Chapter 103: Pirate Democracy
The mallet struck.
The stone answered with a sharp crack that sent a gull bursting from the pier in a flurry of wings. The murmur that had hung over the crossroads all morning finally broke into open conversation.
Sawyer stood atop a platform cobbled together from scrap planks and a pair of empty barrels. They had built it that very morning from whatever timber had not been used the day before. Every time he leaned into the chisel, the whole thing rocked a hand’s width beneath him.
"Mind ye don’t end up carved into the rules yerself, Sawyer!" someone shouted.
The crowd laughed while Sawyer did not even spare the voice a glance.
James waited until the noise faded. Then he spoke, his voice steady and carrying across the crowd.
"First rule!"
He raised one finger. "No soul livin’ under this Code gets bought, sold, or held as another man’s property. Not for coin, not for custom, not for any reason a man cares to invent. Every soul standin’ here is free, and stays free, so long as this rock stands."
For about half a heartbeat, nobody said a word.
Then the crossroads erupted.
"So what happens if some drunken bastard knocks the bloody rock over?"
"Can I vote the ugly bastard beside me off the island?"
"Do we get a say in the next rules?"
"Shut up, ye haven’t listened to the first one yet."
James lifted a hand. "One fool at a time."
The shouting dipped just enough.
"If the rock falls over," he said, "pick it back up."
A few men blinked.
"...That’s it?"
"The rule’s carved in the bloody stone, not trapped inside it."
That earned a grunt or two.
Near the front, one of the Rose’s crew jabbed a thumb toward the fresh carving. "Only rule that makes sense aboard a ship anyhow. Been livin’ that way since before most of us signed on."
"Aye," someone barked from farther back. "Didn’t stop Pete tryin’ to sell me twice."
"I was negotiatin’, ye ungrateful prick!"
The laughter rolled across the crossroads.
Beside the stone, Cudjoe folded his arms and gave a single nod.
"Aye. Good start."
Sawyer’s chisel struck twice more, the rule written. He stepped down one rung to begin the next.
"Second rule!"
James held up another finger. "Every soul of age gets a voice, and a vote, in what touches the whole town. Doesn’t matter if ye’re man or woman, doesn’t matter where ye were born or who ye were born to. One voice. One vote."
"Women votin’? Next thing ye’ll have ’em captainin’ ships!"
The remark landed exactly as well as a bottle thrown into a powder magazine.
Half the crowd burst into laughter. The other half started to argue before the first laugh had run its course.
"Why not?"
"Because I’ve met women!"
"I’ve met you. I’d still vote for the woman."
The crossroads dissolved into overlapping voices, half the town trying to outshout the other half.
"One at a bloody time!" James called.
Not a soul listened.
Anne had already picked out the guilty bastard. She shouldered through the knot of sailors until she stood squarely in front of him, hands on her hips.
"You."
The man’s smile lingered for another moment.
"...Aye?"
"Say it again."
His lips parted open, caught the look in her eyes, and thought considerably better of whatever had been about to come out of it.
Around him, several of his mates drifted a discreet step away.
"Oh, don’t lose yer courage now," someone called from behind him. "Ye sounded brave enough a moment ago."
Another barked a laugh.
"Aye, finish the speech!"
The poor fool scratched at his beard, searching for a reply that might let him leave with all his teeth.
"I reckon..." He cleared his throat. "I reckon I’ve said enough."
"Aye," Anne replied. "First sensible thing out of your mouth."
That brought another roar of laughter, and the man endured a few hearty slaps across the shoulders as his friends celebrated his narrow escape far more than his wit.
Sawyer carved the rule and stepped down again.
James laughed, then held one more finger, "Third rule! Any quarrel to be resolved by blade or shot stays outside the town’s bounds. If you’re determined to kill each other, do it where the roofs don’t have to watch."
Kit’s voice floated down from somewhere he absolutely had no business being.
"What if I’ve got one boot on each side o’ the boundary, Cap’n? Does that count?"
A few heads craned upward, trying to spot where the boy had wedged himself this time.
James didn’t bother looking. "Then ye’ll have one boot buried and one still walkin’. Seems good encouragement to pick a side."
A bark of laughter rolled through the crowd.
"What if I hop?" someone shouted.
"Then we’ll bury ye twice!"
"Can I shove the bastard over the line first?"
"As long as ye finish the job on the right side!" another voice answered.
The argument immediately wandered into the finer points of exactly where a man counted as dead if he managed to collapse across the boundary.
James let them have it for a few seconds.
"Wonderful. You’ve already found a loophole in a rule that’s less than a minute old."
That earned another round of laughter.
"What if the bastard I’m killin’ murdered someone first?" another voice called.
James gave the question a moment.
"Then I’d call that a punishment fit for the crime, fair enough."
A few approving grunts answered him.
"But make damned sure he’s guilty before ye start handin’ out justice."
James went on. "Else you’ve only traded one murderer for another."
That calmed a few of the wiser heads.
Without a word, Sawyer paused over the fresh line, scraped a few more words into the stone beneath it, then moved on. No one bothered asking what he’d added. By now, everyone had accepted that if the crowd found a loophole, Sawyer would simply carve it shut.
"Fourth rule!" James raised four fingers.
His voice grew just a little more careful. He knew this was where people started to argue about numbers. "Anyone hurt defendin’ this town draws from the common store, scaled fair. Lose an eye or a finger, ten pieces of eight. Lose a hand or a foot, twenty-five. Lose an arm or a leg entire, fifty."
Greasy Pete immediately raised his hand.
"Ten pieces for a finger?"
He held up the offending digits. "Cap’n, I know I’m not the finest investment on this island, but even I feel that price is a bit cruel."
"Yer hand has spent most of its life holdin’ cards and rum," someone shouted.
"And losing both," another added.
Pete spun toward the voices.
"I’ll have ye know I’ve made fortunes at cards."
"How many of those fortunes are still yours?"
The question earned a fresh wave of laughter.
A few more voices joined in before Pete could defend himself.
"He’s got ye there, Pete."
"Careful, he’ll start charg’in ye for the lesson."
James shook his head, still grinning.
"Fine. Fifteen for an eye or a finger. Better?"
"Suits me grand, Cap’n."
Before Sawyer could finish the change, Farrow called out.
"And who’s decidin’ whether a man lost the finger honest, or just hacked it off himself to collect the coin?"
The crowd immediately started shouting suggestions, most of them entirely unhelpful.
"Hobbs decides," James called over them.
That shut down a few people.
"If ye’re worried about someone cheatin’ the rule, I suggest ye don’t give him a reason to start practicin’."
The laughter that followed was louder than before.
Even Hobbs, standing beside the stone, let the corner of his mouth twitch.
A moment later Sawyer finished carving the corrected figure and nothing more.
"Fifth rule!"
James raised an open han, "Theft from your neighbor counts the same as theft from your shipmate. First offense, ye repay double. Second offense, ye’re banished from the town, and you don’t come back."
Near the endless card game, Rook finally lowered his cards and looked toward the stone.
"Does a card debt count as theft?"
Twice did not even bother looking up. "That depends. Are ye askin’ because ye’re curious, or because ye’ve finally realized what ye owe?"
"Principle," Rook replied.
A few men nearby immediately laughed.
"Your principle has been avoiding payment for days."
Twice said, sliding a card onto the table. "Four shillin’s, if memory serves."
Rook frowned at him.
"That was a matter of disagreement."
The card players around them carried on as if this argument had been happening for weeks, which it probably had.
James glanced over from the stone. "A fair wager is a fair wager if both sides knew what they were risking. A debt you agreed to is not theft."
He looked directly at Rook. "Though I will admit, ye’ve spent enough time standing on both sides of that line that I’m surprised ye still need askin’."
The crowd gave a few amused sounds of agreement.
Sawyer carved the rule.
"Sixth rule!"
James had to raise both hands in the air, one open and one finger, "A woman’s body, and whatever trade she chooses to make of it, belongs to her alone. She gives it freely, or she doesn’t, and coin changes nothing. Any man who takes by force what wasn’t offered will wish Briggs’ saw was the worst thing waitin’ for him."
Mackerel Jim whistled from atop his crate.
"Fine rule, Cap’n. I can’t wait to see the lads cry themselves to sleep after a rejection."
A few men laughed, mostly because nobody could honestly argue with him.
"What now?"
"Oh, aye."
Jim said, nodding with great seriousness. "Saw it happen once in Tortuga. A man spent twenty years buildin’ a reputation as the most feared bastard on the island, only for one woman to call him little boy and reduce him to a crying mess behind a tavern."
The crowd laughed.
"That happened?"
"Could’ve been worse."
Jim continued. "I knew another fellow who got rejected like that, but that time she called his prick little."
That earned a louder reaction.
Briggs finally spoke from beside the stone.
"If any man here forgets this rule, he can come see me."
He tapped the side of the saw.
"I’ll explain it to him until he understands."
That earned a few uneasy laughs.
"Aye, and maybe explain it to the whorehouse while ye’re at it!"
Some brave soul called hiding from farther back. "We built the finest one in the Caribbean and still haven’t found a woman willing to work there!"
That sent the crowd into another round of laughter.
"Finest empty building in Nassau."
"Spent all that timber just to store dust."
"Could’ve built another tavern."
Even Bonnet, standing near the front in his immaculate coat, looked away for a moment before clearing his throat.
"A remarkably strange problem to have created for oneself,"
The pirates only laughed harder.
Sawyer waited for the noise to settle before he carved the rule.
When he finished, he brushed the stone dust from the letters and lifted his eyes back toward James.
The next rule was waiting.