Blue Dread

By Richard Quarry

Do you thrill to tales of pirate treasure, ringing cutlasses, broadsides cutting through the salt breeze, and do-or-die romance? Come aboard aboard HMS Cygnet as she blazes a bloody course into the Golden Age of Piracy.

Desperate to escape the vengeance of London's notorious Hellfire Club, high society courtesan Meg Eaton marries Elias Bramwell, bosun aboard a British frigate. The rough seaman holds less allure for her than the prospect of a quick and safe passage to India. But when mutineers condemn Elias and the other officers to certain death in a leaky boat a thousand miles from land, Meg must fend for herself.

She wins a temporary reprieve with the promise of treasure buried on a remote island by the notorious pirate Ben Ringgold. But the treasure exists only in a sea tale Elias once heard during a long night watch.

Now pirates, the crew tell Meg that Elias cannot possibly survive the sea, nor find his way without chart or quadrant. Yet no other hope remains.

Wielding both her knowledge of men and a ready cutlass, Meg plays the pirates against each other, buying time as they descend ever further into savagery. But the treasure island draws close, and with it a reckoning even greater than she can know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Quarry
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201704582

Book preview

Chapter 1

Indian Ocean, 1722

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The frigate rolled broadside to the long Southern Ocean swells. The mutineers had loosed the sheets to spill the wind, and with no heel to steady her, Cygnet’s rigging groaned in a rising and falling pitch as she topped each crest and swung down, lazy as a hanged man.

Howling sailors staggered across the deck in powdered wigs, laced ruffs, and brightly colored waistcoats looted from the officers’ quarters. Others had already broken into Meg’s sea chest and capered about clutching her shifts and petticoats and both good dresses, talking in high mincing voices in imitation of the whores that were the only women many had spoken to in years.

Meg struggled to reach her husband. The two seamen holding her arms only bore down tighter, their callused fingers pinching like shards of flint through the thin linen of her dress.

The mutineers were either already drunk or getting there fast. Broken-necked bottles of wine from Captain Warrington’s private cupboard passed among grabbing hands. Glazed eyes and bloody mouths marked the liquor’s passage until with savage oaths the mutineers hurled the empty bottles against the sacred teak decks they’d been forced to holystone to a mirror finish.

Jabbing with cutlasses and boarding pikes, a pack of men led by Oliver Tench forced Elias Bramwell, Meg’s husband, against the main shrouds. Cries of "death, death, death!" surrounded him.

Elias kept his gaze steady on Meg.

With nothing to be gained by struggling, Meg tried to match her husband’s outward display of calm. Show nothing, commanded an inner voice she’d acquired in a very hard school. Whatever happens, show nothing. You can rob these beasts of that satisfaction, at least.

Oliver Tench stuck the point of his cutlass against Elias’ throat. Sunlight glinted off the blade. A thin line of blood trickled down.

No! Meg cried, despite her resolve.

The shouting died down. Canvas rippled idly overhead. Meg heard the cutter holding Captain Warrington and the other castaways thud against the frigate’s side.

Time me and you squared yards, Tench told Elias.

At last moving his gaze from Meg, Elias stared at the man holding a sword to his throat. He showed no expression at all.

Tench!

Abel Shorrock shoved through the sailors, cutlass in one hand and a dirk in the other. I said no killing. I’ll hold you to that.

Slowly Tench turned, not taking his sword from Elias’ throat. Tall and spider-limbed, he glared out from a hard-angled face crimson as Satan’s from sun and strong emotion. His eyes showed momentarily white, and he shivered. Anticipating the clash of blades, the enclosing wall of seamen shuffled back. But Tench slowly lowered his sword.

T’would be but a mercy at that. Very well, let him go with the others.

Meg sagged and would have fallen but for the grip on her arms.

Tench thrust his face close to Elias. But hark to me now. When your tongue turns black and pushes out of your mouth like a man dancing the hempen jig, when your eyes weep blood ‘cause the water’s all been wrung out of ‘em, when you’re beggin’ God for mercy and all he sends is sun and salt and more sun still, till all the fires of hell would be but a fond cuddle besides ….

He swung his cutlass toward Meg. "Then think on her. Here. With us. With me."

He struck his chest with the hilt. Aye, there’s a picture for you to treasure. Clap hard onto it, and curse the moment I didn’t cut your moorings for you right here and now.

As if he hadn’t heard, Elias looked past him to Abel Shorrock.

Shorrock lowered his eyes, shamed. Go while you can, he said. I’ll protect her.

Contempt flashed briefly across Elias’ face. Then nothing. He turned, and seizing a tar-blackened shroud, vaulted up atop the bulwark.

A moan squeezed out of her. He could not leave her thus! Knowing that to stay a second longer would bring about his death, and likely the massacre of the men in the cutter as well, Meg still could not believe that Elias, so strong, so loyal, so trustworthy, could abandon her.

Standing on the bulkhead rail, one hand gripping the shrouds, he looked toward her.

Keep yourself, he said. Stay alive. Have no care of anything else. Just live, and meet me at that place where peace passeth understanding. I shall come to you there. I swear it. Where peace passeth understanding, he repeated, stressing each word. Be there for me.

What did he mean? What peace, where? The peace of death? Then why urge her to live? Fear scattered her thoughts like spindrift.

Promise, he insisted, and for the first time she heard all the tension and heartbreak he’d kept hidden squeezing through his voice.

Alone. Alone here, with all these men. If only she could die, right this minute, she would ask no mercy else.

His strong face, tanned and weathered, stared in open appeal. Where peace passeth understanding, he told her yet again. There we will meet once more.

The cry of "death, death!" began to sound, sullen and eager.

As I promise, so must you, he insisted. "Promise me."

She couldn’t understand. Couldn’t think.

I promise.

But what had she just promised? And how was she to fulfill it?

Elias watched her a moment longer. Then gave a tight nod, and stepping down onto the chains, swung out of sight into the cutter below.

Such were their goodbyes.

Meg swayed, and realized she’d stopped breathing.

For mercy’s sake, shipmates, came a voice from the cutter. This is cold murder. I can see water working in already. At least give us the launch.

It’s true, Abel Shorrock told Tench. The cutter is nailsick and unsound. She can’t swim far. Let them have the launch.

You’re going soft as a crab in molt, Tench retorted. They can bail out a bit of sea, can’t they? And we’ll have need of the launch ourselves.

Men shouted out for one side or the other, but many more, and much louder, against mercy than for.

Hear me, shipmates! Abel called above the din. Have you no feeling for a fellow-creature? We’ve cast off the tyrant’s rule, and put ourselves beyond pardon. But we know ourselves for decent men. Men, I say! Let us not howl like dogs for blood we’ve no need to spill.

They’ve had mercy enough and more! Spittle flew from Tench’s lips. Reversing his grip on his cutlass, he drove the blade into the glowingly polished teak so hard the steel quivered and hummed. He ripped off his blouse and tossing it aside, turned to show his back to the crew. All took in the dense cross-hatching of scabs, some still cracked and oozing.

Feast your eyes, shipmates! There’s many of you, aye, too many by far, who can show the same. Elias Bramwell, his mark. Captain Warrington gave the order, and the bosun laid on with a will.

Swiveling back about, Tench pointed at Meg. Her fancy-man.

All eyes surveyed her, roving up and down.

And now Bramwell and Warrington beg for the launch, do they? Well, they’re seamen, or make claim to be. Let the sea be their judge. Or should we sail them clear back to Execution Dock, and fit the halter around our own necks? Is that the mercy Shorrock would have of us?

Sullen mutters signaled the men’s mood.

"As for justice, Tench went on, Long Meg here can do justice on her back for the scars her husband carved into ours."

Whoops and stamps broke out.

"Long Meg! Give us the mort!"

But if it’s mercy you’d grant, Tench told Shorrock mockingly, why, far be it from me to say ye nay. Nails! he shouted. And a maul to drive ‘em with. Cheerly, there!

One of the seamen ran to the foot of the mainmast, where the carpenter’s chest had been broken open to get at the hand-axes and cutlasses stored there. Pulling forth a double-headed carpenter’s maul and a stout bag of white canvas, the sailor trotted back and handed them to Tench, who raised them overhead.

Here’s mercy then, shipmates, as our Abel is so tender of. Nailsick, is she? Well when the nails give out, here’s new ones to drive in their place.

Abel tried to protest, but laughter and jeers drowned him out. As he bellowed at the men and knocked several down with the hilt of his cutlass, his mates closed in around him and hustled him off belowdecks before the hands rose up against him.

So much for the man who claimed he’d protect her.

As the sailors holding her reached for the same passing bottle at once, Meg finally managed to jerk free. She ran to the bulkhead, her sea-legs gone stiff and ungainly with fear. She pushed in among the men crowding along the rail. Strong emotions had turned the smell of their sweat bitter as blood.

As she looked over the rail the last hope left her. Sixteen men sat pressed in close against a welter of casks, oars, ropes, grapnels, furled canvas, and the unstepped mast. Already three of the banished men plied bailing cans as the overladen craft’s gunnels tipped close to within a hand’s breadth of the ocean at each sway. The seamen’s expressions had turned to stone; those of the landsmen and the red coated marines were pried wide with unshielded horror to see the water lap so close.

Promise or no, Elias sailed to his death.

He’d taken up position in the stern, hand on the tiller. Forward of him in the sternsheets sat Captain Warrington, slumped and clutching a broken shoulder from where the mizzen topyard had come down on him in a mass of rope, canvas, and splinters, setting off the mutiny. He appeared gray as death, and in his helplessness much younger than Meg could ever have imagined of the tyrant who bred such hatred and fear.

Elias looked up at her. Still he allowed no emotion to cross his face.

The place where peace passeth understanding.

Where? Oh Elias, where?

Pushing in beside her, Tench hoisted the maul and the bag of nails.

Here, he called down. And I wish you joy of ‘em. He flung the bag of nails down into the cutter.

I shall come to you there.

And she’d promised to meet him. But it could not be in this world. The ocean bore claim on Elias, and her own fate pressed hard upon her.

And yet as she and Elias reached toward each other with their eyes, for all his iron-bound expression Meg sensed a hidden yet desperate plea to her to keep her promise.

I’ll try, she thought. Oh my love, I will try, with all that’s in me. But how?

Tench tossed the maul contemptuously. Elias plucked it one-handed from the air. He stared at Tench a moment, stroking the maul as if it were a cat. Now Meg saw another, much different promise in his look. But he said not a word.

Setting the maul down on the thwart, Elias braced the tiller under his arm.

Cast loose, he ordered. Men untied the falls coming down from the main and fore yards. Slowly the cutter slid away from the frigate’s curving tumblehome.

Out oars.

The long oars, twice a man’s height, were shoved out, not without some awkwardness in the crowded boat.

Now give way together. Elias’ voice sounded steady, but so terribly grim. Pull!

The oars dipped down and the men grunted against the strain of that first hard pull.

Shove in, lads.

Slowly the narrow craft drew away. Meg watched it rise and fall on the swell. Her hands ached from their death-grip on the rail.

She gave a jerk as fingers ran through her hair. Tench leaned close. He was still bare-chested. His lips brushed her ear.

Long Meg, he purred.

Chapter 2

Meg Eaton had no intention of marrying Elias Bramwell, whatever her father and mother might wish. Had no intention of marrying at all, thank you very much. And certainly not some ship’s Pipes.

She first met him on one of her visits to her daughter Hannah. Her parents’ house, stuck near the far end of a pinched and shadowed Wapping side-street known for some long-forgotten reason as Bluegate Fields, stood tall and penny thin, a tilting brickpile squeezed in among rows of similar structures all rickety as a stack of cups. Most contained the families of warrant officers absent at sea, or lieutenants tossed on the beach at the end of Queen Anne’s War, and not likely to find another berth till the next.

Men like Horace Eaton, sailing master. Or after thirty-six years in the Sea Service, two wars, several disfiguring and partially crippling wounds, and the loss of both his sons at sea, sailing master as was.

So if her father scorned the way Meg got her living, he’d do well to remember that it was her labors kept a roof over his head, food on the table, and gin — too much gin — in his jolly-faced Toby mug.

That day as Meg entered she heard male laughter booming from the parlor. The sound grated against places still raw inside her.

Your father’s entertaining, said Bridget, the Eatons’ sole remaining maid, as she took Meg’s hooded mantle. A seafaring man.

So I can hear. One would think the ocean a place of constant tumult, from the unremitting shouts of those who plied it.

"He’s that handsome," Bridget sighed.

Is Hannah awake?

Bridget stooped to take off the pattens covering Meg’s black leather shoes. She’s upstairs with Mrs. Eaton.

Meg started down the hall, only to step straight into the beckoning arm of her father as he emerged from the parlor.

Meg, my precious, he said with an overflowing liquid smile. Come and meet the finest seaman I ever shipped ‘longside of.

That precious gave him away. Ever since she first confessed her pregnancy, burning with shame, she’d felt her father’s resentment like a stake through her heart. Such an unwonted show of affection could only mean he hoped to make an honest woman of her yet.

As Meg suffered herself to be dragged into the parlor, her intended rose with the seaman’s ingrained habit of casting a quick look overhead for low beams. At his height he’d have learned caution early. Accustomed to looking on a level into men’s eyes, or often down, Meg found herself tilting her chin up toward a broad, strong-jawed face, nut brown from the sun.

"Meg, meet Elias Bramwell. We shipped together in Agamemnon, her father chimed with a horse dealer’s heartiness. Elias, dear fellow, my daughter Margaret. Ain’t she pretty as I said?"

Just so, and more. The visitor bowed low in a sweeping, graceful gesture. But the unrelaxed tautness of his eyes marked a man generally more concerned to notice than to please. Miss Eaton. An honor.

Bridget might swoon over the newcomer’s looks, but that square-rigged chin, the forehead bluff as a three-decker, and cheekbones like a cutwater were all a trifle rough-hewn for Meg’s taste. A golden slash from a sword-stroke or flying splinter ran down the left side of his black hair, which he wore clubbed. She tried to judge his age, a task rendered difficult by the crow’s-feet that constant staring into sun and salt etched into the faces of those who kept the sea. Thirty, or forty, or anything between.

But it was his eyes, a piercing shade of blue glaring bright as the noon sun off London Pool, that unsettled her.

Meg made her living, and a good one it was, as much by reading men’s eyes as shedding her clothes. Some shone with puppy-like eagerness. Some affected an insufferable haughtiness, relying on title or wealth to overshadow any shortcomings as a man. Some were frankly alarmed, some gleefully naughty, some close to pleading. Some eyes were vicious as a gamekeeper’s dog, a few actually bored, and far too many disdainful.

But always their eyes cast a lantern light on their real wants, so often hidden even from themselves. And it was by leading them to those wants, all the while seeming to follow, that Meg kept her patrons coming back to the Golden Hind calling for Pretty Peggy, and damn the cost.

Elias Bramwell’s eyes fixed on her with a spyglass intensity. She saw him weigh each detail of her, not undressing her in his imagination like so many men, but staring straight past the shield of her carefully composed features, seeking her heart.

Much good might it do him, for that organ held naught but ashes. And peer as he might, Meg had vowed that no man would ever see past her skin so long as she lived.

Pleased, Mr. Bramwell, she said curtly.

He furled the intensity of his gaze behind a genial smile. But for one fingersnap of a moment Meg had the impression of an over-strained capstan when the pawl shatters and the bars, suddenly spinning backward, hurl men far and wide.

So this was the price her father set her at. Meg had supposed her parents would at least try to palm her off on some junior officer, a lieutenant with no patrons at Admiralty to promote him far enough for his wife’s past to haunt him. But Bramwell’s palms and fingers, horny-hard from rope and canvas, those muscled legs swelling like smoked hams above breeches tied, not buckled, above the knee, that neck corded as a hawser, marked him as no officer, but a man of his hands.

So very kind of you, she declared, "an old shipmate come by to visit dear papa. Tell me, sir. Aboard the Agamemnon were you by any chance … bosun?"

Bramwell raised one thick black eyebrow. You’ve keen perception, Miss Eaton.

My father has taught me something of the sea.

Marry her off to some brute who stalked the decks beating sailors with a rope’s-end just to make the captain feel like God almighty, would they? They’d be thrusting a leper at her next, she shouldn’t wonder.

I’m sure father has told you all about me. Else you’d not dare set your sights so high.

"Elias is stood to Cygnet, Horace Eaton broke in quickly. Twenty-four guns, fitting out in the Pool for a voyage to the West Indies. Ah, that’s the place for a young man, now. His voice waxed dreamy. No peace beyond the line, eh, Mister … ah, Elias?"

I was most fortunate, sir. If merit counts for aught, you’ll soon get your own posting.

And what know the Admiralty of merit, or care?

Her father reached for a wine bottle, no doubt brought by Bramwell. Emptying the wine into his full-bellied Toby mug, with its carved smiling face so at odds with his own despair, he guzzled it down.

Bramwell looked away, pretending to consider the parlor, her father’s final quarterdeck. Nautical charts and prints of men-of-war lined the walls. Models of every ship Horace Eaton ever sailed on, carved and rigged by seamen aboard, crowded the scarred tables and shelves. On the mantelpiece stood the sailing master’s brass-bound quadrant and silver compasses, and hanging over them in pride of place, a mariner’s astrolabe dating from Drake’s time, the brass thickly etched with numbers and astronomical symbols. Her father had gained the astrolabe boarding a French ship of the line, along with the cutlass scar that ran down his face, splitting his lip at the corner.

Meg knew those watchful eyes of Bramwell’s would also take in the dust Bridget could not keep ahead of, the candelabra with its choking tallow candles in place of wax, and the mirror with its papier mâché frame imitating carved wood.

Meg felt guilty, and mean. But if she gave her parents more money, her father would drink it up. She had her own expenses to bear. Her patrons at the Golden Hind, who believed her a duke’s daughter from the wrong side of the blanket, expected her to step out of the latest fashions.

Besides, she needed to save for Hannah’s dowry, in the event her schemes to install herself as a rich man’s mistress came to naught. The bastard daughter of a whore would have a hard enough time of it without going around with her hand held out.

Yet a perception of Horace Eaton’s decline as it must appear through Bramwell’s eyes stabbed her. Meg wanted to grab her father, to shout that he would never get another ship, no more than she would get back her virginity and the good name she lost along with it. They should stop trading broadsides yardarm to yardarm and love each other as of old, for who else gave a fig about either of them?

Instead she stood silent as her father banged the mug down on the table. He swayed, red-faced and truculent, a trickle of wine dripping from the corner of his mouth where the puckered scar made it difficult to close.

If you gentlemen will excuse me, Meg said, I must see to my little girl.

Chapter 3

Long Meg, Tench purred again, in a low, breathy voice.

Meg spun, her back to the rail. The mutineers pressed in on her, leering. Some laughed. Some just stared, lips parted, panting, their hands clutching and opening.

Several casks of wine had been hoisted up from below and broached with hatchets. Those sailors who had not managed to filch a bottle from the officers’ private stores dipped horn cups into the barrels, or sometimes ducked their whole heads. Already men too drunk to stand rolled in the scuppers, crying upon their messmates, God, or the Devil to fetch them one more drink. Tattered shreds of the officers’ uniforms littered the deck, along with the remains of books and mementos ripped apart for the sheer vengeful joy of it.

What say ye, shipmates? bellowed Tench. Captain Warrington has no more need of his cot. Shall we give it a proper christening?

Howls of assent broke forth. Cutlasses, hatchets, and bottles waved in the air.

That place where peace passeth understanding.

Where? Hell beckoned, but where in this world could she hope to find peace?

Rough hands grabbed her, dragging her toward the break of the quarterdeck, where the doorway to the Great Cabin gaped open.

Make a lane, there, shouted Tench as the mob pulled Meg toward her doom.

Memories she’d long struggled to hold at bay came flailing back: leather straps biting into her wrists, Lord St. Denis jamming into her, splitting her open while his friends stood by laughing and urging him on.

And begging, begging. All in vain.

She’d die beneath this sweating, stinking, drunken, howling mob.

Meet me at that place where peace passeth understanding.

The men pulling her aft jammed up against another crowd flowing out of the Great Cabin with the last of Captain Warrington’s possessions. As everyone milled around trying to find a way past each other, Tench held up his hands for quiet. He didn’t get it, but around Meg at least the raucous shouts and bawdy singing faded.

Hark to me, shipmates! he cried. From this day forward we claim no nation but the sea. We sail under no flag but the black banner of King Death. We follow no rule but Jamaica discipline, same as has bound gentlemen adventurers since Harry Morgan’s time. And to show it’s all share and share alike, for the sharing out of our very first prize, this jaunty craft here, let the bones decide!

Ollie for bawdcock! someone sang out to laughter and cheers.

Where peace passeth understanding.

Wait. Somewhere … somewhere ….

If she could just think!

A story. A story Elias had told her. Of a man he sailed with once. A pirate, a former pirate. And an island, an island … yes an island, but where?

Torrey, yelled Tench, fetch the dice! We’ll toss watch by watch, then mess by mess, and finally man by man.

Hands reached out from the circle surrounding her, starting to grope and to pull at her dress.

I can make you all rich! Meg cried.

Aye, said Tench. And so we see. ‘Vast there! He slapped away the hands roving over her. You’ll wait your turn, you greedy bastards.

Treasure! she shouted. Pirate treasure!

To her dismay, this garnered only more hoots and jeers.

You’ll have ample time to tell of it, Tench drawled. "Torrey! Should we string your hammock or are you ever going to fetch those goddamn dice?"

Torrey, a bulky man, shoved his way through the surrounding crowd and slapped the dice into Tench’s hand.

Where, where? Oh God, where?

Tench pointed toward the Great Cabin. Form line of battle, mates!

Once more she was pulled toward the yawning doorway.

Four hundred miles east of Mauritius! she yelled. Treasure! Treasure from the Mocha grounds, buried and lost! More, more. On an island called — come on, come on — Rodriguez! No, it would take something more. What could halt them, jumped-up as they were?

"Ben Ringgold’s treasure, from the Princess of India!"

The mob came to a jerky halt.

No pirates I ever heard of buried a groat, said a chiseled, red-haired, hard-eyed quarter-gunner named Macomb. He’d attracted much attention aboard ship, including from Elias. He claimed to have sailed as a privateer during Queen Anne’s War, one thin parchment and a dubious signature away from the gallows. It’s crack on to the nearest port for to be lord of six weeks with that lot, nor leave any blunt behind to be dug up by your mates.

Aye. Sage nods accompanied this pronouncement.

She’s just trying to save her hide, someone said.

Strip her and let’s have a look, urged another.

That’s a deal more to my liking, agreed Tench. But looking around he saw that many wanted to hear more. So you want to sing for your supper, do you, little bird? Well, chirp away, for all the joy you’ll have of it. And when the singing’s done, you can dance. Aye, a proper blanket hornpipe.

Think. She must push away the terror and think.

Rodriguez. That’s what Elias had been trying to tell her, without daring to reveal the name. He’d promised to meet her there. And now she must find a way not only to stay alive, but to maneuver the Cygnet to the island.

But how?

For Macomb was right. Rodriguez held no treasure, nor never had.

Chapter 4

Sprawled on the floor, rattle in hand, Hannah looked up with an expression of puzzled wonder that tripped Meg’s heart into sudden laughter. Rushing forward, she fairly threw herself onto the threadbare carpet, scooping up the delighted baby and clasping her to her breast.

But as she rocked her daughter back and forth, Meg’s bubbling laughter squeezed tight inside her, so that she bit her lip to clinch down on the sobs that threatened to take its place.

The sight and the warm touch of Hannah always took her thus. As though day by day Meg’s heart lay hidden away beneath layers of old paint and varnish, that only her baby girl could chip away, uncovering a sudden shine that quite overwhelmed her.

You weren’t much time downstairs, observed her mother, sitting on a stool in the corner, next to the crib of thick-cut oak scarred with the scrapes and scrawls of generations of Eatons.

I’m sure father and Mr. Bramwell will find sufficient tales to tell each other.

Mrs. Eaton shook her head at her daughter’s hard-headedness, as so often before. When Meg thought of her mother, it was that sad shake of the head came first to mind.

I know Mr. Bramwell looks rough, spoke Mrs. Eaton. "What man of the sea does not? But he’s a good man, Meg. Better than good, to hear your father tell it. He came aboard the Agamemnon a pressed man, and just two years later was ship’s bosun. That’s not common, far from it. However else you find him, don’t think him common."

I am quite satisfied that Mr. Bramwell is a brisk hand with spars and rigging. And no doubt equally brisk to thrash slow-gaited sailors and tug his forelock before the captain.

He also, she thought, had the good fortune to survive the ship’s eight-month stationing to Jamaica, where a quarter of the crew died of yellowjack that others might rise. A bloody war and a sickly season was a toast of long standing in the Sea Service, where advancement came passing slow.

He’s smart, Meg, her mother insisted. And ambitious. A first-rate navigator. So says your father, and how many ever earned such a rating from him? Come to that, how many foc’sle hands apply themselves so? And your father says he places restraints on his appetites, unlike so many who follow the sea. Mr. Bramwell is in every way a sober, upright, hard-working and proper man.

Her mother’s voice, which had turned chiding over the last few years, softened into wistfulness, likely considering Horace Eaton’s own less restrained appetite for drink.

"Well if Mr. Bramwell’s appetites veer round toward me, Meg declared, he better well clap a stopper on them. He’ll have no joy of them, and I promise you."

She held Hannah out at arm’s length, propped her on her feet, and coaxed her forward. The baby waved her chubby arms, drooled, and made happy cooing sounds. She took a few tottering steps and fell into Meg’s waiting hands. Meg set her upright and they tried again.

You’re willful and headstrong, and always were, her mother said.

Once again Meg caught Hannah as she fell and hoisted her up to the dim light of the room’s small windows, the two of them joining in laughter. Very little light ever shone down on Bluegate Fields, the way the houses were pressed so close together across the narrow street, and overhung on their upper stories.

Too willful to make myself a slave to some ship’s Pipes anyway, she retorted. She set Hannah back down and tried to get her to walk again, but now the baby was too excited, and launched her head and shoulders forward well ahead of her legs, so that it became a game of catch.

And don’t expect that one to be walking anytime soon, either, Meg’s mother said. The poor child isn’t straight enough. Which also goes down on your account, for not letting me swaddle her, as is only right and proper for a baby. I just hope she doesn’t grow up all crooked, that’s all. Perhaps it’s not too late, even now. Just a few months, until—

"No!"

Meg’s cry came out louder than intended, so that Hannah, startled, fell backward onto the floor and sat there shocked. Meg grabbed the rattle and shook it at the baby, hoping to head off tears. She held the toy out and Hannah wrapped her fingers around the handle uncertainly. They stared at each other over the skin-wrapped cylinder, each waiting for whatever came next.

Meg had steadfastly refused to let her mother wrap the baby in the customary layers of linen wraps and blankets, weighing her head down upon the pillow with three stuffed caps so that she was held absolutely motionless for hours at a time, no matter how she cried and struggled. When some weeks ago she’d come home and found Hannah so imprisoned despite her instructions, Meg flew straight into a rage; hurled Bridget to the floor and shouted at her mother in a manner to shake windows the length of the lane, all the while ripping the wraps to shreds with her hands and teeth.

The baby had remained unswaddled since, and Meg bought Bridget a handsome new cape to make amends. But all Meg’s temper had not laid the question to rest, and now Mrs. Eaton adjusted her mob cap as she cracked on into the same battle they’d waged for close on to a year now.

Honestly, I don’t understand how you can act so high-handed with your own daughter. If you just let her flop around any which-way her spine will never grow straight. I need no better evidence than yourself. I kept you swaddled through your sixteenth month, though it was far from an easy task, you may be sure, the way you fought and fought, till it took medicine to calm you, nor did it come cheap, either. And now look at you. Fine and straight and taller than many a man, with as graceful a carriage as ever strode the Highway. And who to thank, if I may make so bold as to ask? If that don’t prove my point, I’m sure I don’t know what will. But oh no, you’ll have your way same as always, if poor Hannah must grow up a hunchback for your pride.

Meg released the rattle. Hannah, staring rapt at her, kept her hold on the handle, but let the toy sink across her thighs.

She’ll be fine, mother.

Meg tried to push away memories of leather straps, horse’s tack, cutting into her wrists and mouth while Lord St. Denis and his two friends kept at her all afternoon in the hayloft above the stable. Laughing, laughing. Cawing. Raucous as crows. Several times she’d fainted from near suffocation, but always the pain and the laughter forced her back.

Her daughter would never be bound. Not by anything. Not by marriage, nor poverty, nor even class. If despite Meg’s wicked life any good still remained to her, Hannah held it all, for now and always.

She’s straight as any baby, Meg insisted, rubbing her wrists beneath her flounced sleeves. They bore the scars still, from the way she’d pulled and twisted against the bridle reins binding her.

Her mother sighed. Meg thought she looked ill; slouched on the stool with her back bent against the rough plaster wall stained gray-brown by smoke from tallow candles and the cheap, tarry wood they were forced to burn in the fireplace. Her skin sagged, pasty and wrinkled as if she’d just come from a bath. The brown eyes that used to shine so bright had gone dull as tarnished brass, the mouth once given to quick smiles now clamped and shrewish.

It had happened so fast, all of it. The baby, Meg’s father on the beach with his half-pay and his gin, her mother grown old and nagging ... everything so fast, and now here Meg was a whore, a quean, and how could everything change so much in one afternoon, as if all we ever hoped and strived for was no more than a mockery in the eyes of God?

Her mother shifted forward on the stool. The green of her dress had lost its spark to dirt as well as age; Bridget wasn’t a bad maid, good as could be expected in the circumstances really, but she had too much to do.

Hannah needs a father, Meg.

Meg picked Hannah up and clasped her close again, rocking from side to side as she sat on the floor, her legs folded on the threadbare rug.

A father gone to the West Indies? Look. I’ll give you more money, if you can find some way to keep it all from going on gin. More money than your precious Mr. Bramwell ever could, was I to sweep and mend and swive for him all the day and night.

But you’d be a wife.

All that matters in this world, mother, is money. And by that measure Pretty Peggy is worth far more than some bosun’s drab.

Her mother gave a quick sob and turned away. That you’d throw that in my face.

Either her whining tone or the tightening of Meg’s arms and the hiss of her breath disturbed Hannah, who started to bawl. Meg put more bounce into her rocking, but too late. The baby cried in a droning, spiritless whine.

There, there, my heart, shshhh.

Getting to her feet Meg tried to croon a lullaby as she walked back and forth hunched beneath the low beams with the baby in her arms. But the song turned sour in her throat.

And then what she most feared swept over her: anger, blind and boiling-hot, spewing through the room to take in her mother, herself, and even Hannah, for being forced upon her, for bringing such pain and disgrace, for turning her parents against her, for shattering all her hopes, for reducing her to nothing more than a greedy, scheming, cold-hearted whore.

Desperately she clutched Hannah to her, trying to double-reef her fury, to ride out the storm that slammed her again and again into cliff-faced waves of rage.

She could hate all else in the world, but she lived in terror of letting that bitterness sweep over her daughter. Hannah, born to shame, possessed only one small, dubious, precious sliver of hope. That one hope was Meg.

And if Meg should let her own rage snuff out that hope, she would snuff it out forever in herself as well, for that one single hope must serve them both.

There, you’ve upset her, said her mother, satisfied now that Meg had failed to quiet Hannah. And it’s no good squeezing the life out of her that way. You’ll have to put her back in her crib.

Meg did so, trembling. She retired to the simple wooden rocker that as a girl she’d made into her own quarterdeck, a sailing master like her father, or a brave salty tar, or captain of a great free-flying frigate. She concentrated on sitting quietly, not gasping for breath even though at regular intervals anger turned her chest into a mangle, wringing every last scant bit of air from her lungs.

Mrs. Eaton’s face softened into a mild smile that almost made her look young again. Gently, gently she rocked the crib, singing a lullaby in a voice cracked a bit at the edges, but so simple and heartfelt that Meg, often complemented on her singing, knew she could never match. Soon Hannah’s bawls faded away.

The two women did not speak. Gradually a strained and tenuous sort of peace settled over the room.

But a few hours later, when walking from the house Meg emerged from the fetid, cave-like windings of Bluegate Fields onto Wapping’s notorious Ratcliffe Highway — Thirsty Street to the sailors — she found Elias Bramwell lying-to like a pirate hovering topsails down off some promising port.

Chapter 5

The mutineers crowded around Meg in a pressing mass extending from the main jeer bits to the starboard nine-pounders. Enough of them had been sufficiently intrigued by her cry of Ben Ringgold’s name to halt the push into the Great Cabin. But every second she hesitated, the hum of lustful energy, urgent as gathering bees, swelled once more around her.

Think!

The heat and the smell of the men’s seldom-washed bodies, the calls to strip her, to swive her, the hands reaching out, all set Meg’s mind shrieking. She needed … needed ….

"The Peregrine! she yelled. Elias sailed aboard her."

Silence, abrupt as a capper snuffing out a candle. From fore and aft came laughter, shouting, snatches of song, a general smashing and shattering, and the occasional clang of steel as men fought over the last of the captain’s wine. But around her, not a word. Even the groping hands fell away.

Pushing the others aside, Tench seized her jaw. "You’re claiming Bramwell sailed with Ben Ringgold? And you know where the treasure from the Princess of India lies buried? It all sounds most maggoty to me."

Torrey spoke out. It was you yourself claimed Bramwell had sailed on the account, Jolly. Who else was it took to callin’ ‘im ‘Black Flag’?

Murmurs of agreement sounded all around. Tench nodded, conceding the point.

Aye, and so I did. I must have seen him on Barbados, or—

At once he looked suspicious. "But the Peregrine went down with all hands, nor never made landfall after taking the Princess. Leastways there’s not a soul aboard as was ever seen since. What miracle is this, that roused Bramwell from the dead?"

Meg struck his hand from her jaw. "The Peregrine foundered, yes."

The story Elias told her concerned another man, and another ship. But she must make it serve.

"Her hull was worm-eaten. That’s why they buried the loot from the Princess, do you see? They feared they might have to take to the boats. Then they made for Madagascar. But they ran into heavy weather, and her seams opened. Only one boat got away, without provisions. By the time an East Indiaman found them, only Elias was left alive."

Aye, he would be, said someone. Dark nods added assent. All sailors went in dread of what must have happened in that boat. And many of the men now surrounding Meg, the shirkers and malcontents and King’s hard bargains, had gone in dread of Elias.

"The Cabo, that got took by Oliver la Bouche, was worth nine hundred thousand pounds, Macomb intoned reverently. ‘Tis said the Princess was worth more still. A million, so I’ve heard. More, maybe."

Aye, it’s always the richest prize comes least in sight, Tench said dismissively.

But many of the men looked awed anyway. A seaman working the year round and never purchasing new clothes or tobacco from the purser’s slops would be lucky to come away with fifteen pounds. What scales could give meaning to a million?

But look here, shipmates, called Tench. "You’re spending money your pockets ain’t yet seen, nor is likely to. Blackbeard got scuppered in the end, and Bellamy, and Tew, even Roberts, as all cry forth for the very prince of pirates. But we know where, and how. Only Ben Ringgold fell right off the face of the earth. And now along comes this judy to cackle the secret. Because, she tells us, her husband is the one single soul who lived to tell the tale. And happen too that Ben Ringgold’s treasure likewise resurrected itself from the Peregrine’s last long dive. It’s wonder upon wonder she plies us with."

He stared pointedly at her chest, then hips. But none of ‘em the wonders we’re most particular to see.

Ease all there, Tench, said the grizzled old privateer Macomb. I’m not altogether toward swallowin’ this tale myself, but I am curious as to how far she can spin it out. I’m particular curious to know how Ben Ringgold’s treasure got buried on some sprat of an island that if it’s where she puts it, is stuck out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, nowheres near between Mocha and Madagascar.

Meg found her chest squeezed tight, her legs ready to buckle at each roll of the ship. "The Peregrine was cruising off the Mocha grounds, waiting for the monsoon to bring her a prize. But she stayed too long, and worms got into her timbers."

Several hands nodded; the warm waters of the Arabian sea were notorious for breeding the Toredo worm.

They needed a place to careen, Meg continued, trying to see one step ahead of her story even as she told it. Somewhere no King’s ship would come looking. They thought of making straight for Madagascar, but they feared other pirates might steal the treasure while their ship lay helpless.

Ringgold weren’t never no fool, said Macomb.

Tench snorted. You don’t believe this fairy tale, do you?

I ain’t toward believin’ or disbelievin’. Yet.

Very well, then. Tench grabbed a handful of her dress. Meg felt his fist scrape against her breast. So if there is a treasure buried on this island of yours, can you find it?

Perhaps. Elias told me the landmarks.

Then tell us.

Your soul to the Devil.

He slapped her, so fast she never saw it coming. Tell us, mawkes, or it will be the worse for you.

She wanted to spit in his face but her mouth had gone dry. "Worse than what? Dying by inches under you swine?"

Tench drew back his hand, but Macomb caught it.

‘Vast there, matey. You’re making quite free with our prize, but there’s been no foc’sle council called to vote on what use to put her to, nor elected you captain neither.

Tench wrenched his wrist loose and glared at him. They were both savage, quick-tempered men. But after a long, quivering moment Tench held up his hands.

All right. Macomb speaks fair. Jamaica discipline I called for, and Jamaica discipline I’ll live by. Long Meg’s prize to all, and all should have a say in sharing her out.

He glanced at her sidelong, then turned to address the crew. But I will say this. Maybe she’ll feel more forthcoming, like, after she’s been rogered a few dozen times.

A cheer rose from some of the men. Others looked more thoughtful.

Come about, Tench, said Macomb. Once the rogering starts it’s not likely you nor me nor the Devil himself can stop it. She kens that right enough. What’s in it for her to do us favors? There’s a surer way.

He stepped close and peered at Meg through pale, yellow-brown eyes, the color of brass just beginning to tarnish. The soul had gone missing from those eyes; she had the eerie sensation that instead of her face he saw only a skull with gaping sockets.

Now look here, he told her. I’m an easy man, nor not vengeful without I’m pushed to it. If this treasure is all some coker you made up for to be droll, tell us now, and no harm done. But if we have to cast about an empty ocean day after to day to learn this island’s not where you put it at, or we arrive there only to find the treasure’s as who should say hied itself off ….

He sighed. "Well, you look to have had a genteel upbringing. Happen you may know the whole Book of Martyrs by heart. But was you to recite the fate of every saint was ever flayed, grilled, nailed up, or sliced to pieces, I’ll take my davy on this. That were mercy, compared to what shall be your lot if you’re gulling us."

Show no fear. She stared him straight in the eye, for they were of a height.

"The island’s where I told you. And the treasure from the Princess of India lies buried there."

And you can find it for us?

If I’ve reason to.

Then tell us where, that we may better judge the truth of it, and doubtless find kindness in our hearts, as you stand sore in need of.

I shan’t tell you, now or ever. But if you take me to Rodriguez, I’ll lead you there in exchange for my freedom. So long as no harm — none, I say — comes to me.

Macomb shook his head. It’s seeming your comprehension ain’t up to the task.

He turned to one of the sailors. Dick, run and tell the cook to build up his fires, there’s a good lad. Some of you other hearty souls, go fetch the loggerheads used for melting pitch, and heat ‘em red. Hellfire red.

Now you come about, Macomb, said Tench. No council gave you leave to do as you please with her either.

Give me but ten minutes, and I’ll have this proud mink dancing like a bear on hot plates. Then you can swive her to Kingdom Come, and be damned to you. She may not be quite so fair to look on, but I swear I won’t despoil nothin’ ye’ve any great use for.

What makes you think she’ll tell you what she won’t tell us?

Experience, Macomb said smugly.

"Torture me and I’ll tell you something, Meg admitted. But what? How will you know whether it’s the truth till too late? If I’m to die slow, it’s scant odds whether it’s under hot irons or under you scum. Do your worst. Then dig and scrape and maunder about the ocean till you finish on the gallows, beggars still."

Flummery, declared Tench. All of it, start to finish. Are we to go milking pigeons while this tart laughs at us?

Macomb ignored him. Once we get you to this island, he told Meg, we’ll soon know the truth of things. And you’ll soon — very soon — be begging us to hear it.

And how do you intend to get me there? By starting in on me now, and hoping for the best? I’ll never see Rodriguez, and you’ll never see the treasure.

Not if we’re careful, said Macomb.

"Careful? You slubber-de-gullions? She laughed in his face. She wasn’t Meg. Wasn’t Margaret Eaton. No, she was Pretty Peggy, and her feelings were of no account. Only the pretense mattered. You’re a fool. And Oliver Tench there’s an even bigger one. I’ll wager the whole wealth of the Princess of India against all your fee-fo-fum that once the first hand is laid on me, I’ll be dead this time tomorrow. And laughing at you from hell."

Macomb and Tench looked at each other.

I could tear this mort apart with hot pincers a slice at a time, Macomb muttered, and only regret my forbearance.

Oh the devil with this, called out a sailor. Let’s do her like we started in to do. A bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush, I reckon.

Meg glared at him in disdain. Yes, go ahead. I weary of all this vaporing. The sooner I’m quit of you scum, the better.

A cutlass flashed from Macomb’s belt so fast the men standing close jumped back against those behind. Fools! You’re staring at such gelt as’ll buy a harem would make the Grand Seignior of Turkey jealous. And you’d cast it adrift to get your jibs bowsed by one lone brim? Damn your lights and livers, half of you’ll never get to her anyway. Not if you like ‘em warm, leastways. I say hot irons and knotted cords first, and we’ll damn well see if her tale is flummery or not. And if one of her eyes pops out, what matter? There’ll still be enough of her left to your purpose.

I want her eyes right where they are, Tench retorted, grabbing a cutlass from a sailor, since he’d left his own still planted in the deck. "I want her to see what’s happening to her. I want enough of her left to feel it."

Eying Tench’s blade, Macomb stepped back and presented his own to it. I’ll have her feeling something worth two nor that.

At that moment Abel Shorrock emerged from the main companionway, a cutlass in his right hand, a cocked pistol in his left, and a group of grim-visaged men at his back, all carrying muskets with fixed bayonets. In the crew’s hurry to get to the liquor or to Meg, none had thought to break into the armory.

Make a lane, there, Abel demanded. He scarce needed to; the men behind him held their muzzles leveled, and the mutineers surrounding Meg, though substantially outnumbering Abel’s force, quickly fell back from the gaping, three-quarter inch wide muzzles.

Here, what’s this you’re about, Shorrock Tench demanded.

She’s not to be harmed.

There’s some would differ.

Abel flourished his sword. Then let them prove their argument with this. I’ll stand with you or any man else, for blood or a bellyful.

See here, matey, said Macomb, this won’t gee. You ain’t captain no more’n me or Tench, for all you’re putting on airs.

Seeing Tench and Macomb stand firm, the sailors who’d shrunk back from the muskets began to gather courage and slink forward again, drawing cutlasses or hatchets from their belts. Meg felt their energy, fueled by lust and liquor, cock back like a pistol hammer. In a moment they’d sweep forward. Abel and his followers would take many a mutineer with them, but in the end they’d be cut down, and in the fury that followed every man still whole and sober enough to pull down his breeches would be on her.

As the scene trembled on the edge of bloody chaos, Meg called on Pretty Peggy for one more turn.

She laughed. A trifle high and squeaky, perhaps, and trailing away into something like a strangled cough. But the men all turned toward her in surprise.

Oh, what choice spirits! What spanking great buccaneers. The captain not yet sunk from sight, the liquor barely broached, and already we’ve come hard upon Bartholomew’s Fair.

Stow your gob, muttered a sailor.

I offer you the greatest treasure ever taken, and all you piss-in-the-corner swill-tubs can do is threaten to see each others’ insides. All the time nattering away like chickadees, terrified lest you shame yourselves into actually striking a blow.

She struggled to work up some saliva and this time managed to spit out at least a thin stream, most of which ended up on her chin. She wiped it away. "Seamen, you call yourselves. Gentlemen adventurers. All I see are tallow-chandlers and gallows-cheats. Not a man among you fit to be duck-fucker aboard Ben Ringgold’s ship. But Elias was their bosun."

Why not?

Meg pointed a trembling finger up toward the quarterdeck, still covered with a mass of canvas and splintered spars. The crew had been drilling at getting down the topmasts under Captain Warrington’s baleful eye, with a promise of liberal floggings if the evolution proved slow. Whether by design or accident, the whole mizzen top had come cascading down upon his head, knocking him unconscious and killing the First Lieutenant.

In a moment the harder element among the crew had risen up, smashing open the small shed where the carpenter’s tools and cutlasses were kept. No one — no one but Elias — stood to the Captain’s defense, and the marines were overwhelmed before they even grasped a mutiny was at hand.

Elias stood between you and Captain Warrington, Meg told them, her voice quavering at the memory of her husband brandishing the great-axe they called the bosun’s bible while the crew slinked about him like snarling dogs. All alone, and not one of you craven louts dared draw near. Not until a dozen of you grabbed me and held a knife to my throat.

The picture of Elias throwing down the massive axe in defeat bid fair to break her heart.

By God, she declared, but give me a sword and room to fight, and I’ll stand against you soft toads myself!

Strikes me the wagtail could profit from having her tongue torn out, Macomb observed.

Certain she’s got tongue enough for two mouths, Tench agreed.

But while distracted by her harangue, the battle fury had drained from the crew. On both sides men who a moment ago had been ready to rip each other’s guts out blinked and shook their heads as if waking from a dream, remembering that by staging mutiny they had made themselves outlaws to all nations. The Cygnet must bear them against a world of enemies, and it would be ill-fated indeed to begin with a slaughter among themselves.

Breathing hard, Tench stared at Abel Shorrock. Heavy black brows drew close on a gaunt face that showed a constant hunger. Only a moment ago passion had ruled him, and naked hate. Now he straightened from the crouch strong emotion had bent him in, and nodded to himself.

Put up your weapons, shipmates, he said. This is no way to settle our differences. There will be plenty of others trying to spill our blood soon enough. As for her, let foc’sle council decide. And let it be done rightfully, as befits gentlemen of fortune. First we must draw up proper Articles. Then all who sign ‘em can vote what to do with the mort. Along with electing officers and deciding our course.

Abel pursed his lips. Tench had just declared for piracy. No other ships on the broad ocean elected their officers, or left major decisions to the crew. But then, what other course was left to them?

The men are too drunk to form council now, Abel said.

Aye. We’ll just have to ride it out, and hold council tomorrow, when some at least are halfway sober.

Abel looked to the men behind him. Ground your muskets, lads. They set the brass-bound butts of their guns to the deck.

Meg knew her reprieve was short-lived. Tench had pulled just far enough back from his lust — a lust born more out of revenge against Elias, she thought, than for her — to realize that any fighting while so much liquor flowed would leave the Cygnet near to a ghost ship, whoever won. Abel Shorrock could still draw support not only from those members of the crew with any spark of decency left to them, but also those who feared the desperate and undisciplined faction that had made Tench their unofficial leader, and the rule by back-stabbing such men might impose.

Instead, Tench was well content to hang Meg like a millstone around Abel’s neck, and let him take responsibility for the men’s frustrations.

With no fight or rape to attend to, rollicking groups of sailors were soon rummaging all about the ship. The ducks and goats kept for the officers were brought up from the manger to the open deck, where, confused by all the commotion, they ran or flapped about, bleating and quacking. By morning they’d all have been eaten by the half-starved men.

And her?

Soon there’d scarce be a sober hand aboard, even among Abel’s faction. Growing up in Wapping in a family bred to the sea, Meg knew sailors. They didn’t drink just to make merry. They drank to run riot. To pour liquid fire down their throats till up and down spun around on each other, then pass out and briefly escape their sorry lot. If, as often happened, they woke to find themselves robbed, knocked on the head, and stuck aboard some ship bound God knew where, that was all part of the joke on themselves they held their lives to be. They lived hand to mouth, watch to watch, and thought anything else both unmanly and ill-omened.

Meg might try to hold them off with a promise of treasure, but even that was a thing of tomorrow.

She was here and now.

Chapter 6

Leaving her parents’ house, Meg hugged the walls of the dark, twisting lane of Bluegate Fields, trying to avoid the sunken center where a recent rain had washed the refuse of chamberpots and kitchen bins into a loathsome stew. She pulled her hood close to shield herself from flies, and with her other hand held a perfumed handkerchief to her nose.

Emerging onto Ratcliffe Highway she looked up and down for a sedan chair. The shilling apiece to the bearers would be a small price to escape the mud, drunks, beggars, footpads, snapping dogs, and groping sailors.

Garishly painted wooden signs hung in profusion above the flagstone sidewalk: triple globes for pawnshops, billowing sails for chandlers, and a host of dragons, unicorns, lions and celestial patterns to guide the flush and foolhardy to the dubious harbor of tavern and brothel.

Generations of horse-carts had plowed a ditch down the middle of Thirsty Street, into which had sluiced all the refuse of butcher and fishmongers’ shops, spiced with manure and drowned rats. A swirling breeze added the prickly stench of the soap and lye works to the north. And cutting through all, the ever-present smell of tar from the Wapping works.

She saw no chair. Such luxuries would find little custom here in this part of town widely derided as Little Barbary.

"And we’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British seamen," sang a dozen voices