Chapter 108: And the Most Distinguished Gentlemen in Nassau
The Drowned Rat swallowed the four of them, the noise inside crashing down like a wave before any could adjust to the dim light. Every bench was packed beyond reason, mugs slammed onto tables between curses that nobody seemed interested in ending.
"Calloway!"
"Come to throw yer hat in with the rest of the vultures, or just come to stare at the carcass?"
James grinned without breaking stride. "I came for the rum! The chair can wait its turn like every other bloody fool in this room."
"Thatch’s with him!"
"The mad bastard himself!"
"Still callin’ that rotten tub a warship, Thatch? Thought the sea would’ve dragged the ugly cunt under outta pity."
Thatch never slowed. "She’d have to choke on the likes of you first. Keep barkin’, and she’ll piss yer bones onto the beach before supper."
Cudjoe and Caesar cut open a path through the thickest part of the crowd, and the four of them reached the bar without much trouble.
Meg stood behind the counter, polishing a cup that had been clean for some time. Her hair was pinned back, and James noticed at once that her face looked leaner than the last time he’d seen her.
"You’re thinner."
He let one elbow rest on the counter.
"Some bastard starvin’ you, or is that Nassau’s own doing?"
"Nassau’s doing."
She poured him a cup without waiting to be asked. "Everybody’s too busy fighting to remember they’re supposed to eat."
The cup slid across the worn counter. "You’re wanted upstairs. They’re all waiting already, and I doubt any of them have patience left for a man who wanders in late."
"And you? Anybody givin’ you trouble nowadays?"
"Nobody’s stupid enough."
"Aye. Good, keep it that way."
He emptied the rum in a single swallow and set the cup back on the bar.
The stairs brought them above the roar of the tavern into a gallery stretched across the upper floor, open on one side to the waterfront. There were a few round tables and chairs around.
Below, Nassau spread beneath them in a jumble of weathered rooftops and narrow streets, hemmed in by palms and thick green brush that pressed against the town wherever men hadn’t yet driven it back.
The gallery was already crowded.
Lesser captains and quartermasters lingered near the walls and by the railing, content to watch rather than wedge themselves into the competition. Nobody had given them a spot, but nobody needed to. The men whose opinions had the most weight had drifted together before James arrived, leaving everyone else to circle the edges.
Among them, James spotted a handful of familiar faces.
Ashworth was near one end, still insisting to anyone willing to listen that piracy had become little more than a side occupation for him. Winter kept to himself, watching the room with patience. Fernando appeared to be complaining with nobody in particular over whose legal problem this business truly was.
Behind James, Caesar stopped beside the stairhead, folded his arms, and silently became part of the doorway.
The conversations started to fade one by one as soon as James stepped onto the gallery.
For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
Henry Jennings broke it.
Some dozen reputations crowded the gallery, each loud enough to command a deck. Here, they gave way by inches instead of inches of steel, yielding the floor with the reluctant instinct wolves gave the largest beast at the carcass.
"My, my. Calloway actually graces us with his ugly mug."
He spread his hands, the rings flashing in the fading light. "That usually means trouble, or ambition, or both. So speak plain, mate. You here to chew the cud, or to show us all how badly ye want the prize?"
James walked forward.
The captains that lingered near the table drifted aside without a word, letting him pass more from instinct and caution than courtesy. He never slowed, never looked at them, walking straight through the men as though it’d been the expected reaction.
"Funny hearin’ that from the man who kept his head down till Hornigold was out of the way."
He sat on an empty chair. "Now ye’re struttin’ round like a cock on a fence, hopin’ somebody mistakes the noise for leadership."
Thatch shouldered one captain aside hard enough to spill him into another, then hooked a chair with his boot and dragged it across the planks. He dropped into it with enough force to make the legs complain, then sprawled back like he’d just claimed a quarterdeck.
"Oh, shut yer fuckin’ gob, Jennings."
He leaned back as though the room belonged to him. "You spend so much time listenin’ to yerself talk I’m surprised ye’ve any breath left to sail a ship. Save the strut till somebody’s daft enough to follow ye."
A bark of laughter escaped through the crowd.
Before Jennings could answer, another man broke away from the railing.
James knew him at once.
Charles Vane had the sort of presence that seemed to drag the room toward him whether anyone wanted it or not. He moved with a loose, dangerous ease, as though he had never once in his life been forced to hurry for another man’s sake.
The sea had bleached his hair nearly to the tone of old rope, and his beard had gone thick and untamed around a face that looked one bad decision away from a fight. His coat hung open, his shirt looked half-buttoned, and even standing still he gave the impression he was halfway through starting trouble.
"Christ Almighty, would ye listen to this shite?"
Vane threw his head back with a laugh that had no amusement in it. "A pack o’ hard cases standin’ round flappin’ their gums like a gaggle o’ pissy old whores. One cunt mouths off, another cunt mouths back, then the first cunt puffs his chest out like he’s won the bloody war. If I’d wanted to spend the evenin’ listenin’ to bitches scratch at each other, I’d have stayed down in the tavern and watched two drunks fight over whose mother sucked cock for cheaper."
A ripple of laughter rolled around the gallery. Even men who’d been glowering at one another couldn’t quite keep straight faces, while Jennings’ expression soured by the heartbeat.
Vane looked from one captain to the next, grinning like a shark that had scented blood, plainly enjoying that he’d managed to insult every bastard in the room at once.
"If this is how ye plan to pick who runs Nassau, then fuck me, let’s stop pretendin’ it’s a council. Kick the tables over, clear a space in the street, and let every prick who fancies himself governor beat seven shades o’ shit outta the rest. Last bastard still breathin’ gets the bloody rock."
The laughter lingered for a few moments before it vanished, the room back into the wary silence that had hung over it since James arrived. Whatever amusement Vane had bought them, it hadn’t changed why they were there.
Farther down the table, a slim man in a dark coat watched the exchange with detached amusement, more interested in the men than their quarrel. A black silk patch covered one eye, while the other watched James with cool patience.
"Mon dieu."
Levasseur murmured without looking up, "Must every conversation in this room begin with a threat? I have no interest in this fight, only in those that can benefit me. If that man is you, alors, we shall speak again."
Near the far end of the gallery, a heavier man dabbed constantly at his brow with a handkerchief that had since given up any hope of staying dry. His hair had been neatly combed across a bald patch, and despite the evening breeze drifting in from the sea, sweat still beaded near his temples and soaked his coat.
"I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to settle things with fists."
Burgess kept his eyes away from everyone else’s. "We’ve enough trouble without turnin’ Nassau into another Port Royal. One good brawl between the likes of you lot, and there won’t be a tavern, warehouse, or wharf left standin’ by mornin’."
No one bothered to answer Burgess. The thought to resolve the impasse with fists, steel or ships lingered for a moment before dying the simple death it deserved. One by one, the captains’ attention drifted elsewhere, until at last a younger man pushed himself away from the railing.
His dark hair was tied back and his clothes were plainer than those of any captain there. He stood taller than most of the men around the table, broad in the shoulders without carrying the thick build of a brawler. There was a youthful sharpness still left in his face that many pirates had since lost, though the sun and sea had already carved enough weather into his features to remind anyone that he’d earned his place aboard a quarterdeck.
Samuel Bellamy carried himself with an easy, unforced confidence, the sort that needed neither a raised voice nor a lavish coat to command attention.
He watched the room with interest, and of everyone on the gallery, he looked the least interested in leadership and the most interested to see who proved worthy of it.
Eventually, he gaze stopped on James. A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, as though he’d finally found the man he’d been waiting to hear from.
"Now that our star’s finally felt to grace us with his company, I’ve a proposition."
His voice washed easily across the gallery, calm enough that nobody had to strain to hear it.
"We’ve spent the better part of an hour barkin’ at one another like kennel dogs, and I reckon we’ve all had our fill of that. Hornigold’s gone. I saw to that myself, there’s no old man left standin’ over our shoulders coughin’ every time somebody mentions an English sail."
He let his eyes travel around the table. "So instead of fightin’ over who gets to warm a bloody chair, why don’t we talk about work? Britain’s merchants have been sailin’ these waters fat and happy because one stubborn bastard spent months tellin’ Nassau to leave ’em be. I say we remind ’em that time’s over."
The gallery stirred at once. A few captains answered with grunts of approval, others exchanged wary looks, while more than one voice muttered that the idea had been overdue since Hornigold first sailed away. Not everyone liked it, but nobody dismissed it outright.
Jennings pushed himself to his feet, plainly determined to pull the assembly back into his hands.
"Right then."
He spread his hands once more, his rings catching the last rays of sunlight through the open gallery.
"Lets actually talk some fucking business."