“Oh, well, I had a notion that the men, lacking as they are in the most basic things, might at least get a shift of clothing out of all this, and perhaps decent weapons to aid in future fighting.”
Bickerstaff turned, looked him in the eye. Marlowe wondered why he was unwilling to simply tell Bickerstaff the truth, that he was indeed giving each man a share of the take. Be
cause Bickerstaff would disapprove, deeply disapprove, and he would make it worse by keeping his disapproval to himself. He would think that it smacked of a life that Marlowe had forsworn.
“See here,” Marlowe said, “I know that this is not quite in line with the rules of the admiralty, but look at these poor bastards. They’re in rags, and the navy has done nothing to better their lot. You think if I ask Nicholson for new clothing for these men he’d do anything but laugh? They fought well. The least I can do is give them some reward.”
“They deserve decent clothing, I’ll grant you that-” Bickerstaff said, and Marlowe cut him off before he could continue.
“Exactly. Now I need you to go out to the pirate ship and begin an inventory of what is aboard. See if you can discover her original name, owners, what have you. If there is not aboard as far as records, I suppose she can be considered our prize. Perhaps we shall name her the Plymouth Prize Prize, eh?”
Bickerstaff did not laugh, did not even smile. “Very well, then, I shall be off.” He called out for the boat crew.
It took only an hour to purge from the men the last vestige of despondency that Allair had built up in his four years of command. That was the hour that it took to call each man up and put in his hands a little pile of gold and silver, then to draw numbers and allow each man a choice of weapon and a shift of clothing. Just as Marlowe had done so many, many times before. It made him a bit uneasy for just that reason.
Soon the beach was littered with discarded rags and the men were prancing around in their new garments, sashes tied around waists, pistols and cutlasses thrust in place. They were a happy tribe, a band of brothers ready for more fighting and more booty. And they would not be disappointed.
Marlowe viewed with some satisfaction the scene on the beach. In less than a week he had turned these men around, fought a desperate battle, captured a band of vicious pirates, and in the next hour would greatly increase his own worth. Once word got back to Williamsburg he would be the great
hero of the age, his star rising fast in the firmament of the Virginia aristocracy. He would be a gentleman of note, and Elizabeth Tinling, for one, would be impressed. And he had only just begun.
“Mr. Rakestraw,” he called. The lieutenant picked up his new musket and hurried over. “I fear we are most vulnerable here, spread out over the beach. If another of these pirates were to sail in, we should be undone. I want to get as much of this prize cargo to safety as soon as we can.”
He looked out at the Plymouth Prize, pretending to consider his options. “The Prize will need a jury mainmast before she sails. Here’s what we shall do. Let us load as much as we can aboard the Northumberland, just to get it out of here, and the rest can go on the guardship once she’s ready.”
Then, with Rakestraw in tow, he went through the piles of booty, indicating what among them should be loaded aboard the Northumberland. There were three trunks of ladies’ clothes, and he found among them a gold cross on a tiny gold chain, as thin as a spider’s web. The cross itself had a diamond in the center, and a delicate swirling pattern was etched in the gold, so fine that one might miss it. It was a beautiful piece, and he tucked it in his coat pocket. “Put these trunks of ladies’ things aboard the Plymouth Prize,” he instructed, “and the rest of this aboard the sloop.”
It was only natural, of course, that the most valuable things should be sent off first, and it was those things that the men set to loading aboard the sloop. Neither Lieutenant Rakestraw nor any of the officers or men was in a mood to question Marlowe’s decision or his motives. Not after what he had done for them.
And King James did not object, did not even raise an eyebrow, when Marlowe told him to carry the cargo of pirate treasure to his little-used warehouse in Jamestown and unload it there, placing it in a discreet corner with barrels of tobacco piled in front of it. “Yes, sir” was all he said, and twenty minutes later the Northumberland was standing out of the harbor, carrying Marlowe’s part of the take.
It would take him a month, perhaps more, to convert those sundry things to hard money, but they would, in the end, greatly augment his already considerable wealth. He knew who those merchants were, in Charleston and Savannah, as well as any buccaneer.
He had to smile as he watched his little sloop pass from sight around the headland.
What a great frolic, he thought, thieving from the most notorious thieves on earth! Why did I not think of this years ago?
Bickerstaff stood on the quarterdeck of the captured pirate ship and watched the Northumberland standing clear of the harbor. Forward, and in the cabin below, he could hear the half-dozen men he had brought with him searching the ship with great gusto, looking for anything worth carrying off.
The pirate ship has been taken, he thought, but there are pirates aboard her still.
He was worried. Worried about Marlowe. Did Marlowe actually think he had kept his pillaging a secret? he wondered. Did he think that he, Bickerstaff, was not aware of the great piles of stolen goods that had been loaded aboard the sloop, bound away, no doubt, for the smaller warehouse in Jamestown?
In his six-year association with Marlowe, Bickerstaff had been careful to avoid doing anything that went contrary to his moral grain, difficult as that was in the circumstances. He had stayed with Marlowe at first because he had no choice, and then because he had become curious, and at last because he had come to like the man.
And he had come to believe that Marlowe was, ultimately, a good and moral man who for all of his life had been deprived of solid instruction in honor and Christian decency.
They had come to Virginia to start over. For Bickerstaff that meant finally becoming more than a half-starved pedagogue who for all of his learning was still regarded as some kind of inferior because he had Latin and Greek but no money.
For Marlowe it meant taking his place in society, real society, society where one’s worth was not measured by ability with a sword or accuracy with a pistol.
But what measure did this colonial society use to gauge a man’s worth? His money? The number of acres he had under cultivation, the number of slaves doing his work? Bickerstaff found himself wondering if this society was indeed better than the brutal but utterly egalitarian world of the pirates.
Bickerstaff shook his head and turned to the task to which he had been assigned. He could not be Marlowe’s moral compass forever; at a certain point Marlowe would have to find his own way.
He walked to the break of the quarterdeck and then down into the waist. The pirate ship, he saw, was in fact a former merchantman, as they generally were. She had been taken by the brigands at some time and converted, in the pirate way, to a blackguard’s man-of-war.
There were half a dozen new gunports pierced through her bulwark. Bickerstaff thought of them as gunports, having no other term for them, but in reality they were little more than holes chopped out with an ax and adorned on either side with eyebolts for the breeching.
There had once been a quarterdeck and a forecastle, but the pirates had taken a saw or an adze and hacked them off, leaving the vessel flush-decked fore and aft. The white and weathered deck planking ended abruptly where the bulkhead had once stood and turned to a darker, less worn wood that had until recently been shielded from the weather. It looked like the high-tide line on a beach.
The gangways had been torn down and most of the fine trim was gone, with only bare patches of wood to indicate where it once had been. The original figurehead was gone as well, replaced by some pirate’s carving. Bickerstaff could not venture a guess as to what the new head was supposed to be.
He heard the c
reak of oars in tholes, and looking over the side saw the Prize’s gig pulling out, Marlowe in the stern sheets. A moment later, he stepped through the gangway.
“Ah, Marlowe,” he called, “I have yet to write out the inventory, but there’s little aboard. They were going to careen, as we reckoned, so most everything is on the beach.”
“Have you discovered what ship this is? Or was?”
“Yes. Come see this.”
Bickerstaff led the way aft to what was once the great cabin but was now the quarterdeck. The entire weather deck, bow to stern, was littered with empty wine bottles, some broken, and various articles of clothing, discarded bones, and the odd cutlass or pistol. Just to starboard of the binnacle box was a small cask of gunpowder, a pile of bullets, and another pile of made cartridges. Beside that was a leather-bound journal from which the pirate who was making up the cartridges was tearing paper for that purpose. Bickerstaff picked it up and handed it to Marlowe.
“As it happens, this is the ship’s log. The villain started from the back, so the name of the ship and crew remain.”
Marlowe flipped open the cover, holding it so both men could read. There in a neat hand was written “Journal of the ship Patricia Clark, Boston. Mr. Paul McKeown, Master.” He flipped to the back. The last twenty or so pages were gone. The last entry read “Winds light from the SSE. Up topgallant yards, set topgallant sails.” No indication of what had become of the crew of the Patricia Clark.
No doubt some of them had thrown in with the pirates, and were now in irons in the Plymouth Prize’s hold or being torn apart by crows on the beach. As to the others, Bickerstaff hoped that they had got off as easy, but he reckoned they had not.
God have mercy on their souls, he thought. The sea was a dangerous place, he knew that all too well. A dangerous place for thieves and honest men alike.
Chapter 13
LEROIS STAGGERED down the middle of the dust-and gravel-covered street that constituted most of the town of Norfolk. The waning moon and the few stars visible through the thin haze were enough to reveal the half-dozen new buildings that had been put up since his last visit to that port, over a year before. Norfolk was growing quickly, for though it was in the colony of Virginia, it served as the entrepot for the blossoming trade of North Carolina, a colony with no natural harbor save for distant Charleston.
The air was filled with the sounds of a late night in a port city-drunken laughter from any of several taverns, muted behind closed doors, arguments, the occasional scream, pistol shots. And behind it all was the constant buzz of the insects, frogs, and birds that lived in the swampy regions that surrounded the place.
The Vengeance was anchored off Willoby’s Point, just beyond Cape Henry and the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay. It had taken the gentleman whose wife LeRois had detained aboard no more than two days to journey to Williamsburg, deliver LeRois’s message, and return. His haste was motivated no doubt by the thought of what was happening to his wife during his absence, what would happen to her if he did not return.
During those two days the man’s lovely young wife had been locked in the caboose of the great cabin, where her weeping and praying and carrying on had nearly driven LeRois to distraction. When he could take no more he would pound on the door and scream “La ferme! La ferme!” and that would quiet her down for an hour or so, and then it would begin again.
In the past LeRois would have had his way with her, just as a matter of principle, his promise to her husband notwithstanding. But it had been several years since he had felt sufficient arousal to lie with a woman. That concerned him, put him in a black mood when he thought on it, but he blamed it on the drink and knew there was nothing he could do.
He did not give her to the crew. He had to have something left when her husband returned. What was more, the pirates found it amusing to see her husband’s great surprise at finding her unharmed and his even greater surprise at their being released, just as had been promised.
LeRois came at last to the Royal Arms Tavern, a low, dark building opening onto an alley rather than the main street. One of the least regal-looking establishments in the New World. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. His hat brushed against the rough-hewn beams overhead. There was a haze of smoke hanging like a fog over the upper third of the room. Beyond the dim light of the three lanterns that illuminated the place there seemed to be no colors other than grays and blacks and browns.
The Royal Arms was a rough establishment, the refuge of those sailors and laborers who were not welcome in the other public houses and whores too old or ugly to attract a more genteel clientele. It was also one of the older taverns in the town, a place that LeRois knew well and frequented when in that part of the world. No one in the Royal Arms was in the least bit curious about anyone else’s business. He liked that about the place.
He stood stock-still, ran his eyes over the room. He was sweating with abandon and felt a vague terror in his gut, afraid that his carefully laid plan would fall apart, afraid that the screaming would start again.
A curse was forming on his lips just as he caught sight of the man for whom he was searching.
The man was Ezekiel Ripley. He sat hunched over a table, small and ratlike, with a big nose and protruding teeth, dark eyes darting about, and a pipe thrust in his mouth.
Ripley was the former quartermaster for the Vengeance. He had sailed with LeRois for years, and had advanced to quartermaster after Barrett had left. Just looking at the man brought back images of that day, of Barrett trying to take his leave, of Ripley calling him coward, of the fight that followed. LeRois shuddered, pushed the memory aside.
Now Ripley was in command of a small river sloop, a legitimate transport vessel that plied the Chesapeake. The fact that a man like Ripley could secure such employment bespoke the dire shortage of experienced sailors in the tidewater.
They had met again by accident in that very tavern a year before, and over numerous bowls of punch had concocted the plan that would make them all rich: LeRois, Ripley, the men of the Vengeance.
It was not much of a plan, really, but it addressed one of the biggest obstacles faced by the men on the account. While the most sought-after commodity aboard a plundered vessel was specie, gold and silver in any form, it was the least often found. More frequently the pirates took cargo-tobacco, cloth, manufactured goods, barrel hoops-all of which had to be sold to do the pirates any good.
The merchants in Charleston and Savannah were a ready market, but they had little money and a surfeit of stolen goods. They would give only a fraction of the cargo’s worth, which was their fee for not asking questions.
But Ripley reckoned himself a visionary who could see opportunity, counted himself a big man. Saw a new way of importing goods for sale into a wealthy colony hungry for them. Had the ears of important men ashore, could make things happen.
It was merde, of course; Ripley was a lying pig, a little rat fluffing himself up. LeRois knew it, but that did not matter as long as he really could sell the Vengeance’s plunder for gold. And he said he could, and he was too smart and too much the coward to cross LeRois.
That was the plan in its entirety. The cargoes plundered by the Vengeance would be funneled to market through Ripley, and Ripley would pay the pirates in gold. LeRois did not know with whom Ripley was working, and he did not care. His own part was simple enough, so simple that he had been able to keep it in his head for the year it had taken to organize. It required the cooperation of only a few parties. The potential for profit was enormous.
LeRois knew that this plan represented his last chance. The crew of the Vengeance were grumbling, and they would vote him out of his captaincy soon if he did not prove his worth in that office. Before he would step down he would kill as many of them as he could, and then they would kill him, and that would be an end to it.
He crossed to the table. Ripley’s rodent eyes darted up at him. “LeRois,” he said.
“Uhh, bonsoir, quartermaster,” LeRois grunted. He had ne
ver been able to pronounce Ripley’s name. He looked down at the other man at the table. He had never met him, but he knew who he was.
“Take a seat, Capitain,” Ripley said, obsequious yet trying to take control.
“Come, we use the room in the back,” LeRois said, indicating the way with a jerk of his head.
He pushed through the crowd and the smoke, down a narrow hall leading to the back of the building where a small room was available for anyone with private business. As it happened, the room was occupied at the moment by a whore and her customer, engaged in some very private business indeed. LeRois pushed the door open. The dim light of the hallway fell on the startled man and his lady.
“What in all hell, shut that goddamned door!” the man roared, but his voice trailed off as he got a better look at LeRois, whose bulk filled the doorway.
“Get out,” LeRois said. The man hesitated, looked down at the whore lying supine on the table, looked again at LeRois, then fled for the door, pulling his breeches up as he ran.
The woman followed more slowly, smoothing out her dress and shooting LeRois a filthy look, but LeRois paid no attention. The business that he was on was more important than the feelings or monetary considerations of some whore. He stepped into the now vacant room, Ripley and the second man behind him. Ripley shut the door.
LeRois turned to his former quartermaster. “Have you seen Barrett?”
“Barrett’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Last I heard, his men killed him. I ain’t heard another word about him in three years. If he was around, I’d know.”
“Bah!” LeRois spit on the floor. “He is not dead. There is no one who can kill him but me.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the man with Ripley, “and I don’t care. Reckon we got more important things to talk about here.”
LeRois squinted at the man. He was fat, and his shirt and waistcoat were stained and filthy. He was visibly drunk, and he needed a shave. He did not look like a man who would be in the position that he was in.
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