Chapter 146: The Rowdy Constabulary
The question hung over the table a moment, and you could almost watch it split into four different questions before it reached four different heads.
Adrienne folded her arms first, her chair scraping a little as she eased back from the table.
"You mean soldiers."
There wasn’t a trace of doubt in it. "A garrison, men with muskets telling folk who gets to walk after dark and who don’t."
That took some of the heat out of the room. The memory behind those words sat plain enough on her face that nobody felt much inclined to ask where she’d learned it.
Fenwick rubbed the back of his neck, turning the matter over in his own fashion. "Or d’ye mean a constable? Fellow walks the streets o’ nights, checks folk’ve barred their doors, pulls apart a pair o’ drunks before they finish what they started?"
Mateo smiled before he’d quite thought whether he ought to.
"Like the Guarda Costa, Captain?"
The smile was gone almost in an instant, and he lifted one hand as if he could catch the words before anybody else heard them.
"Perhaps... not exactly like the Guarda Costa."
Nobody needed that explained. Spaniard or otherwise, every soul there knew what that name meant in any harbor from Havana clear to Nassau.
Isaiah didn’t try to answer at all. "Before I tell you who should serve, Captain, I should like to know what it is you are asking for. What do you mean by ’watch’? Say that plainly, and then I can tell you what I think."
James spread his hands.
"Truth is, you’ve each got a piece of it, and none of you have the whole."
He looked around the table before going on. "We’re pushin’ five hundred souls now, and still growin’ faster than any of us imagined back when this was nothin’ but empty coastline. None of us wants Concordia endin’ up another Nassau, where the strongest man, or the quickest with a blade, decides every argument. Trouble is, we’ve not built anythin’ yet to stand between folk and that."
Fenwick’s eyebrows rose before he answered. "Aye... but who’s keepin’ watch on yer constable when he decides he’d fancy somebody else’s land? Had a landlord’s bailiff throw me off fields I’d worked twenty years, and not one man in the parish dared call it theft where he could hear."
Mateo took up the thought, though there wasn’t much anger left in his voice. "I have watched officials with a badge and a sword decide who owns what, and the answer always favors the man wearing the badge. Give men here that very badge, Captain, and how long before the answer starts favoring them too?"
Adrienne didn’t wait for anyone to invite her in. "You want my honest answer? I watched men in uniform choose who lived and who didn’t, then I buried what they left behind. Forgive me if I’m slow to hand that kind of power to another pack of armed men because this time they’re carrying your flag instead of some kingdom."
Isaiah waited until the others were finished.
When he finally spoke, the room listened in a way it hadn’t managed through the rest of the discussion. "Me and many others belonged to men once who said everything they did was for our own good, even those who beat us."
His eyes never left James. "You ask us to trust armed men again, Captain. Only this time I am meant to believe these are different. That is no small thing to ask, and I would have you understand that before we go farther."
Nobody hurried to answer him and James let the silence stay where it was. It deserved better than being talked over.
"I know."
He said at last. "And trustin’ blind was never what I wanted. What I’m askin’ is for you to help me build somethin’ that earns trust instead of demandin’ it."
He put his hands on the table. "But I don’t reckon that means handin’ the job to the same men forever. The ships crews already stand watches and take their turn, I don’t see why the town should be any different."
Fenwick rubbed his chin. "Aye, that I can hear. No man grows a crown just because he’s got a lantern in his hand."
Mateo gave a small nod. "And if the duty turns over often enough, the town can pull it back out of any man’s fingers before he gets ideas."
Fenwick snorted. "That’ll do better than hiring a pack o’ bullies and hoping they remember where they came from."
Adrienne tilted her head, considering it a moment. "And what of the man who joins this watch? Is he always a sailor? What happens when there isn’t a ship in port, or a crew at the docks to spare him?"
James nodded once. "Then the Assembly takes volunteers from the town and sorts it out as need changes. Some weeks it’ll be more sailors, some weeks more town folk and we can shift it as we learn what works and what doesn’t. No reason to tie it down harder than that before we’ve even seen it breathe."
Fenwick clicked his tongue. "Aye. And no man ought to hold the job so long he starts thinkin’ it belongs to him. Month at most, I’d say. Maybe less."
Isaiah thought on that for a long while, fingers steepled before him. "Then I have one condition, Captain, and if you grant it I can accept the rest. If a man standing the watch abuses his place, this assembly judges him exactly as it would any other citizen who broke faith with Concordia."
James barely needed to think.
"Done."
After that, there wasn’t much argument left.
"As for who’s actually standin’ the watch, that’s another day’s business."
James looked around the table. "Cudjoe deserves his say first. The Rose and the Fortune are both short-handed already, and I’ll not strip my own decks bare to fill the streets."
Whitlock finished another line without lifting his head. "Noted, Captain. The city watch answers to the assembly and recruitment is postponed until a later sitting."
James let out a long breath. Some of the weight he’d carried all morning finally eased.
"Right then. Next."
He looked around the table. "Folk’ve put houses wherever they fancied drivin’ a post, and roads’ve appeared wherever enough boots happened to wear down the grass. Keep that up much longer and we’ll wake one mornin’ discoverin’ we’ve built ourselves a smaller, uglier Nassau, which is exactly what we’ve spent all day tryin’ not to do."
Fenwick leaned forward before anybody else had the chance. "Whatever comes of it, Captain, keep clear o’ the fields. Give it another season and there won’t be enough farmland left worth callin’ a farm."
Adrienne slowly shook her head. "Too many houses close together burn together, monsieur. I have watched one roof catch fire and carry four more with it before anyone had the sense to tear down a wall and stop it. Leave space, streets wide enough for a man to run carrying a child instead of squeezing through sideways."
Mateo took a moment, glancing toward the harbor beyond the tavern walls.
"I would not build one town, Captain. I would build many."
He nodded toward the bay. "The reefs already hide this bay from strangers who do not know the channel. Let them do the same for us, with small clusters of homes spread among the safe waters. Close enough to fish, and far enough apart that one fire, or one quarrel, does not swallow everyone at once."
Isaiah asked the last question, and somehow it was the first one that truly mattered. "And who decides which family receives which land? Those who arrived first and already know everyone? Or will there be a fair way for those of us still learning where we belong?"
Nobody had an answer ready for that one.
So the afternoon rolled on around the question instead, four different ideas facing one another while Whitlock’s quill rested for once above the page, with nothing to write until they found the answer.