Chapter 139: Democracy’s Teeth
Dawn climbed over the bay in gray and pink, and by the time the light reached the crossroads there were more people there than Concordia had seen since the morning they’d first raised the stone.
James sat atop the stone where he’d once stood to begin the whole enterprise. Cudjoe waited below with his arms folded. Briggs stood beside him, silent as weather.
Whitlock stayed nearest the stone with a bundle of papers tucked under one arm, finishing his tally in a voice meant to carry.
"...four hundred names logged since first light, near two hundred already fit to mark their signature. The rest we’ll sort come evening, pending the Captain’s own word."
He folded the papers against his chest.
"That concludes the tally, Captain. The floor’s yours."
James let his eyes travel over the crowd before he spoke.
The Spaniards kept together, arms folded, watching with caution. Beyond them lingered discharged sailors and stray privateers, still trying to decide whether Concordia looked more like a crew worth joining or a town worth robbing.
The English huddled close, with the few scraps of life they’d managed to carry ashore. Off to one side the French clustered together, talking among themselves in a language nobody else seemed eager to borrow.
Farther back, beyond the restless crowd, Thatch and Black Sam waited with their crews behind them. Their arms were folded too, though theirs was the posture of visitors, not voters.
The newcomers had no say in what came next, nor did the visiting captains. Only the folk who’d already carved their names into the stone held that privilege.
"Right then." James pitched his voice across the crossroads. "First order of business."
His eyes found Bert, Edmund, and Wesley.
"Bring ’em out."
The three men marched four prisoners through the crowd and planted each one on his knees before the stone.
"I would ask you to kneel, sir, and to do so without further complaint."
Bert kept one steady hand on the first fellow’s shoulder. "I have found complaint rarely improves a man’s circumstances in situations such as this one."
"Indeed." Edmund pressed the second man down beside him. "I have observed the same."
Wesley shoved the last prisoner onto his knees without a word.
After a moment he added, to nobody in particular, "Certainly."
James let the four of them sit there awhile before speaking again.
"This one."
He nodded toward the nearest prisoner. "Put his hands on a woman of this town who never invited ’em there, and took what wasn’t his to take."
A shout burst from somewhere in the crowd. A woman farther back answered it with an angry cry that still had all last night’s fire in it.
"Next."
James nodded to the next man. "Stole from his own neighbor two streets over in the dead of night."
"And these two."
He looked at the pair kneeling side by side. "Killed a man over some grudge neither one can rightly explain anymore, then threw him into the bay instead of standin’ by what they’d done."
That woke the crowd proper. Cries of "Murderer!" thundered together until James raised a hand.
Together with it, one woman pushed through to the front. She kept her eyes on James instead of the man on his knees, arms folded tight across herself, and when she spoke her voice never wavered.
"He can beg the Devil when he meets him. Now give me justice."
Nobody interrupted her.
James let her words settle over the crowd before he spoke again.
"You’ve heard the charge, and you’ve heard the woman he wronged."
He looked over the crowd.
"What’s a man’s due for takin’ what wasn’t his?"
The answer returned in a wave.
"Hang him!"
"Feed him to the sharks! Let him see how it feels!"
"Geld him first, then hang him!"
The crowd temper caught all at once, like dry brush finding a spark, and James let it burn for a spell instead of stamping it out too soon.
Mackerel Jim managed to shout above everybody else. "Feed him to a mermaid! Met one off Eleuthera that likes cruel men. She’ll thank us kindly for the meal!"
Beside him Doyle spoke in an ordinary voice, though folks nearby heard him well enough.
"I’ve got rum I wouldn’t waste on that one. Save the good drink for men worth pourin’ it into."
When the shouting finally ran itself tired, there wasn’t much left to argue. Cudjoe swept one glance around the crowd and gave James a short nod.
"Nae argument left worth countin’, Captain."
James looked down at the prisoner. His voice came out flat enough to chill the morning.
"Every soul on this island heard that rule read the day we raised this stone."
He looked toward Briggs. "Seems only fair you learn just how true that promise was."
Briggs stepped forward with the axe already in hand, and the crowd fell silent enough to hear a gull cry over the bay.
The prisoner twisted against Bert and Wesley’s grip, panic finally breaking through.
"No! Get your bloody hands off me!"
Wesley only tightened his grip.
"I’ve done nothin’!"
Bert sighed, almost apologetically.
"I fear the assembled company has reached rather a different conclusion."
"I touched the bitch, is all!"
Spittle flew from the prisoner’s mouth as he fought them. "She wanted it well enough till mornin’ came! Lying little who..."
Bert drove him back to his knees with one firm shove.
"I do believe that you’ve already spoken considerably more than wisdom would’ve advised."
The fellow kept thrashing regardless. "Go on, then! Murder me! That’s all this pirate shithole knows! Savages! Every damned one o’ ye! Whore’s worth less than..."
Edmund caught a fistful of the man’s hair and forced his head forward onto one block.
"Hold still."
The prisoner’s curses broke into raw panic.
"Wait! Wait, I take it back! Please! I got coin! I’ll..."
Briggs swung.
The axe struck clean.
The body crumpled where Bert and Wesley let it fall.
James watched it all.
He’d passed the sentence. The least he owed was to see it carried out.
Only after did he turn to the two prisoners still kneeling. It took him a little longer than he liked to find his voice.
Then, he continued, "These two, again, ganged up on one man over an old grudge, killed him, then tossed him into the bay instead of ownin’ what they’d done."
Before the crowd could answer, a man near the front called out loud enough for everybody to hear.
"That’s Code, ain’t it? Quarrels done by blade stay outside the walls. Ain’t that what they done?"
Cudjoe answered before James had to.
"Two against one’s nae a quarrel, friend. It’s slaughter."
He swept his eyes over the crowd. "And a man who’s settled an honest score doesnae hide the body after. He stands over it and tells the world what he did."
He looked back at the prisoners. "These two hid it."
Nobody found much to argue with after that.
"Give ’em the same bath they gave their mate!" somebody yelled. "Let the bay keep all three!"
The notion spread through the crowd as quick as flame through dry grass.
Near the front, Silas Hollis wheeled on his brother in honest irritation.
"Ezra says hang ’em, like decent murderers."
"I never said no such thing, ye rotted plank. I said drown ’em. It’s fittin’."
"That’s what I said!"
"Ye said hang, and half this crowd heard ye!"
The brothers went on, though nobody much cared. The rest had already made up their minds.
Whitlock never looked up from his notes.
"Drowning, then. Unanimous enough for my own count."
James turned to the last prisoner and found himself almost thankful this crime was simple enough to understand.
"Theft this time, stole from his own neighbor two streets over."
Whitlock spoke again before the crowd could.
"The Code’s plain enough."
He kept reading from his papers. "First offense, he pays back double what he stole. Second offense, and only then, he’s banished for good."
The crowd went still.
Then somebody finally blurted out what plenty were thinking.
"That’s it?" a woman shouted.
"Cut the hand off that done the stealin’!" another voice cried.
That notion caught almost as fast as the drowning had.
"Aye! Nail it to the storehouse door so the next fool gets the lesson before he tries!"
"Cut off somethin’ else while we’re at it, seems only fair after this mornin’."
A few dark laughs slipped out before the anger swallowed them again.
James let the shouting wear itself down before raising a hand. This time it took longer.
"I hear you. And I understand."
His voice stayed calm. "We’ve buried enough anger this mornin’ to last a week, and there’s still plenty wanderin’ about lookin’ for somewhere to land."
His gaze moved slowly across the crowd. "But I stood on this rock and swore those words meant the law, not just whatever suited us on whichever mornin’ we happened to wake angry. Every soul here signed those very nine rules, myself included."
He nodded toward the prisoner. "The Code says double repayment, and banishment if he’s fool enough to steal again. That’s what he’ll get, not because he’s better than the other two, but because a law ain’t worth much if we only keep it on the days it agrees with our temper."
Nobody openly argued, though more than a few faces showed they didn’t care for it.
James drew a slow breath and turned away from the stone toward the crowd beyond it.
"Right then. That’s done what’s already broken. Now we’ve got the matter of..."
He never reached the end.
"Now see here!"
The voice came sharp, nasal, and enough to announce the English accent.
A stout gentleman shoved through the crowd, his waistcoat straining against buttons plainly stitched for a slimmer man and a friendlier climate.
"I demand to know!"
He declared, drawing himself up to every inch of his unimpressive height, "Why my family’s rightful claim to land on this island is bein’ judged as some escaped slaves, or some Spaniard who can’t even manage the King’s own tongue proper! Back home, a man of my own standing would never be made to stand in a crowd and beg for what rightfully..."