Chapter 144: Democracy, Yet Flawed
The shimmer finished taking form before James had done blinking, and the first of three displays appeared above the stone.
⚓ [ALLIED TERRITORY — CONCORDIA]
Faction : None (Independent)
Status : Pirate Democracy (Flawed)
Population : Approximately 470 (Civilians and Sailors)
Stability : Vaguely Stabilized
Harbor : Sheltered Bay, Protected by Reefs, Large Wooden Pier
Major Facilities : the Code, Residential Quarter, Sailors’ Quarter, Farmland
Faction Status : Chairman (Vague Mandate)
Perks : [No King But the Sea]
The second followed so quickly there hardly seemed any point in calling it separate.
🏴 [BAY OVERVIEW — CONCORDIA]
Resources : Timber (Abundant), Stone (Limited), Fresh Water (Reliable), Food (Self-Sufficient)
Infrastructure : Careening Cradle, Freshwater Cistern, Raised Timber Storehouse, Large Wooden Pier, Large Tavern with Satellite Houses, Large Cookhouse, Brothel (Staffed), Sawpit, Stoneworks, Distillery, Residential Quarter, Sailors’ Quarter, Farmland, Fisherman’s Dock, Hunting Camp, the Code
Development : Harbor and residential core fully established. Farmland and hunting camp now self-sufficient. Expansion continuing toward the ridge and the hardwood grove.
The third came last. It was longer than the others, less a summary than a proper inventory.
🏴 [AVAILABLE CONSTRUCTION — CONCORDIA]
Beacon Network
Purpose : A chain of beacons, marker posts, and navigation lights to guide ships safely through the channels into the bay, even in poor weather or after dark
Materials : Stone, Hardwood Timber, Pitch, Iron Braziers
Labor : 20-30 Hands
Construction Time : 4-6 Weeks
Overseer : Experienced Navigator Required
Shipwright’s Yard
Purpose : A proper slipway, hauling cradle, and repair sheds where damaged ships can be hauled ashore, rebuilt, recalked, re-rigged, and returned to sea after suffering heavy damage
Materials : Hardwood Timber, Iron Fittings, Pitch
Labor : 25-35 Hands
Construction Time : 8-10 Weeks
Overseer : Sawyer Required
Assembly Forum
Purpose : A raised public meeting place surrounding the Code where the settlement may gather to debate, hold votes, hear disputes, and conduct common business
Materials : Stone, Hardwood Timber
Labor : 15-20 Hands
Construction Time : 3-4 Weeks
Overseer : Any Capable Hand
That was all.
No clever remark from the voice, nor dry little jab. Not even some smug comment about another successful experiment. Just the facts, laid out neat as book entries, leaving the thinking to him.
He started with the last display. It seemed the easiest place to begin.
A beacon network made good sense. The reefs kept strangers out well enough, but they could just as easily claim friends. Better to have your own ships threading the channels by fire and marker than trusting every captain to remember the way in.
Then the shipwright’s yard, an even bigger step. Up until now they’d been relying on Nassau to keep the lasses afloat, but this would let them drag in ships that ought to have sunk, rebuild them nicely, and put them back to sea.
Then there was the assembly forum. Some place built around the Code itself where the settlement could gather to argue instead of drinking. That alone felt like a novelty worth seeing.
More than any of it, though, what caught his eye was the way it had been presented.
The voice wasn’t pushing him what to build anymore.
Before it’d have thrown something in front of him and expected him to get on with it, but now it felt more like a merchant laying his best wares across the counter.
Have a look if you please.
Buy something if it suits you.
Walk away if it doesn’t.
Though, if he was being honest, the difference only went so far.
He’d already learned what happened when his ideas escaped into the open. If he mentioned they could use a new lighthouse in the wrong tavern, by sundown forty men would be hauling stone, whether he’d meant it as an order or had only been thinking out loud.
His words had weight now.
That wasn’t something he’d asked for, but asking hadn’t entered into it.
His eyes drifted back to the first display.
Flawed.
That one word sat there plain as a nail driven into fresh timber.
The voice wasn’t much given to compliments, but it wasn’t in the habit of handing out insults for sport, either. He had carved a town out of empty wilderness in weeks, and still it looked at the government that kept it together and called it flawed.
James couldn’t say it was wrong.
Only that morning he’d watched a crowd decide the fate of four men by shouting louder than the fellow beside them. He’d seen the first crack plain enough.
Some farmer standing shoulder to shoulder with armed pirates, living in a town they’d built and led, wasn’t always very fond to give his own opinion when he shouted for mercy or for the gallows. Most of the time he was trying to guess what everyone else wanted him to say, then shouting it loud enough that nobody would mistake him for disagreeing.
Fear is an easy thing to dress up as conviction.
He’d watched it happen from atop the stone, where he could see the whole crowd.
That wasn’t even the worst of it.
There was nothing between that fear and the sentence, no process beyond a great many voices trying to outshout one another.
That morning he’d managed to serve as prosecutor, judge, and executioner before breakfast. The crowd had been thirsty for blood before he’d even finished naming the charges.
The rapist received exactly what the Code promised in Briggs’s own words.
The two murderers who’d drowned a man and buried the truth with him earned what the law plainly called for.
The thief came close to lose more than the law allowed. The crowd, warmed by executions already, wanted his wrist nailed to a block and a blade driven through it. The only thing standing between that fellow and the loss of his hand had been James saying no.
A law wasn’t worth carving into stone if every angry crowd got to carve away another piece whenever its temper rose.
Three verdicts.
Every one of them happened to be right, not because the system worked, but because the crimes had all been plain enough that they scarcely needed arguing over.
That was just lucky justice.
Concordia had never been meant for this.
It was supposed to be a place to run home to, some chill harbor tucked behind reefs where a pirate could patch his hull, take on water, and vanish back into the sea before anybody wiser caught wind of him.
But due his actions it had become a town instead.
There were houses now, fields, children chasing chickens through the streets and people putting down roots whether they’d planned to or not.
And every bit of it was supported by James Calloway’s name and whatever fear still clung to that name whenever somebody thought about crossing it.
If he sailed away tomorrow and never returned, if a Spanish sword, an English rope, or plain old bad luck at sea finally caught him the way all three had been trying to for months, what happened then?
Nothing held this place together except him, there was no council, no succession.
Just one man’s reputation standing between a thriving settlement and several hundred frightened people discovering how quickly neighbors could become enemies.
And that was before he counted the letter he found, about how powerful men in London already had their eyes on the Bahamas, and on the ruins that coincidentally neighbored his little haven.
James laughed under his breath.
It had more embarrassment than amusement.
There’d been a time, when he’d drowned one life and started another, when he’d promised himself he’d never again be tied down by anything that could be taken from him. No obligations, dependents or some place that mattered enough to keep him awake at night.
Now he found himself fretting over fields, frightened voters, and royal seals as though he’d been born to the business.
"Well," he muttered. "That’s a fine joke."
He raised a hand and slapped himself across the cheek.
It stung nicely.
Every now and then, one sharp sting did more good than half an hour of brooding.
"Right then."
He rubbed at his cheek.
"Enough."
Whether he’d wanted it or not hardly mattered anymore.
The town existed.
The people existed.
The problem existed.
Ignoring any one of the three wasn’t going to make the others disappear.
If Concordia was going to keep growing, it needed to be sturdier than one captain’s word pretending to be a government.
Tomorrow he’d bring together voices from every part of the settlement.
Spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Freedmen, Sailors, Pirates.
Anybody who’d chosen to make this place home deserved a say in what became of it next.
With that, James climbed down from the stone, already putting tomorrow’s work into some kind of idea as he walked away from the crossroads for the second time that day.