~ he thought as answer.
~ What was? ~
He grinned, shoved himself from the wall and ambled along the dim-lit alleyway that reeked of pitch and smoke from the few, sparsely placed torches set in their wall sconces, and of other unsavoury smells. Notably of human waste.
~ Nothing of consequence, Sweetheart. Tell you later. ~
He neither heard nor saw the flicker of movement rushing from a darker, narrower, alley on his left. Felt the crunch of a fist making contact with his belly, and a boot connecting with his ribs as he sank to his knees, gasping for breath.
"Damn" he thought, as he realised he did not stand a chance to
fight against four men, beside, they already had his arms pinned behind his
back.
He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and braced himself for what
was to come. "Damn," he thought again as the blows came, "These ribs still ain't
mended properly from the last bashing I got."
"Bring It Close" by Helen Hollick - A work in progress