Pirated Love

by K'Anne Meinel

  Tina relished seeing the delight on her wife’s face and seeing the world laid out before her in the stalls and markets. The foods and the exotic fruits were fun to try, but better to be taken back to their ship in case they did not agree with them or they offend someone unintentionally.

  Tina could not shake the feeling they were being watched and she conveyed her concerns to the other captains and her men, warning them to be extra careful. Many times, this sixth sense had saved them all from capture or further problems when in a foreign country. The men wanted to blow off weeks of hard work at sea, and while Tina wanted everyone to be discreet, she let them know she would not blow them out of a British prison until she came back, if she came back, if they got caught being a little too exuberant in their leave ashore.

  Tina was a hard captain, but fair. While many of her crew were eternally grateful for her having saved them from worse fates, they knew she would not hesitate to drop them if they did not obey her directives. Avoiding detection at all costs was her prevalent edict.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  To Claire, they did not stay long enough in India. She could have spent years there seeing the sights, the unique architecture, the exotic foods and people, and the incredible treasures, some of which were even now in trunks in their holds. The weeks they spent sailing around the immense country were filled with laughter and loving with Tina, who knew stories and shared them with her willingly; frequently the crew contributed. There was, however, a feeling in the air for all of them, almost as if they were waiting for...something to happen. As they sailed away from Calcutta, east across the Bay of Bengal, and out again into the Indian Ocean towards China, they all breathed a sigh of relief as this oppressive feeling slowly left them all.

  Claire looked forward to the sights and sounds of China, and pestered everyone with questions about their destination. Not a lot was known about the country which had barred foreign trade for years until attacked and forced by countries such as Britain, who, under the guise of ‘protecting’ their interests, fought for the right to trade for the riches that abounded in the Far East.

  It was incredible to Claire, as she began to see ships that looked nothing like the European ships she had seen in the Americas, Europe, and even Africa. They seemed more primitive, definitely older, and simple in comparison to the big ship that was Tina’s pride and joy. They dwarfed the various ships that they began to encounter as they headed further east.

  “Fishermen,” Tina told her when she asked if they were all traders.

  “Aye, but some may be pearl divers too,” James teased. He had told Claire of the immense wealth below the surface of the sea, especially in the Arabian Sea when they went through it.

  “The real pearl divers are even farther east than what we are traveling,” Geoff the cook told her.

  They told of lions, and gold cities, and incredible palaces, as well as riches such as pearls, jewels, and other rare metals. Claire was not sure where tales began and true stories ended. It quite overwhelmed the senses.

  Tina began to go ashore in smaller villages before the larger cities came into view. She would only take one boat at time, her others laying offshore and over the horizon so as not to frighten the villagers into thinking they were being attacked, although Tina’s Black Betty was certainly capable with its accompaniment of cannon.

  Since it was impossible to speak all the dialects that were spoken in the vast country known as China, a lot of hand signals and pantomime were enacted, the same thing they had found in India. Occasionally they found someone who might speak English or French or Portuguese, but that was rare until they got to the major cities. Tina was careful about going ashore, but she managed to get some truly priceless trades for her cargoes.

  As they sailed one by one into port, they positioned themselves to help one another if needed, but also pretended they did not know one another so as to raise no one’s suspicions as they began to contact factors for trade.

  Once the word was out that Tina had ginseng to trade, the factors came to her to solicit her business. The spices, the silks, the porcelain, and the tea they traded for would bring an absolute fortune in England and Europe if they could trade on the continent. France would be off limits for many years due to the wars, but other countries would welcome their cargoes if they were not stolen from them by the governments. Tina was naturally distrustful and preferred using alternate means rather than alert officials to her presence. Her pirating days being behind her did not mean that others accepted that of her, and while she was legitimately trying to become a merchantman, her instincts honed as a pirate would remain with her the rest of her life.

  It took them many weeks to trade all of the rest of their cargo once the ginseng was long gone. Chinese, and even some of the Indians, highly prized this root that grew in the wilds of the Americas. Tina had remembered this and put the word out that she would trade for it if people would harvest it. Her cargo had been a fortune of roots. She was now trading other lesser but necessary items that were not found here so far from the source. New England goods were sought after and highly valued. In exchange, the spices, cloths, and other oddities were welcome in her holds; there would be no need for the ballast that some ships had to carry to balance their loads.

  “Mayhap you can find some Cantonese Groin,” one of the men called to Tina as they sailed into the large harbor near Hong Kong. There were hundreds of boats, ships, and what the Chinese called a junk-a boat with a strong hull to combat the strong waves and violent storms in this part of the world. The ships also had a bulkhead, a partition in the interior of the hull that went across, and sometimes along the length. They made it rigid and gave the boats watertight compartments, something Tina had learned years ago while sailing with her grandfather and had adapted to her own boat. It was invaluable when a leak at sea needed repair.

  Tina chuckled with the rest of the men who heard his sally. She saw the puzzlement on her wife’s face so she explained, “It is a dildo in this part of the world.” To her delight, Claire flushed at the man’s teasing now that she realized what it was. “Sometimes they would use a plant,” she further explained. Claire walked away in her embarrassment, ending the conversation, but it did not mean when they were in private that she was not curious.

  “Do they have other kinds?” she asked, as she touched the one they had just used so vigorously between them.

  Tina laughed at her wife’s enthusiasm and obvious interest. “We will shop for them, I promise you.”

  * * * * *

  “No, you do not want to go in there,” Tina laughed as Claire walked towards a building with a distinct odor coming from it.

  “Why, what is it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose as she watched sailors going inside, some coming out with a stagger unlike when they were drinking.

  “It is an opium den,” Tina explained, and then at Claire’s puzzled look, she went on to explain. “They make it from the poppy flowers.” She explained what they looked like and Claire nodded. She went on to explain that most of the Chinese did not think much of it because it was expensive, but it was enjoyed by sailors who would use up every bit of their pay. She gestured to the men going in and out of several establishments she was avoiding. “The doctors in England call it laudanum. They are black pills that they call ‘Stones of Immortality’ since you might do things on them you otherwise might not do.”

  “Why are they going into those places?” she pointed back with her thumb as they left them behind.

  “Men and women enjoy the feel of what it does to you,” Tina explained. “I tried it once, but I did not like losing control like that, or the dulling of the senses.” She went on to explain that she had seen some people addicted to it, that they got the shakes, they lost weight, and some lost their lives. “I do not think it is an experience I would share with anyone,” she advised.

  “Are we going to take some back to England with us?” Claire asked, curiously. If it was expensive, they might find buyers for this
odd plant and the people who enjoyed it.

  “We will ship some, but it is not as valuable to me as say, tea or the silks,” Tina told her. She had tried it and knew her wife would want to if she told her how good it had made her feel. It was afterwards that it made you want it again, immediately; it was why people became addicted to it so easily. Claire, in her enthusiasm to try things: food, experiences, anything would easily become victim to such a thing. Tina steered her wife back to trade on goods that she thought would sell well back home.

  * * * * *

  “The officials say they came from the Ming Dynasty,” Claire was confused.

  “Do not worry, I know where to pay the bribes,” Tina assured her.

  “But...” her wife was trying to keep the books of what they had sold and what they now had in their holds of the ships.

  “Bribes are a necessary part of doing business in this part of the world. Hell, in any part of the world,” Tina laughed. She’d been doing this for a long time. Even as a pirate, she knew when a bribe would work whether the person was an official of the government or working for themselves. Sometimes her sword spoke instead of gold.

  They were going over how much more they would be buying to fill their vast holds, which were now empty of ginseng and other New World goods that had been allotted for this part of the Orient. They still had some trade goods for the return trip.

  “They were quite rude,” the blonde said, indignant.

  “That’s because you are a woman. They only deal with men,” Tina told her.

  “Why that’s...barbarous!” she stomped her foot angrily.

  “It is the way things are here m’dear,” she tried to cajole. It was why James was a good first mate for Tina. He understood that, while Tina was in charge, she knew that some people simply would not deal with a woman and he handled it without any superiority.

  “Harumph,” she snorted through her nose. “They should be enlightened like the rest of the world!”

  Tina laughed at her wife. “Not too long ago your father was marrying you off to that odious man. What was his name?” she reminded her.

  “Well, that was different!” she tried to argue, but the corners of her mouth did lift up as she realized her wife’s point.

  “Imagine you could be Lady Fitzhugh now, and probably with a big belly,” Tina teased further, her arms going out to mimic a pregnant woman. She stopped immediately when she saw the flicker of hurt on her wife’s face. “I am sorry,” she offered, as she pulled Claire into her arms. “I know you wanted to be his wife,” she could not help to tease, steering it away from the touchy subject of children.

  “Oh, you!” Claire allowed herself to be teased and was easily diverted as she punched Tina in the arm and then snuggled into her hug, loving the ease in which they held each other.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “There is a story,” Tina began, to enthrall her listeners, both her wife, and some of the younger members of her crew who had not been to the orient before. “About an emperess by the name Wu.” She went on to explain she had been given the nickname ‘Fair Flatterer’ in reference to a popular song in those days. She was originally a consort of the Emperor Gaozong, who was largely ineffectual, and later she ruled through her youngest son. For fifteen years, she was the power behind the throne. She bloodthirstily told how Wu supposedly killed her sister, butchered her older brothers, murdered her husband the ruler, and even poisoned her mother! Her listeners oohed and aahed in all the appropriate places as Tina told these tales of the Far East.

  “It is said that she was ruthless,” Tina understated. “But you have to hand it to the woman, as she stabilized the Tang Dynasty!” She smiled as she told her tale of the woman who was vilified in one breath and admired in the next. “She was the only woman in four thousand years to rule in her own right!” she admired the story of this vilified empress.

  She continued on with her tale as she told of her sexual prowess. She supposedly took lovers of those emissaries, and if they pleased her she would grant them favors...if not...their lives might be forfeit.

  “She did not know her place,” one of the men commented during the tale. At a look from Tina, he quickly subsided. His friends snickered at his stupidity in voicing that out loud in front of their female captain.

  “I think those who tell of her terrible side just did not like the fact that she was female,” Tina added, as she continued her tale. She told how Wu, which was her surname, killed at least twelve branches of her clan because they might become a threat to her claim to the throne. “She even had the heads of two princes who challenged her in her palace, their rebellion never realized, and it served as a warning to others.” It was said that two of her own grandchildren, a man and a woman who had the nerve to criticize her, were ordered to commit suicide. Her husband had died alone. Normally a Chinese emperor was watched until the very end. Often the entire family would be present in case he had something he wished to impart. This led to rumors of poisoning.

  “I think many of the things she did may have seemed harsh, but she had to protect her throne,” Claire said practically. Tina grinned in agreement with her wife.

  Tina told of the architecture, the temples, and the governing of the great emperess, but she could see her audience was more enthralled by anything involving murder, mayhem, or war. She laughingly finished her tale with the death of Emperess Wu on December 16 in the year 705.

  Many were the stories that Tina and some of the older men told of the Far East, and their listeners sat enthralled when they were not about their duties.

  Claire was thrilled to share stories from her books, reading aloud for hours as her listeners sat in rapt silence, some amazed at the words coming out of a book.

  Tina frequently looked for English and French books in the stalls of the cities they traded in, buying the few she could find for her wife and eventually for her own libraries, including her grandfather’s.

  * * * * *

  “There is a great wall north of here,” she explained to her listeners one day. It is over thousands of miles long.”

  Her listeners guffawed at the incredulous story. It was not the first time someone told a tall tale at sea. “Who would build such a wall?” someone called.

  Tina grinned, she did not believe it either, but she had heard the tales and seen drawings of it. “They had slaves build it for hundreds of years,” she relayed what she had been told.

  “How big is this wall? How high?”

  She told how it had been built in a series of spurts by the different dynasties, now by the Ming Dynasty that controlled China and that it was built to encourage trade along the Silk Road and to discourage the roving bands of marauders from the steppes of what would become Mongolia. Her tales sounded more and more incredible as she told them. She told of guard posts wide enough for a wagon, and how it varied in height in places.

  “How do you know, have ye seen it?” someone called out. His neighbors scowled at him for interrupting what had been a wonderful tale. Tina told of the marauders swooping down on their enemies with horses, it was wonderfully told, and interrupting the fine tale took something from it.

  Tina shook her head. “Nay, I have never seen it. China is a vast and mysterious land. There are thousands of stories within it. Why, England is so much smaller than China you could fit at least a hundred in it!”

  Several of the men guffawed, obviously not believing her tale. Tina laughed with them good-naturedly, enjoying their disbelief as she told the stories she had learned from other sailors, other people she had encountered over the years, and her grandfather.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Look at that one, and that one,” Claire pointed out, amazed as they watched the children who begged on the streets or craftily picked their pockets if they were not careful. They stared unashamedly at the red-haired Captain Betty; red hair was a rarity in their world. Even the blonde-haired Claire was gawked at. Her hair had grown considerably since she had cut it so long ago
and its beauty was obvious even when she put it back in a knot to keep it out of the way. If Claire was fascinated by the children, they were equally fascinated by her.

  After walking the streets and seeing some of the monumental architecture of the palaces, they would return to their rooms at night and compare notes. One night Tina sensed Claire was quieter than others and asked what was wrong.

  “I was just thinking we should adopt some of these street children and take them back with us to England,” she said musingly, as they lay on their bunk in the relative safety of their ship. They did not spend as much time on ship these days, but would tonight since Tina needed to offload some valuable trade cargo in the morning. Tina had set up a couple of watches to make it safe. Her ships were a rich prize as they had brought so much ginseng and other valuables, who knew what they had possibly held back.

  “You want children that bad?” Tina asked in return, thinking about the longing she heard in her wife’s voice.

  Claire did not want to hurt Tina, but she had always thought she would have children someday. She had vowed when she was younger, she would never raise them as her father had. She would love them and they would know that love. She’d often thought of them running on her estate in England. Now, although she loved Tina, she would never have children of her own body. “I see how poor they are and they are so cute,” she said, sounding very young and inexperienced.

  Tina looked at her wife for a long, quiet moment, carefully thinking. “If you could convince these children to go with you, many of their parents might even sell them...” she began.