Rafe

As we make our way across the English Channel, we encounter nothing more dangerous than a couple of smuggler's sloops and a distant sighting of a French Imperial battleship, gray and dour as the doldrum—until we spot a cargo runner on the route to Seville, flying the Spanish royal colors though it looks so down at heel. Not a large ship, but we on the Merry Magdalena can't afford to be all that picky.

"Open fire!" I yell to Johnny, who immediately relays the order to the men stationed at the bulwark beside our cannons. "Throw up the Jolly Roger, my lads!"

Up in the crow's nest is a flash of bright red hair as Simon, the redheaded youth who joined us at Criswell, hauls on the ropes. The black flag bearing a stark white skull with a pair of cutlasses crossed beneath flies high and proud, striking terror into the hearts of ordinary merchant ships.

Or that's the hope, anyway. Pirates nowadays don't get the credit we deserve. The other day, Lord Mountbatten called us common, scurvy thieves and said we should all be hanged by the giblets.

Big talk from a man who's never been to sea, I think sourly. Besides, I don't even know what a giblet is. I always thought it had something to do with mutton cutlets, but I may be wrong.

The stout little Spanish ship bravely attempts to swerve and return fire, but the crew aboard are not fighting men, and it shows. I squint through the lens of my brass binoculars and see their captain wearing a resigned expression.

Shortly afterward, once their gunwale starts leaking, the colors of Spain are replaced with a blank white flag. They have cried a truce before a single man is killed, and why shouldn't they? They're not soldiers and have no protection on these waters, not while the great powers of Europe are so busy fighting on land.

Kings against emperors, generals against governors against admirals, and I don't know what else, and none of them will ever give a damn how the common man feeds himself. I say as much to the merchant ship's captain when we meet, who nods gloomily.

"I agree with you, compadre," he says, in a mix of bad English and gutter Spanish. "I do not know how any of us are supposed to make a living nowadays. I should have taken to smuggling like you inglese."

"Well, I'm not a smuggler anymore, just a pirate," I tell him, "but I like you, so I'll let you keep enough food and water to get your crew to shore."

"Ah, gracias," he says, morose but accepting as my men unload several bales of tobacco and some cloth from his ship. "When I woke today, I saw a red sun and knew there would be bad luck. We are fortunate to live through each day."

Ultimately, he sends us off with some of his stock of brandy and a melancholy wave. I wonder if I will become like him one day, an old and broken man without the spirit to fight against fate.

However, Johnny gestures to me before we disembark and return to our own ship. There's a dark man, swarthy from the sun and with drooping black eyes, who whispers furtively in his ear as I join them.

"This one's called Luca, he tells me," says Johnny, jerking a thumb at the Spanish sailor. "He has some information he claims is valuable, but he wants a guinea for it."

"A guinea?" I snort. The cheek of some of these Spaniards. "Tell him he can have a shilling, or I can throw him overboard, if he wants. Tell him to talk quickly."

Johnny relays the message in his pidgin Spanish. The sailor gives me a glance full of dislike but speaks rapidly nonetheless.

"He says there are better pickings towards the coast," Johnny translates. "He says he heard about a cargo ship when they docked at Calais. It's not the Navy, but there's an English lady aboard. Rich, they say. Easy pickings."

"A lady?" I raise my eyebrows. "No lady is going to go jauntering across the Continent with Napoleon sweeping across Europe. The man's a goddamned liar."

Apparently, the Spaniard understands enough English to protest. He breaks into an infuriatingly polyglot rant, mixing French swear words with prayers to several Spanish saints to attest to his truthfulness.

I close my eyes, willing myself to be patient, and Johnny delivers a resounding punch to the other man's shoulder.

"Stop nattering on, you," he says disgustedly. Then he turns to me.

"They say the English lady is traveling out to British Cyprus to meet her affianced husband, the great and grand governor hisself," he tells me. "It might be true. It's not an important territory, they're out of the way of the fighting, and she's going quietly by sea. I could believe it."

I can believe it too, but so what? I don't believe in women aboard my ship. I never have. They're too much trouble ashore as it is.

"So we kidnap her and ransom her, is that it?" I say with a conspicuous jeer. "And how do we get word to the governor that we have her, even?

"If he chooses to put the word out, he could send Navy battleships out looking for us, and we'll spend the rest of our lives on the run, Johnny. That's assuming they don't blow us out of the water anywhere between here and Gibraltar."

"The governor put the word out that his bride-to-be was abducted and dishonored by common pirates?" says Johnny, grinning. "Talk some sense, Cap'n.

"He won't say nothing to nobody, on account of he won't want it getting out that this here fiancée of his was anywhere that she wasn't supposed to be. No, he'll pay up all right and tight, and then he'll never say another word about it to anyone as long as he lives. You know what these English toffs are like."

"Hmm." I have to admit, Johnny has a point here. Give an Englishman a chance to bring out his stiff upper lip, and he'll always take it. Especially the ones in castles and governors' mansions.

They have to be careful of their reputations; otherwise, England might have a revolution next. The one in France was bad enough, they say. There are stories of the Reign of Terror that might curdle even the blood of a pirate.

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. I don't like the rich lords; I never swore an oath to any king, and as far as I recognize any borders, they are bounded by ports, not by cities inland which have nothing to do with me and never will again.

I make up my mind quickly. "Ask him for the name of the ship, Johnny."

"He says it's the Blackadder out of Portsmouth," Johnny reports. "He says he heard about it from his cousin in Dieppe." A slight pause. "He says he wants his shilling now."

"And he's earned it," I say lightly, "unless he's lying, in which case I'm going to Seville to cut his treacherous tongue out. Tell him that, Johnny."

Johnny starts to translate. The Spaniard crosses himself, muttering solemn oaths of fidelity to his word of honor. I flip a shilling in the air, then hand him a guinea instead.

"What'd you do that for?" says Johnny indignantly. "After you bargained him down and everything?"

"Because he's a poor man, Johnny, and we're going to be rich," I say exuberantly. "I knew Cyprus was going to bring us good luck. Didn't I tell you?"

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," warns Johnny. "You remember what happened at Port Blair."

"Port Blair was a mistake," I reply with dignity. "How was I supposed to know that that nice Scottish man was really a slaver? Anyway, this is going to be completely different. We're only taking one prisoner, not a whole hold's worth of 'em."

Johnny grunts skeptically as the Spanish captain waves us off his ship, looking very despondent at being the target of piracy. Perhaps I should have given him some gold as well.

Ah, well, it's too late now. The Merry Magdalena has moved from the tubby cargo vessel, which is much lighter now, thanks to us. We veer off eastwards.

"I wonder if she has gold," says Johnny dreamily. "Sometimes these grand ladies carry cases full of jewels and gold with them, especially if they're going to get married."

"Chance would be a fine thing," I say, refusing to cheer up. I feel oddly downcast, especially after a successful raid. I wonder what's wrong with me.

Perhaps it doesn't quite sit right with me, abducting a helpless woman. Maybe I'm developing a sense of honor in my old age.

Maybe it's because I just spent a guinea on information that might not even be true, and now that I think of it, I didn't even catch that Spanish sailor's full name. So much for my threats of revenge.

"Cheer up, Cap'n," says Johnny sunnily. "The lads just found out there's silk in them there bales. That'll fetch a nice good price at the next port we put in at. If that lady doesn't turn out to be true, I mean to say."

"Yes," I say with an effort. "And there's the brandy, too. Nice man, that captain."

If, as I drink, I wonder why a young lady travels alone without her family to get married in a foreign land, I say nothing about it to anyone. She's probably rich, spoiled, and haughty, just like all the fine ladies I've ever heard of, so what does it matter anyway?

I put the mysterious Englishwoman out of my mind and set course to intercept the Blackadder. There's a strange coincidence, as well.

Because, not to brag or anything, but I've been plundering and pillaging on the high seas for long enough to earn my own moniker.

I wonder if the lady has heard any stories about the Black Serpent yet.