Blackbeard's Family

by Jeremy McLean

  Anne soon received her answer by the hand of an errand boy and in the form of a letter addressed to her.

  Dearest Anne,

  With the recent revelations, I can no longer in good conscience allow the crew to take part in this family matter. Herbert and I plan to end this ourselves. When you hear the news of our enemy's passing, come to his former base of operations. It will be safe then.

  You'll be safe then.

  I love you,

  Edward

  Anne crumpled the paper and tossed it in the ocean with a huff. The errand boy, waiting to see if Anne wanted to send a letter herself, looked afraid and confused. She handed him a coin and sent him on his way.

  She walked over to the edge of the ship, looking over the port side and up and down the harbour. Her gaze eventually caught one of the crewmates searching for Edward, and after a moment, their eyes met, and he stopped in his tracks. She motioned a circle in the air, telling the crewmate to gather the others and return to the ship. He nodded, letting her know he understood before going about his task.

  She turned around and rested on the port railing. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting the sea breeze flow over her.

  "What now?" she muttered aloud.

  There was only one choice that didn't involve them rushing into an obvious trap—the only one that could help before heading to Nassau, and possibly to help Edward as well.

  "On to Los Huecos then."

  …

  "This is foolish!" Christina shouted, accentuated by a slam of her fist on the war room's ornate table. "My brother's obviously going to Nassau to kill Edward's fa—" Christina paused, the word hanging on her tongue like a curse she dared not utter. "To kill Calico Jack," she finished.

  "And what if they plan on heading to Tortuga instead?" Anne countered. "What if both of us are wrong, and we step into enemy territory no closer to recovering Edward and Herbert?" Her tone held a hint of the anger Christina was displaying openly, betraying her genuine emotions like a grey cloud on the horizon. Anne's ire was there, just as the approaching storm, but she had control over it, unlike her junior.

  Christina barreled onward, not pausing to think over her words. "Then at least we can finish the job in their stead." She reeled back as soon as the words left her mouth, as though she knew it was a fool's errand, but she kept going to save face. "It's no different if we head to Los Huecos. There we face certain danger in attacking Silver Eyes, and have no clue if that's where Edward and Herbert are heading."

  Anne levelled her simmering gaze on Christina, the gouging look of royalty that forces the haughty to kneel lest they wish to be impaled. "Then you are more a fool than I took you for," she said flatly, letting her eyes do the talking. "Sit down," she added softly, but the words fell with the thunder of a command in the still air of the room.

  Christina locked up for but a moment, her expression souring in the face of Anne's dangerous gaze and her own foolish comment, and then sat down in her seat with a thud.

  "We head to Los Huecos not just for the off chance it is one of the three spots Edward and Herbert could be going, but because it's the safest option we have. Nassau is Calico Jack's base; we have no support there, not in numbers or knowledge." Anne kept her gaze on Christina, though she was slumped in her chair. "Thanks to Victoria," she said with a wave in her direction, "we know the island's original inhabitants have been forced under Calico Jack's thumb. We can use that to our advantage. The best that could happen is we help Edward and Herbert in whatever it is they're trying to do next and join up with them there. The worst is that we keep Calico Jack's allies occupied for them."

  Christina had crossed her arms as though she were protecting herself from Anne's attacks. Her face bloomed the flushed look of an embarrassed youth.

  Anne let out a sigh and relaxed in the high-backed chair Edward usually sat in. "I won't lie to you," she began, her tone softening as though she'd just remembered she was talking to a young woman, not an adult, "Edward and Herbert are most likely trying to assassinate Calico Jack." She let the words hang, like a silent prayer for the plan to succeed, as she eyed those in the room—from Alexandre to Victoria, and over to William before finally resting back on Christina. "If we go to Tortuga, we die. If we go to Nassau, we die."

  Christina shuffled in her seat a bit before grinding out, "I know, Dad dammit. You don't have to rake me over the coals for it." After the shuffle, she absent-mindedly grabbed the wooden rose around her neck, a sure sign to Anne, and possibly most in the room, that she was agitated.

  The rose, so delicate in its craftsmanship, was a memento from Ochi, Nassir's son, who had passed in a battle years ago and caused a rift between Nassir and Edward. Anne took the remembrance of that time as a clear sign that she couldn't allow what happened then to happen now between her and Christina. The crew needed unity now more than ever.

  "You're right, I don't," Anne replied. "But I do need you on my side. I can't manage this crew without a helmsman."

  It took a moment for Christina to notice the unasked question. When she did, she looked up at Anne, then over at William, as though she were wondering why her and not him.

  Anne shrugged. "William will be busy as quartermaster when I take on the role of captain until Edward returns. And while I know a bit of reading clouds and steering the ship, I'm no match for you or your brother." Anne spun a convincing lie with just the right amount of frustration filtering into her voice to match the audience's perceptions of her.

  The truth was that Christina was still wet behind the ears and needed practice without her brother there for guidance. She was like a rider taking the reins for the first time. At first, if the horse is ill-tempered or not used to the rider's voice or touch, a familiar hand can prove useful. If the rider isn't left alone, before long, that familiar hand turns into a crutch. Christina needed to take the reins alone to gain the confidence necessary to tame the beast that was the Queen Anne's Revenge.

  The lie worked, and Christina's face lit up with joy as a smile spread across it. "I'll do it!" she said, brimming with bravado. "I'll be your helmsman!"

  4. Captain's Orders

  Over the few days' travel from Puerto Plata to Tortuga, Edward and Herbert ingratiated themselves with the crew of whalers and sailors on the Hunter through demanding work and a good share of stories.

  Their tales of hollowed island puzzles, savage natives ready to sacrifice an outsider, and run-ins with a Spanish galleon and pirates took on a note of tall tales in the ears of the humble, honest men aboard their host vessel. They listened attentively as Edward and Herbert went back and forth, telling their version of events, laughing as the two men bickered over the finer details, and all the while shaking their heads at the foolishness of it all.

  It made a difference that Edward and Herbert both neglected to mention they were captain and helmsman. They also didn't correct the men's thought that they had been travellers aboard a different ship in each tale.

  The men laughed all the harder when one of their own snidely remarked that the two were bad luck if it were all true, and jested that if any hint of a storm showed they should be cast into the ocean to save themselves the trouble.

  The laughing stopped when Edward removed his sweat-soaked shirt in the middle of travel one day, showing off his multitude of scars across his large barrel of a chest and muscular back. That night, the attentive audience was a bit quieter when Edward told of a wounded man who sniffed a mysterious poison that gave him speed and strength beyond that of an average man.

  During the travel, Edward's sudden shift from being a captain of over a hundred souls to a lowly deckhand jarred him in an at first confusing but ultimately relaxing way. Not having responsibility over dozens of men at a time, juggling being a kind yet firm measure of authority, lifted a weight from his shoulders he hadn't known was there.

  At the same time, he had to catch himself several times before he chastised his new crewmates and issued orders beyond his station. Each time
it was minor, but he had to bite his tongue lest he sour the relationship between the men giving him passage and they did indeed throw him and Herbert overboard.

  Herbert, it seemed, enjoyed the lack of responsibility even more than Edward, and for a good reason, as the crew expected exactly nothing of him. A few gave him dark looks the first day when he got in the way of more than a few men milling about tending to ship's duties, only holding back from swearing and smacking him because he'd paid his way. After warming to the duo, it turned to simply ignoring him as he stared off at nothing on the horizon.

  Edward mused to himself that he wasn't the only one with a hidden weight that needed lifting.

  It also took Edward a goodly amount of time to adjust to taking orders. More than a few times, the captain and first mate of the Hunter had to repeat orders to him, even shouting his fake name, Teach, louder for him to come to his senses.

  It was a valuable lesson and one he was glad he learned now on a ship they'd paid passage for rather than when aboard an enemy ship where their only protection would be their false identities.

  When they arrived in Tortuga, it was with a warm cup of whiskey and a smile and a wave from each of the ship's crew. Edward was glad for the time in many ways, as soon, he suspected, there would be no smiles to spare.

  …

  "There it is," Herbert commented delightedly.

  Edward's gaze followed Herbert's outstretched hand as he pointed towards a ship stationed in the harbour. It flew the familiar flag of one of Calico Jack's crew, a white, symmetrical skull with crossed swords underneath it, but the burnished copper trim around the edges of it denoted that it was for one of his subordinates. The flag flapped towards the two men as though it were a supple young lady beckoning them closer, but Edward knew the lady to be a siren in disguise, and so he steeled his mind appropriately.

  "Herbert, whatever happens next, don't question me. Understood?"

  Herbert looked over to Edward with a confused, half-cocked expression. Before he could ask Edward what he meant, Edward spoke again.

  "I need you to promise me first, then I'll tell you what I plan to do. I don't want to have to order you as your captain, but I will."

  Herbert glanced back at the flag, then down briefly to the dock, his chin soon setting as hard as a lock. He gave Edward a nod and said, "Understood."

  "From what we've seen from Calico Jack's crew, and from what you've told me, they value strength above all else."

  Herbert stroked his chin. "That is true. Before Cache-Hand could become part of their crew, he had to capture a Spanish galleon. A near-impossible feat. It makes one wonder what strange acts the others had to do to prove themselves to Mad Jack."

  Edward grimaced at the casual mention of his former enemy, the pain of each inflicted wound returning to him, along with memories of dead crewmates' warm blood on his hands and the sick smell of death in his nose. A thousand thoughts like silent needles stabbed his skin and mind, and his hand and heart began to shake. He reached inside his breast pocket with laboured movement, grabbing the flask held there, and hastily took a large drink from it.

  Herbert was at a loss for words as he watched his captain drink. After a moment, he sputtered out a meek, "Sorry."

  Edward forced a smile just as laboured as his hand's moving, then chuckled. "You have nothing to apologize for. That was for what's about to happen," Edward said before taking another drink. He then turned to face his friend and crewmate directly. "I'll be blunt," Edward began, "Calico Jack's crew doesn't like cripples. If we both want on that ship, we need to prove to them you're not going to be a burden. We can't expect them to allow you passage with some coin, and they will have a helmsman currently, so they have no need of another."

  "So, what do you propose?" Herbert asked.

  "We ask them what we need to do to be a part of their crew, and whatever they ask for, I'll do the work of two men." Edward pointed towards himself with his thumb, full of the confidence that comes partly from being a foolhardy young man, and partly from frequent imbibements.

  Thinking the matter settled, Edward headed towards the ship. "That's not a very good plan," Herbert shouted after him.

  "Have you a better one?" Edward replied over his shoulder as Herbert rolled up next to him.

  "No, I suppose I don't," he replied with the sulky tone of a chided child.

  Edward leaned a bit closer to Herbert, trying to talk secretly over the din of the surrounding town and harbour. "Also, I think it best if we were brothers for this. More reason for us to stay together than just being friends. We'll be the Blackstads, travelling and trying to find work as sailors but not finding luck."

  Herbert touched his nose and grinned. "I see, brother. So… why are we trying to join so obvious a pirate ship?"

  "Better a wolf than a sheep," he replied with a shrug.

  "I suppose that's as good a reason as any."

  Edward and Herbert passed by many rough-looking sailors preparing to leave in the early morning. The hour was late, and these were not merchants who lived by the hours of a well-wound clock but were pirates who struck in the mid-day when ships aplenty were found in the vast and plentiful trade routes along the Caribbean Sea.

  However, Edward was interested to see there were more than a few men like those they had been with earlier, a few whaling ships looking for hardened men who weren't afraid to face down a beast half the size of the ship they were about to travel on. A few others were merchants Edward suspected served as middlemen to ill-gotten gains, closer to pirates than merchants, but with a foot firmly in the trade business. They had gained the respect of the pirates who frequented these parts, whether through might or connections Edward could not tell.

  Upon reaching the pirate's ship, the mates bringing cargo aboard gave them wary glances. All of them were battle-hardened; the faint grey-white of faded scars and the dark lines of sliced and reformed skin protruded and poked out from behind woollen longshirts and beneath messy cleft hair. More than a few had tattoos blackening part of their necks or faces, a brand of their well-worn travels for some, and, from his dark complexion, a tribal honorific for another. Edward read the words "Hold Fast" across one man's knuckles, saw constellation across the back of another's hand, and on the dark-complexioned man were segmented lines in a stunning wave-like pattern across half his face.

  Edward leaned down slightly and whispered to Herbert. "You still have those hidden implements in your chair, yes?"

  Herbert nodded. "Aye, along with a few other surprises our friend Nassir made for me. I'm never too far from something with which to defend myself."

  Herbert spoke of the Queen Anne's Revenge's shipwright, who doubled as a wheelchair expert when it came to Herbert's condition. The most recent addition was hidden compartments only he could reach with weapons at the ready should Herbert need them, and apparently that wasn't all.

  "Good," Edward said. "We may have use for them."

  Edward and Herbert continued their advance to the gangplank of the ship. It was a two-masted light brigantine with a single deck, and Edward estimated about thirty or so cannons aboard. It would be fast and efficient in any fight, and with a skilled commander it might even give the Queen Anne's Revenge a challenge. Emblazoned in large white letters on the side was the name of the ship, Black Blood, a singular contrast with the words written as they were neither black nor red, but it got the point across. The ship and the men aboard it were not to be trifled with.

  "What d'ye want?" a gruff man asked as Edward and Herbert approached. He held his hand aloft in front of him, stopping the men.

  The man wasn't tall but built like a rough sailor used to the harsh rigours of a ship at sea with all the right callouses in all the wrong spots. He also had the marks of battle across his face, arms, and no doubt all over his body. His face looked a weathered mess of white scars, pocks from some childhood condition, and broken and healed bones. He couldn't have been that much older than Edward, perhaps in his thirties, but he looked much
older.

  "We're looking for work and heard you were looking for a few good men to join you on the seas," Edward replied.

  The man spat on the pier. The mucous glob stayed mostly intact as it splayed on the grubby wooden planks. Edward and Herbert's gaze followed the spit and the motion of the man's head as he looked back on them. "That's a lie," he said flatly. "No one 'ere would'a told ye ta try joinin' us, less they want ye dead."

  Edward noticed the man's hand lower and rest on his hip, near the hilt of his cutlass. He could feel the air around him thicken with eyes watching him more intently now.

  Edward inched his own hand to his hip and felt nothing. He remembered he was unarmed, his golden cutlass left behind because he had forgotten it.

  A bead of sweat formed on his forehead and rolled down the side of his cheek.

  "Nigel, fuck off with that, would ye?" a gruff woman's voice called from the deck.

  "But ma'am, we best be leavin' soon if'n we're gonna catch the bastard what done in Jeremiah."

  The owner of the voice strode to the port side of the deck and leaned on the railing, her right arm resting lazily across it while her left held steady on her hip. The look was casual, but Edward saw a coiled snake ready to strike at a moment's notice. She could jump over the railing to the deck, or just as quickly pull a knife from behind her, and any number of things in between.

  "He's not going anywhere a few minutes won't change. Bring them aboard," the woman said before eyeing Edward and Herbert up and down. "If you're able," she added before casting a sidelong glance at Herbert's chair and walking away from the railing.

  The man guarding the gangplank stepped aside, letting Edward and Herbert board. Herbert went first, and Edward helped push him up the steep incline and force his wheelchair over the lip of the deck. He landed on the sole with a loud snap of wood on wood, gaining the attention of the other crewmates who had been paying them no heed until then.