Pirate Freedom

by Gene Wolfe

  "Then they'll try. We can be sure of it from what you say. If this Rombeau won't do it, they'll vote him out and put in some chap who will." Capt. Burt stood to get a map from the cabinet at his elbow. The captain's cabin on the Weald was a small room by shore standards, but a big one to sailors, a low room of varnished oak with wide windows. In movies, the pirates hold their maps open by pinning them to the table with their knives. Capt. Burt and I held down the far end of his with a brass inkstand.

  "Here's our present position, Chris. Here's Jamaica, there's the Spanish Main, and right here's the Yucatan Channel. They're watchin' for me there, as it happens."

  "The Spanish?"

  "None other. Been up to my old tricks, eh? Gulf of Campeche. That's where the money is these days, never doubt it. Gold out of Peru, eh? Up the Pacific Coast, then overland to the mint at Veracruz. Galleons to pick it up. Three at least. Split up the gold between 'em. Treasure fleet, eh? What's troublin' you?"

  I pointed. "Look at this port here, Captain. Panama. They could unload here and cross where the land is so much narrower."

  He chuckled. "They could, but I doubt they've been thick enough. On the other side, eh? Can you read that? I'll get you a glass."

  I did not need one. "The Gulf of Mosquitoes."

  "See any ports there?"

  I shook my head. "No, I don't, Captain."

  " 'Cause there ain't any. Not a one, eh? Nothin' closer than Portobello, and it's a hellhole. If you went west of there, you'd soon come flash-no safe anchorages, and the most fever-ridden coast on earth. Not to mention the bloody mosquitoes. So the treasure ships put out from Callao and sail north to Panama, which is decent enough. The gold's loaded onto mules at Panama and sent overland to New Spain's capital-Mexico's its name-or straight to Veracruz."

  Capt. Burt paused, looking up from the map; slowly and deliberately he said, "Three hundred pounds, Chris. That's a decent load for a Spanish mule. Three hundred pounds of gold. Rum quiddies, eh?"

  I could not imagine that much gold. I suppose it showed.

  Capt. Burt fished in a pocket of his blue coat, and dropped a bright gold coin on the table. "Here's a guinea. Ever see one before?"

  I shook my head.

  "Worth a bit, that is. Slap it down in an inn and they'll treat you like a gentleman. Twenty-one silver shillin's, that's what it's worth, and there's many a good man in London who don't earn a shillin' a day. How much would you say your guinea weighs?"

  "It isn't mine," I said. "It's yours, Captain."

  "I'm givin' it. Pick it up and get the feel of it. How much?"

  I thanked him and tossed it in my hand. "It's not as heavy as a musket ball. Half that, or less."

  "How much?" Capt. Burt repeated.

  "Well, we get fifteen balls from a pound of lead, so they're around one ounce. That would make this a little less than half an ounce."

  "Not bad." Smiling, Capt. Burt went back to his whetstone. "I've weighed a few guineas, and they're a quarter of an ounce or a trifle over. Sixteen ounces to the pound for us, eh? Won't bother with Troy. So sixty-four guineas struck from a pound of gold. Let's call it sixty."

  I am not terribly good at mental math, but I am better than some people. "Six thousand guineas from each hundred pounds of gold, eighteen thousand guineas from every mule-load. How many mules?"

  He shrugged. "Varies. Thirty, sometimes. Sometimes a hundred. Like a spot of sherry?"

  I nodded, and he fetched a decanter and poured for both of us. "Crew's got to be paid, eh? Custom of the Coast. Ten shares for you, as captain. Think your ten would come to six thousand guineas?"

  I thought about it. "Say that we had a hundred shares, with ten for me and extra shares for mates and so on."

  "Ten for me, too, Chris."

  "Right. But say a hundred in all. If there were thirty mules, that's nine thousand pounds of gold. One share would be ninety pounds of gold…"

  "Go on."

  I had not touched my sherry, but I swallowed. "It comes to five thousand four hundred guineas, Captain. One share comes to that."

  "Buy a manor in England for that much, Chris." Capt. Burt sipped. "Bit of land with it, too, and change to the bargain. Collect your rents, put the change in the Funds. Should fetch five percent or better. Set for life, eh?"

  I nodded.

  "That's one share. You'd have ten, Chris. So'd I. You're from Jersey? You told me so once, if my memory's not playin' tricks."

  I nodded again.

  "Thought so. So's George Carteret. He's got a place in the forties. New Jersey, he calls it. A thousand guineas might take the whole colony. Wouldn't be surprised."

  I felt my heart jump. It seemed like a long time before I could say, "You've been there?"

  "Aye. While I was still Navy, eh? Not much there-small farms and so on. Now looky here, Chris." Capt. Burt leaned back, his hands forming a steeple. "I want that gold. So do you, and there's three ways a man might get it before it's safe in Spain." He held up his index finger. "First way. Take the galleons. With force enough it might be done."

  "Not by me," I said. "Not even if I had Magdelena back."

  "Nor by me," Capt. Burt acknowledged. "I've five besides this Weald, and I still couldn't do it. Nor by both of us together."

  He raised his middle finger. "Second way. Take Veracruz. They coin some gold there before they ship it home, eh? All the better so. Mules come in-under heavy guard, of course-and the gold's put in the treasure house there. Minted, it goes back there. Most secure place, eh? Take out a few bars, mint 'em, put the doubloons back in the treasure house. So take Veracruz, break into the treasure house, and off with the gold before the galleons put out from Spain."

  I said, "I suppose that might be workable."

  Capt. Burt nodded. "I've been thinkin' 'bout it for a year now, Chris. Five hundred men might do it, if we took 'em by surprise. Trouble is, we can't. They're on to me. Strengthenin' the forts, eh? More men and more guns. Dago men-of-war patrollin' the Gulf of Campeche. So no. That's out, for a few years at least."

  He raised his ring finger. It had a ring on it, a wide band of bright gold. "Third way. Take the ships after they put out from Callao. Drake sailed 'round the world, Chris. Almost a hundred years ago, that was, in the Golden Hind." TIME IS GETTING short, and I have been thinking about all this and why I am writing it. I did not write anything yesterday, because of my interview with His Excellence. I had seen him before, but this was the first time I ever sat down with him and talked man-to-man. He looked older than I remembered. There was something bare and cheerless about his cluttered study, although it took me ten minutes or more to put my finger on it: there was no comfort there. The lamps were for reading and writing. The books were such as a bishop might require-no novels or travel books, no biographies that I could see, save for those of a couple of popes. The chairs were dark wood carved with the arms of the diocese, without cushions. A crucifix on the wall, but no pictures.

  We shook hands well before I began these speculations, of course. He greeted me, sat, and invited me to sit as well. "I receive only good reports of you, Father."

  I said, "Thank you, Bishop Scully. They must be very different from those I give myself."

  "I'm sure they are. How old were you when you were ordained?"

  "There were two priests in my class who were older than I, Bishop Scully. Much older. I was twenty-six. I'm twenty-eight now."

  "Tempus fugit, Father. Those older classmates of yours were widowers, both of them. Men in their fifties who have lost their helpmates and nobly chosen to devote the rest of their lives to God. It's not quite the same for a man of twenty-six, is it? Or twenty-eight."

  "I have no direct experience of it, Bishop Scully, but it seems to me you must be right."

  "You were married, too, Father. Your wife is dead?"

  I nodded, and did not say that she had surely been dead now for hundreds of years.

  "All young men feel the temptations of the flesh, Father. I did myself at your age."r />
  "They are among the least of mine, Bishop Scully."

  We watched each other then, and at last I let my gaze wander the room.

  "We have seven deadly sins, Father." The bishop's voice was hardly a whisper. "Lust is one of the worst, but not the worst. Pride is worse, the worst of all. No doubt you are troubled by it."

  I shrugged. "No doubt I am, Bishop Scully. I am not sensible of it, but that may mean its grip is tighter."

  "You're a tall, strong young man, Father. The young men at Saint Teresa's stand in awe of you. So Father Houdek reports, and I find it easy to believe. Have you no pride in that?"

  "Strength is good only when it's used for good, Bishop Scully. Strong men-I've known many stronger than I am-soon learn how little strength they really have. As for my height, I've spent my nights sleeping on the floor or in beds that were too short for me. I'd be shorter if I could."

  He nodded, his thumb and forefinger stroking his lower lip. "Saint Teresa's is a large parish, Father."

  I nodded and said I knew it.

  "A large parish, and a most difficult one. I would like to give the best priests the best parishes. Staffing is a persistent worry, and I do not have that luxury."

  "I understand," I said.

  "A large and difficult parish, but that is not the sole reason Father Houdek has two assistants. Two?" The bishop shook his head. "Two, when priests are so few? When so many parishes have none? I trust that you are learning from his example, Father."

  I said I tried to take advantage of every educational opportunity that came my way-something of that sort.

  "You have given thought, I am sure, to your conduct when you have a parish of your own."

  "Not as much as I should, perhaps, Bishop Scully. That day seems very remote."

  He smiled, lips tight. "Give more thought to it, Father. It may come sooner than you think."

  There is so much to write, and I may have little time in which to write it. I am losing patience with this pen, wishing I could kick and whip it, like a donkey. Where are the jibs for a ballpoint pen advertising a funeral parlor? Where are its studding sails? Very well. I left Capt. Burt and returned to the Rosa with the men he had given me. The wind was rising, and the Weald, which had planned to remain in our company until dawn, was quickly lost to sight. Ships menace one another in a high wind, and night was coming on, which would make the danger worse.

  So that was how it began. Capt. Burt and I had agreed that Rombeau would not come so long as the Weald was in sight-it looked Spanish because it had been. He loaned me a dozen good sailors, all English save for O'Leary, and we shook hands and agreed to meet at the end of September.

  That night, as the Rosa rolled and pitched and every timber groaned, I explained as much as I thought wise to Jarden and Antonio-and to Azuka, too, because Jarden had brought her and I did not want to send her away.

  "There are a couple of points that worry me," I told them. "One is Rombeau. Captain Burt thinks he'll come back once Weald's gone. So do I, or I think he'll try to. But Rombeau can't navigate. We need to keep a sharp lookout every moment of the day and night, and get close enough to take a good look at every sail we see."

  Antonio fingered his beard. "And if the sail proves to be a Spanish warship, Captain?"

  "We'll be flying the Spanish flag," I explained. "That won't bother Rombeau-he'll expect it."

  "We cannot outrun them, not even with a jury mast."

  "Which we do not have yet," Jarden added.

  I shrugged. "We won't try to outrun them. You speak a good deal of Spanish, Antonio, and I speak good Spanish. We're the Santa Rosa, out of Havana. We're in trouble and we need help."

  Jarden said, "What if they offer to provide it, Captain?"

  "We'll accept it, of course. And thank them with tears in our eyes. But they won't. The worse our setup looks and the more help we ask for, the more they'll want to get away."

  Jarden rubbed his hands. "Ask for water, Captain. Every ship needs it and no one wants to give it."

  Antonio nodded. "And medicines. A physician, if they will be so good as to lend us one."

  "Right," I said. "A doctor and medicine, and we'll swear we have nothing infectious on board. The more we swear, the less they'll believe us. We'll keep most of the crew below-the fewer men they see, the better."

  Azuka said, "What is needed? Ask for that."

  "I am," I told her. "I will, just in case they give them to us."

  Antonio said, "Two things troubled you. The other?"

  "We'll have to sail down the coast for thousands of miles and 'round the Horn. What if the men won't do it?"

  Everybody got quiet, but I was so busy thinking myself that it did not bother me.

  Finally Jarden said, "I cannot navigate either, and I have been considering what I might do, were I in Rombeau's plight. Do you wish to hear it, Captain?"

  I said, "Sure, go ahead."

  "Very good. I am Rombeau. I cannot navigate, but I can read. I have the logbook. In the logbook I have the last position. It is your custom, Captain, to compute the position each morning and each evening. Thus I, Rombeau, know the point at which my ship separated from this one."

  Azuka looked puzzled. Antonio said, "He might guess at the direction of the gale, east or northeast. Knowing that, and the direction in which he fled the Spaniard, he might achieve something. Or might believe he might."

  "I might," Jarden agreed, "but I would not know where to stop."

  "True."

  "I will seize a Spanish ship," Jarden told us. "A rich ship would be good luck, but any ship larger than a piragua. There will be someone who navigates. It must be so, unless he was killed in fighting. Perhaps I will put the others in the boats. Perhaps I will kill them. But him I will keep. You must guide me to this place, I will tell him. From it, you must set a course for Spain. If we find the Rosa, I shall free you. If we do not, your life will be forfeit."

  Azuka asked, "Is the entry in your book the same as that in the other book, cheri?"

  Jarden shook his head. "The final entry will have been made before we seized this ship, but it will be near it."

  I said, "I remember what my last entry was. That will be better. We'll sail back there."

  Antonio said, "This Rombeau will sail but slowly, if he is of sagacity."

  I agreed. "Either that, or turn back and retrace the last half of his route."

  Azuka asked, "Those men? They must be told?"

  Jarden said, "Told what? That we're hoping to find the Magdelena? Yes. Of course."

  I said, "About Captain Burt and the treasure fleet from Peru-the thing I was worried about telling them. I see what you mean, Azuka."

  "You must sharpen their hunger, Chris. Say the gold. The galleons. Later, Veracruz. More later, the mules of Panama. We will go south along the land to be rich. Do not say how far."

  I agreed, and that is what we did-or tried to do.

  15

  A Woman Hiding

  Fr. Houdek is well liked here, but we get fewer at mass every Sunday. That is how it seems to me. The people like him, but do not come. This morning, I said the ten o'clock mass. Until today, I have been careful to speak out as little as possible, keeping my homilies brief and talking only about the gospel for the day (or the bazaar). Today I was brief, too, but I talked about marriage, the sacred character of it and the need for repentance. Without it there can be no forgiveness.

  Where there is no repentance, forgiveness is only permission by another name. I hope I said that.

  The human heart is like a bird, I said. It flutters from this place to that- then back to the first as often as not. Poets say we must follow our hearts. Anyone who reads their lives will soon see where that leads and where it ends.

  The people were not smiling when mass was over. I shook their hands as I always do, standing in the blessed winter sunshine outside the doors. I hate doing it, but it is my duty and I try to do it well. Usually someone says how hard my hand is. No one did that today.
>
  Maybe it would have been better if they had smiled. Soon, very soon now, the communists will fall. Then I will begin the long voyage back to her. Returning to our old position meant sailing against the wind, and that meant tacking this way and that, in a ship without a mainmast. I would be lying if I said we gained with every tack we made. Often enough we gained nothing, and sometimes we actually lost, thrown back by the wind. Half the watch was putting up the jury mast, a poor stubby thing but the longest spar we had. It is no easy matter to tack a square-rigged ship, so we put a gaffsail on the jury mast. Tacking means sailing as close to the wind as possible, and one always wishes to sail a little closer. Another point, half a point. I prayed for both of those.

  We made long tacks, of course, an hour this way and two that way. With our crew we had to, and Antonio proved his worth once and for all. Jarden and the quartermaster wanted to throw half the cargo overboard. That would have hurt more than it helped, I think. Riding deep gave the keel more bite.

  We saw nothing that first day, but by the end of it the jury mast was up and the new gaffsail filling, and we had a handier crew than the one that had eaten breakfast that morning. One of the good things about a gaffsail is that the gaff can reach higher than the mast. With a short mast like ours, that is a great advantage. There are bad things, too, but that good one was plenty good enough for me just then.

  Sleeping was a problem. Jarden wanted to give me the captain's cabin. I would have felt like a bully if I had taken it, and if I had shared it with him he would have wanted to give me the bunk while he slept on the floor with Azuka. I ended up sleeping on the quarterdeck aft of the wheel, saying I was worried that the jury mast would not hold in a blow, and that we might pass the Magdelena in the dark. None of it was true, although the last came near it.

  In one way my sleeping on deck like that was good, but it was bad in another. When I finally stretched out on my folded canvas, I never guessed that it was the beginning of a night I would never forget. Each night in the rectory, when I have brushed my teeth and gotten into my pajamas, I cannot help remembering that one. No other night of my life has been quite like it. Let me start with the good.