Chapter 200: The Wickedest City

The waiting turned out to be the whole business.

Day after day slipped behind them in the ship’s wake, the island and the township long since gone, while Port Royal remained a dirty little smudge on the horizon that one sailor swore he could already smell.

Normally, Anne and Milagros climbed the quarterdeck to keep James company at the wheel, which was a generous description of their reason purpose. And today was no different.

"Christ, this heat."

Anne leaned against the rail beside him and fanned herself with one hand. "Found two lads asleep against a coil of rope less than an hour ago, arm in arm like a pair of lovers."

"Only two?" James laughed. "I’d call that a fine morning’s discipline."

Milagros came up on his other side and snorted loudly.

"Discipline. This ship could not spell the word."

"Speaking of what a man’s hands actually want."

Anne hooked both thumbs into the top of her bodice and tugged it down half an inch, just enough to make certain that only James and Milagros could see the fullness of her chest bound beneath it.

She snickered mischievously. "The right size for a handful, that’s what. Thick and full, so he can get both hands around and still find himself wanting more, Milagros. Meanwhile, not a soul has ever spotted you from farther than arm’s length."

"Any fool can grab some large handful, guapa."

Milagros folded her arms, pushing her chest forward and making no effort to hide what she was putting on display. The gesture lifted and emphasized her perky curves, as though she meant to make certain Anne had no doubt what she was boasting about.

Then she clicked her tongue. "Wanting exactly what fits your hand whole, with not a bit spilling over the sides and not a bit left wanting, that’s what his hands wants."

Anne refused to retreat an inch. "He remembers the Bahama Channel well enough. Both hands full, and still begging me for more before the night was done, and that’s enough proof for me."

Milagros fired back. "And how long all that abundance keep him occupied before he came looking for me instead? Count the candle, guapa. It was not long, and it never is."

"Ask him which one he reaches for first in the dark, if you don’t believe me."

"Ask him which one he is still reaching for after you’ve gone to sleep, then."

James lips parted open, his chance to contribute.

"Ladies, if I might just say..."

"Shut it, James."

They said it together and didn’t even have the decency to look at him while they did it.

Near the quarterdeck, Ned turned the color of a boiled crab and dropped the whole coil of rope he had been winding. He muttered what felt like an apology to whatever saint had charge of embarrassed young men, then discovered an urgent piece of business belowdecks that hadn’t existed a moment earlier.

James, meanwhile, had never in his life been so pleased to stand still while two women fought over him.

Then, as if they had both remembered at once that he was the cause of the trouble, they stopped complaining with each other and turned on him.

"Enough." Anne folded her arms. "Which one, James?"

"Now." Milagros lifted her chin. "Plainly, no more hiding while we do all the work for you."

"Now, ladies."

James spread both hands. "A wise man doesn’t choose between two fine ships when he’s got harbor room for both, does he? I love you both something fierce, and there is my answer."

"Begging for mercy with a compliment nailed to it, more like." Anne narrowed her eyes.

Milagros was having none of it. "Coward’s answer, cabrón. Pick, or I’ll pick for you, and you will not like which hand does the picking."

James tried again, on the first notion that came to him. "Right, think of it this way. One captain wants a nimble little sloop when the wind is fair and he needs to make way quick, and a deep-hulled ship when a storm appears in hard. Scuttling either one is out of the question, and that’s my final word."

"Did you just compare the two of us to cargo capacity?" Anne stared at him.

"I stand by every word."

"Madre de Dios, he’s proud of it too."

James put an end to it in the only fashion he trusted himself to use. He caught Anne by the waist and kissed her hard enough to steal the argument right out of her mouth, then caught Milagros and kissed her too, before either woman could find enough breath to accuse him of favoritism.

It purchased him perhaps four seconds of genuine peace.

Then both women rounded on him at once, and they were sharper than before.

"Which one, James." Milagros’s voice was tighter now.

"Land!" Kit’s voice came cracking down from the rigging before either woman could finish.

"Land ho, dead ahead!"

James had never been more grateful for a boy’s terrible timing in his whole life.

"All hands!"

He was already shouting orders before the relief had properly made it into his chest. "Trim her for the run in, and somebody roust whoever’s got the watch below. We’ll want her looking respectable before we’re within hailing distance!"

The deck came alive around them, and Anne and Milagros went with it like everybody else.

Anne still found time to point a finger straight at his nose as she passed.

"This isn’t finished, James Calloway."

Milagros caught Anne’s eye behind his back. The two women exchanged a look that promised James considerably worse than anything either had said aloud.

Then Milagros added more in Spanish, so fast that James caught nothing except his own name somewhere in the middle of it.

That was somehow worse.

Kwaku came past a moment later with a coat thrown over his bare shoulders, the first time James had ever seen him wear one. He checked the edge of some blade tucked into his belt with care, as though the man had never heard of being in a hurry.

Enzo drifted by next, straightening his cravat with both hands. Under one arm he carried his little pot of basil, cradling it as carefully as if he meant to take the plant ashore himself rather than trust it to a ship full of thieves.

This was probably the correct decision.

Port Royal had once been called the wickedest city on earth, or so every sermon back in the world James had left behind liked to claim. For once, James knew the sermon was not exaggerating by much.

Buccaneers had built the place stone by stone, using plunder and welcome in equal measure. The Brethren of the Coast had treated her as both home port and bank, and men like Henry Morgan had walked these streets like kings in everything but name, back when a captain with a loose conscience and a respectable commission could buy just about anything this town had to sell.

Then, one afternoon in 1692, the whole waterfront went into the sea. Houses, warehouses, and enough of a graveyard to make the occasion properly crowded all disappeared together in a few minutes, and nobody who survived ever forgot it.

Every pious soul from here to London called it God’s judgment on a den of sin. James thought that was a fine joke on the Almighty, because the trade simply climbed aboard the next ship down the coast and kept thriving where the ground was less inclined to swallow it.

What remained now was smaller and considerably more careful, with Kingston’s wharves looming across the water.

Port Royal stayed alive mostly because the Crown still wanted exactly what she had to offer, a deep harbor that storms could not easily spoil, and a dockyard sitting behind Fort Charles’s guns.

Royal Navy ships rode at anchor to make the point plain.

A town raised by pirates now paid good wages to hang them.

Yet, just as Cudjoe had reckoned from the beginning, she was still crowded with desperate men, deserters, and willing sailors, the sort who would sign a captain’s articles first and ask what ship they had signed onto after the ale wore off.

The Spanish colors were already flying above him, by then.

Watching the Palisadoes rise pale and low along the water, James felt that bringing those colors honestly into Port Royal was their safest course.

Striking them altogether would only send every customs boat in the harbor looking for a reason to come alongside, while flying British colors over a hull built by Spanish hands was a much surer way to end up explaining himself to a rope.

Port Royal finally appeared ahead of the bow, guns and wharves and all.

James allowed himself to believe they might actually get inside without much trouble.

That, naturally, was when he ought to have known better.