The Further Exploits of The Pirate Queens: The Pirate Queens

By James Grant Goldin

Pirate Queen Anne Bonny has a secret--a baby daughter named Kate! The baby's being raised by friends in Cuba, and Anne, worried that her reputation as the scarlet-haired scourge of the Caribbean would be undermined by motherhood, has been hiding the truth from the crew of the Tigress, and even from the girl's father, Calico Jack Rackam. But Kate's first birthday is coming up, and Anne wants to be there. The problem is, there's a war on, and Cuba's behind enemy lines. So Anne turns for help to the only person she can truly trust--fellow freebooter Mary Read.

Together, Anne and Mary will defy storms, sharks, shipwreck, and various murderous cutthroats to fulfill a promise. And along the way, they might just plunder Spain's fabled Silver Fleet...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Basilisk Books
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9780985455361

Book preview

PRAISE FOR

THE LEGENDARY ADVENTURES

OF THE PIRATE QUEENS:

Goldin’s wit and wisdom…skillfully melds the absurd with the realistic…to transport you back to the early eighteenth-century Caribbean.

– Cindy Vallar,

Pirates and Privateers Newsletter

…a fast, light read, driven by a bunch of engaging central characters who sound like they would be fun to be around, with unconventional quirks that play against pirate stereotype…

– Jim McClennan, girlswithguns.org

… roaming the Caribbean with cutlasses between their teeth, Mary Read and Anne Bonny are great company. I read it from stem to stern…and am looking forward to ‘The Further Adventures of the Pirate Queens.’

– Autumn Doerr

The Further Exploits of the Pirate Queens

Text Copyright © 2022 by James Grant Goldin

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, events, historical and otherwise, and organizations, historical and otherwise, portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Basilisk Book

ISBN: 978-0-9854553-4-7 (pb)

ISBN: 978-0-9854553-6-1 (ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-7335690-8-8 (audiobook)

THE FURTHER EXPLOITS OF

THE

PIRATE QUEENS

A Serio-Comic Sequel

by

James Grant Goldin

~ A Basilisk Book ~

To

Binnie Barnes

Hillary Brooke

Hazel Court

Geena Davis

Yvonne De Carlo

Hope Emerson

Lisa Gastoni

Jean Peters

Sonia Sorel

and

Maureen O’Hara

CHAPTER I

In Which a Discussion

does Not go Well

I

t might have been the spiced rum, or Mister Colley’s latest salmagundi; but, whatever the reason, Anne Bonny was dreaming that she stood once more under the stars on the white sands of La Sombra Cove, waiting for the moonlight on the Cuban horizon to be broken by the black silhouette of Calico Jack’s sloop. She waited for the sound of the lapping waves to be joined by a jolly boat’s oars slicing through the water, waited for her lover to take her back to the Ranger and the sea and her life. She felt the cool sand between her toes and the warm breeze on her face, just as she had when the sand and breeze and stars and waves had been real, not a dream.

Then a sailor stood by her, a young man who looked out to sea, but when he took off his broad hat, his thick black hair fell to his shoulders and Anne saw that it was Mary Read.

Anne asked, What are you doing here?

Mary said, I want to see the old ship, where we met.

Anne remembered that the Ranger was gone. Charles Vane set it ablaze to try to kill Jack and then she and Mary rammed the flaming sloop into that Spaniard…That was a grand time, Mary, Anne said. But this is before we met. You were never on this beach.

You’re hiding something.

You can’t know about this. Anne said it simply but definitively. Then she heard a little girl’s voice, like her own voice when she’d been a little girl in Kinsale.

Where are you going, Mama?

It was hard for Anne to turn her head away from the sea, but when she did, she saw, where the white beach met the dark palms, a girl, a baby, really, not old enough to walk but just able to stand unsteadily. She wore a plain white shift that went down almost to her bare feet, and Anne was puzzled, knowing the girl was too young to speak, but she did speak, saying, again, Where are you going, Mama?

The girl had red hair and green eyes like Anne, and Anne turned to ask Mary what she thought, but Mary was gone. Instead, there was Charles Vane, drowned in a storm but alive on the beach, madness in his eyes, a cutlass in his hand. His blade swiped down at Anne’s head.

Anne had to protect the girl, but she had to protect herself first, and Mary wasn’t there to help. She reached for the cutlass that she knew hung by her side, drew it, and raised it just in time to block Vane’s attack.

As Anne pushed back and slashed, she saw Vane’s men had joined him, armed with flintlocks and muskets and blades, and behind them a gray-haired man with narrow eyes and a bold jaw: her father, who should have been back on the plantation outside Charles Town…

Then Anne told herself the dream was a dream, and it was one she wanted to leave. Vane’s cutlass came down across her shoulder but passed through her as though either she or the blade were made of water. She swung her own blade in a wide arc, and the men fell back like leaves in a gale. Her cutlass flashed again, and again, and her enemies lay about her in bloody heaps, but more men came and more, and her father stood behind them all…She wanted to cut his face open, but either he was too far away or she couldn’t move. Then his hand reached out for her and she wanted to tell him that he would never get her but her voice was too deep in her throat, like a full bucket at the bottom of a well.

No matter. He wouldn’t get her. She was leaving.

Anne forced her head back towards the sea, and felt herself being pulled away from the beach and the water, away from the girl, and then instead of the moonlit horizon, she saw the colour-spattered blackness of the inside of her eyelids; instead of white sand, her feet pressed against the hard oak of the bedboard; instead of the lapping waves, she heard the familiar grinding of Calico Jack’s snores. The sloop, the new sloop, not the Ranger but the Tigress, was sailing stiff and weatherly beneath her.

She had made her escape.

Anne kept her eyes closed, trying to remember the dream and the beach, looking out to sea and waiting for Jack…

But bells were ringing from above deck…six or seven…likely seven…Anne forced her eyes open and saw a shaft of light from the window above their bed.

Morning. Another one.

Her head didn’t ache from the night before; not much, anyway. But if rum didn’t trouble her, the dream did. Some of it was memory, but Mary shouldn’t have been there and the girl wasn’t a memory…she was something else, both past and future, something that needed to be done…

Anne rolled over and put her lips to Calico Jack’s ear. Jack.

He rustled. Jack. There’s something we have to do. Jack.

His eyes fluttered open and blinked. Anne could see that he was trying to come up with something witty to say.

The result was, Do I know you?

Anne pinched his nose shut and put her hand over his mouth. He coughed, sat up, and poked her in the belly. She let go.

Yes, that was familiar…I remember you...

We need to do something, Jack.

He rolled himself on top of her. All you had to do was ask.

Not that, you Barbary ape— She wrestled him around and got on top of him, holding his arms down and pressing a knee into his crotch. This is important.

So’s my long tom, so shift your knee a point to starboard.

Anne pressed down. I said important.

Ow. Is there money in it?

There’s honour in it.

Calico Jack relaxed and looked up at Anne. Now there’s a word you don’t often use.

Maybe I should do it more.

Maybe you should move your knee and talk sense.

No tricks, she warned.

I swear on my honour as a privateer in the service of the puritanical prig Governor Woodes Rogers and His Majesty King George, the fat German sausage.

She rolled over next to him. Jack—we need to go to Cuba.

I cannot think why.

It’s a year next month.

She said it as though it was an explanation, but it took Calico Jack a few seconds to figure out what she meant. His eyes, which had been sparkling cynically (although heavily bloodshot), softened (but were still bloodshot). He remembered.

Since I left you there to have the—

Since Kate.

Is it almost a year, really?

She needs us.

What are you talking about?

I had a dream about her. As soon as she said it, Anne knew it was a mistake, and Calico Jack’s next words confirmed that.

"A dream? Oh, Anne, I once dreamed Mister Colley was making suckling pig for supper; but I’m awake and I know it’s going to be ship’s biscuits and salmagundi again."

I have to tell you something.

He spoke to her gently. I know dreams can seem more real than reality, but…you must remember that the child is dead.

She put her hand over his mouth, but because it was the second time that morning, he got angry and put his hand on her throat; so she slapped him. They lunged at each other and tumbled off the bed. Calico Jack hit his head on the floor and groaned. Anne sat back. Calico Jack rubbed his head and checked his fingers for blood. There was none. To make sure he stayed uninjured, he stuck out a leg to make sure Anne kept her distance, and tried a consoling tone:

Listen to me, my sweet-talking hellcat…You know what my mother would have said? No, listen. I’m not being witty.

Anne sat still.

She’d say, if you saw the girl in a dream, then it was a visit from heaven. If it’s a visit from heaven, then she doesn’t need us, does she? She doesn’t need anything.

She’s not in heaven—

Oh, are you worried that she’s in hell because she died before she was baptised? That’s nonsense, I assure you. But one way or another, what happened—happened. Babies die. Sometimes they take the mother with them, but that didn’t happen to you, and I’m glad of that. He brushed an errant red lock from her face and tried to speak as tenderly as he could: I understand how, after a year, you want to go back and put a stone on the grave. I do. It does you honour as a woman to want to do so. But we can’t go to Cuba. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re at war with Spain, which means Cuba will be surrounded by frigates and galleons armed to the teeth against a privateer. Not that I mind a little danger, but you don’t sail directly into a hurricane.

Jack, I have something to tell you…

There was a knock on the cabin door, and the no-nonsense voice of Richard Corner: Captain?

Aye, Quartermaster? Calico Jack said, speaking loudly to let Anne know that the conversation about Kate was over.

Mister Wren saw a ship from the rigging. Maybe a prize. You could come on deck with your spyglass, if you’ve a notion.

Calico Jack was already pulling on his breeches and boots and grabbing his shirt. How far off?

Maybe three leagues off. Mister Fetherston’s at the wheel, maintaining a steady course.

Calico Jack tucked in his shirt and grabbed the spyglass from the hooks on the wall. It’s been long enough since we had a chance at taking a prize. I’ll see you on deck. Anne turned away. At the cabin door, Calico Jack added, in what he hoped was a consoling tone, Don’t worry, m’dear. The grave will keep till it’s safe to go there and lay a stone. The dead don’t mark the time.

Anne heard his footsteps and Corner’s hurry up to the quarterdeck. Then she whispered to the empty cabin, But, Jack…she’s not dead.

CHAPTER II

In Which there is some Philosophy,

but also the Promise of Action

"T

hey have no bones," Peter Meredith said, and Mary Read shifted her attention from her beloved’s sun-pinked face. A dozen sleek forms swam alongside the Tigress, easily keeping pace with the sloop, the fins on their powerful backs wet and glistening in the morning sun.

Mary looked back at Peter. Everyone else on the Tigress found the sea artist whom Calico Jack had captured and made part of the crew to be exasperating, annoying, and even somewhat Puritanical (although he was firmly Church of England). They tried to avoid him when he started displaying his erudition about one thing or another, which he would do without any warning.

But Mary adored him.

Mary Read, who had killed men with swords, guns, and her bare hands, loved Peter Meredith with a fond and gentle devotion no one could explain. Some thought she loved him because she had spent so much of her life dressed as a man that she took a liking for a man who, all things considered, was rather womanly; others thought she fancied him because he was a gentleman and she was an illiterate bastard. But that wasn’t it. Yes, Mary admired Peter’s education. Anne was well-educated for a woman, thanks to her ex-lawyer father and various private tutors, and she could speak French and pull Latin quotes out of her arse, but Peter had been to actual schools. More than that, he had paid attention. He knew enough about mathematics to help Mister Fetherston with navigation and Mister Corner with the tally book, and Calico Jack had faith that Peter would solve the great modern problem of how to determine longitude at sea, which would win him the twenty thousand pound prize from Parliament, which he would then share with Calico Jack and the crew.

But none of that explained Mary’s love. None of that explained why she found Peter’s physical weakness endearing; or why she thought his moral revulsion to piracy was charming. She knew that the learned utterances she delighted in were considered pretentious by the others, and she simply didn’t care.

Peter was her delight.

Nevertheless, Mary did wonder about his statement about bones.

You’re sure they don’t have bones?

"They have skeletons, Peter clarified, but the skeletons aren’t made of bones."

That did sound odd. What’s a skeleton made of, if not bones?

Peter put a long delicate finger on his nose. Cartilage. Like our noses or ears.

Mary’s black hair was tied up in a headscarf, leaving one ear easily scratchable. She’d always thought ears and noses were just softer bone. Is that so?

It is. And they never stop swimming. If they do, they die.

Oh, I see, Mary said, but—

Something of a metaphor, isn’t it?

Peter had once explained, at length, that a metaphor was when you said something was something else because it was like it in some way. Mary had been pleased to learn that she’d been using metaphors for years, calling people dogs or snakes or turds.

So they’re metaphors…For what, though? she asked.

Well—for us.

You and me?

For—pirates. He said the word softly, knowing pirates took offense at being called pirates. Pirates must keep going, keep preying, to survive.

I haven’t said a prayer in twenty years, Mary said.

It might be better for you if you did, my dearest. But I said ‘preying,’ not ‘praying.’

It sounds exactly the same.

Hm, it does…well, I meant that, in the nature of things, and he once more whispered the forbidden word, —pirates—must keep attacking.

We’re not pirates, Mary reminded him.

Oh yes, ‘gentlemen of fortune,’ as Anne would have it! But we’re not gentlemen of fortune, Mary. We’re predators.

Mary laughed. "Maybe we were. Now we’re privateers." She knew Peter liked that word, though she wasn’t so fond of it herself. The old way, before Calico Jack had taken the King’s pardon, had been a cause and a career. Privateering felt like a job. True, being privateers meant that they wouldn’t be hanged with a British rope; Mary didn’t really care about that, but she had thought it meant a lot to Peter.

But he was having second thoughts. If we plunder a Spaniard, then, yes, we’re privateers, and good for us. Peter looked back down at the fins cutting through the water. But we haven’t found a Spaniard since Captain Rackam signed the Letter of Marque, and the men are getting restless. Especially the new ones. He spoke of the dozen or so former log cutters who had shipped aboard at the last minute at New Providence. "I’ve heard them complain that Captain Rackam hasn’t found anything for them to sink their teeth into. One of them actually used that phrase, sink his teeth into…! Yes, like those sharks swimming there! Are they particular about what they eat? Not in the least! They even attack each other if they can’t find other prey. So, then—how if the next vessel we see is a British ally? A French merchant, for instance? Strange that one of our ancient foes would be allies against our other ancient foe, but there you are. Or, worse—what if we come across a fellow Englishman? What then? What if the sharks on board this ship insist on feeding, no matter what?"

Mary said, Whatever happens will be put to a vote. You can vote ‘nay’ so it won’t be on your conscience, and I’ll vote with you against my own conscience, because I will never let you suffer alone.

Peter sighed deeply. No matter how you and I vote, dear, we’re still part of a crew of sharks.

About those sharks—

Is this the fate of all men? To keep going, unable to stop, pulled on by a will not our own, cursed by Fate to keep swimming or die? Maybe that is the true metaphor of those sharks.

Peter, dear—

Maybe we’re all sharks, Mary!

Peter, those are dolphins.

Those are what?

I’ve been trying to tell you. They’re dolphins who’ve come up to play. It’s a sign of good luck.

Peter blinked. (Mary thought his long lashes were lovely.) Are you…certain? he asked.

Oh, yes! You see their fins? Dolphin’s fins are bent more than shark’s fins, and they’re not so sharp at the top. And the mouths, if you can see them when they come up, they’re like beaks, and shark mouths are flat across their faces. And look, see how they’re blowing from the holes in their heads? Sharks never do that. Oh, they’re jumping now! Isn’t that marvelous? Sharks never—

Yes, yes, yes, I was mistaken. You’ve spent much more time at sea than I have.

Mary smiled. So maybe the metaphor is that we’re all dolphins. Friendly and frolicking.

I’d, er, appreciate it if you didn’t laugh about this with Captain Rackam.

Peter! Why would I laugh about it? Besides, Calico Jack doesn’t think you’re funny.

Oh. Good.

Anne does, but she keeps it to herself.

And if I don’t keep it to myself, Anne said jauntily as she appeared behind them, it would be pistols at twenty paces, right, Mary?

Anne had composed herself below decks, and now paraded around with her familiar swagger. She had put the problem of Kate out of her mind until, somehow, a solution presented itself. Meanwhile, she’d be God-damned if she let anyone think anything was wrong.

Mary smiled. Pistols at twenty? No, you’re too good a shot, she joked. If I were back in the army, I’d ask for sabers. Here? Cutlasses.

"You might not have the advantage you think. I’ve improved

my stance."

You think you have.

Was that an insult? I may need to challenge you.

Mary ironically arched an eyebrow. How dare you threaten a lady?

Oh, since when are you a lady?

Whenever I feel like it.

Well, for that, I defer to Mister Meredith’s opinion.

I always feel like a lady to him. Don’t I, dearest?

Say yes, Mister Meredith, or it’s pistols at twenty paces, if not with her, then with me.

Mary grinned at Anne. You’d defend my honour?

Someone has to.

Mary laughed. Peter said, All this makes my head swim.

Let me make you feel better, Mary said, and gave him a fierce, ferocious kiss. She looked down at his breeches and grinned. That got a rise out of you, quick enough.

The two of you need your own ship, Anne said.

Mary threw back her head and laughed—and saw that Mister

Wren and the Scotsman, Mister Gair were hauling a new flag up the mast. It had three wide bands, red on the top, white in the middle, blue below.

Peter said, That’s a Dutch flag.

Mary’s eyes shone. Is there anything you don’t know? she asked, lovingly. Anne laughed, and Mary said, "He is wonderful, isn’t he?"

Christ knows I never met a man like him, Anne said.

Mary looked back up at the Dutch flag. Sailing under false colours meant—There’s a prize out there? Mary asked Anne, a thrill in her voice.

Mister Corner told Jack there might be.

Peter said, And since the Low Countries aren’t yet in the war, although their participation on Britain’s side is daily expected…We’re acting like neutrals in order to sneak up on the other ship. This was very much like informing Anne and Mary that rum was brown, but Mary smiled again at how much her lover had learned about the ways of gentlemen of fortune—or privateers.

All hands on deck, Richard Corner cried out. All hands on deck! Time for a meeting!

Aye, Quartermaster, Mary called out happily.

You look worried, Mister Meredith, Anne said, but be of stout heart! She glanced over the side. It’s a lucky day for us. See? Dolphins!

CHAPTER III

In Which the Privateers engage in

free & open democratic Debate

C

alico Jack took a stance he knew to be dashing, and faced the crew sitting on the main deck. The older hands smiled with easy familiarity at his poses and airs of gallantry, because he’d come through for them often enough; but the new men, who had yet to see a peseta of plunder under Captain Rackam’s leadership, sat stone-faced, daring him to impress them.

Come on, come on, my fine Dutchmen, pay heed! That means you especially, Anne Bonny.

Careful, Jack, don’t show me special favours in front of the men.

Some of the more experienced hands—Noah Harwood, the Bosun, the gunners Carty and Davies, George Fetherston at the helm—chuckled at that. Calico Jack kept a fixed smile, although he was a little annoyed that his attempt at wit (the reference to everyone being Dutch) had been overmastered by Anne’s retort, which, to his mind, wasn’t especially witty.

Anne, if your mouth were a gun, we could take on the whole Spanish fleet.

There’s a merry jest! Anne said. "Why is my mouth like one

of our guns?"

I’d like to know! Mary said. "Why is your mouth like one of our guns?"

It spits out the Captain’s balls.

That was good for a solid minute of raucous laughter, even among the new men. Calico Jack said something about nine pounders and long nines and Anne said, Yes, Jack, yes, of course, but nobody really heard.

Finally, Noah Harwood blew his whistle. Beggin’ everyone’s pardon, but there’s a prize out there!

Aye, and we’ve got to vote on the attack, said Corner.

"And whether to attack," Peter said, forcefully raising his hand.

What the bloody hell now, Meredith? Calico Jack asked, irked to distraction by the inevitable fact of Peter interjecting a long and generally useless discussion into every vote taken. But Mary cleared her throat loudly and Calico Jack mastered his anger. He took a deep breath and continued in a milder tone: Mister Meredith, please say your piece. If you’re worried about actually fighting, never fear. We all know you’re more valuable with a quadrant and backstaff than a cutlass or spadroon. But it wouldn’t go amiss if you could jump up and down and bang a drum or a plate when we come up alongside the prize, just to put the fear into them. Remember, the more frightened they are, the less they fight.

Uh, yes, Captain. Thank you, sir. I have just one question, sir.

Only one? I count my blessings.

It involves the nationality of the ship you intend to attack. Now, I see that we are flying the flag of the Netherlands in order to deceive the prey—

"It’s not like you to mispronounce a word, Mister Meredith.

’Tisn’t a ‘prey,’ it’s a prize." That at least raised a small chuckle here and there.

Is it a neutral vessel? Peter pressed.

Your concern being, Mister Meredith, that attacking a neutral vessel would be a wicked act of piracy, rather than our first noble act of privateering?

Well—yes, Captain Rackam. Precisely so.

Well thought, Mister Meredith. What if I were to tell you that the ship was in fact an English vessel?

Captain! That would be—that would be a terrible thing! The Letter of Marque given us by Woodes Rogers—

Piss on the fellow, Davies said.

"—Governor Woodes Rogers, Peter reminded everyone, who owes his office directly to the King of England—"

Fat German sausage, Carty said, and the men near him laughed and said, "Ja, ja, ja."

Get to the point, Peter, dear, Mary suggested encouragingly.

"The Letter of Marque instructs us to deprive Spaniards of financial resources, of which four-fifths shall be shared among us, after one-fifth is taken by representatives of His Majesty’s government. We are not to deprive fellow Britons!"

Calico Jack smiled. What he said next was not so much a discussion with Peter as a performance for the crew. "Let us pursue that point, Mister Meredith. If Spain should capture a British ship, would you approve? Would