Chapter 246: The King’s Dental Bill

The blood on James’s face dried into a crust and begun to itch by the time the last redcoat was bound, the dead were laid out, and the worst wounded had been dealt with.

The Rose’s orlop deck stank of vinegar, rum, and linen that had been washed in a hurry. James ducked beneath the beam and breathed it in like he had come into his favorite tavern, though few he knew had quite so many needles and pincers laid out on a chest.

Hobbs had taken his surgeon’s kit and laid the tools across a bowl pink around the rim.

Radcliffe lay on a hatch cover stretched across two kegs, his wrists bound in front of him. His face was swollen like a plum, and a fresh bandage was wound tight around his chest.

Cudjoe stood nearby with his arms folded, watching the work with steady hands.

Hobbs couldn’t care less about the peanut gallery. Some rum sat beside his elbow, and he drank a sip before each stitch.

"Two o’ these are beyond saving, unless ye fancy feedin’ ’em back to him."

Hobbs explained while he set the pincers on a third and pulled. It came out with a wet crack, struck the bowl with a little clink, and joined the others.

"That one’d have rotted clean down into his skull."

He took Radcliffe’s hand and pushed one of the knuckles back into place with his thumb. It cracked like a biscuit. "Fingers’re split right down to the bone, and they’ll never sit right again. Jaw’s cracked clean through, though the bastard’ll keep it, more’s the pity. Rib’s opened up, packed, stitched, and prayin’ it holds. He’ll be hurtin’ fierce for a month, supposin’ he keeps the rib at all."

Hobbs finally looked up, pinched the bridge of his nose, and stared at his captain.

"And ye want him talkin’ already?"

James grinned shamelessly. "The captain’s day don’t wait on a surgeon’s leisure, Hobbs. Stitch the King’s soldier, send the King’s bill, and let His Majesty complain about the price."

By their side, Cudjoe only grunted. "Good ole fright’ll loosen a tongue faster’n a week o’ healin’. Give him a taste o’ what’s waitin’ fer him, an’ he’ll find his wits quick enough."

Hobbs shrugged, as if he had made his civic duty as a surgeon and, being a sensible man, seemed content to leave it at that.

He cut off the catgut, wrapped the last strip of linen, then pulled a rag from his coat that stank as though vinegar had been made to marry green puss and neither party had been happy about it.

He held it under the captured captain’s nose.

Radcliffe’s whole body jerked. He dragged in a ragged breath and flinched from head to boot, waking with enthusiasm reserved for those hauled out of wells.

"There’s your lad."

Hobbs picked up his rum, his pincers, and whatever remained of his patience.

"I’ll leave ye two to whatever foolishness ye’ve cooked up, mind ye don’t make me stitch him twice."

The ladder creaked beneath him, and his boots thudded away overhead.

Radcliffe came around slowly, though the pain was there already. His tongue went searching for his teeth and found the empty place where one had been.

His next breath caught on his ribs like a fishhook, and his eyes wandered over the low beams and swinging lantern without seeming to recognize either one.

Then James watched the day return to him piece by piece, about the deck, the chain, the floor, and finally the fact that he was a prisoner. Radcliffe’s bound hands tightened.

"I’ll die on my own two feet!" Radcliffe boomed, and his jaw clicked like a pistol lock.

He stopped, spat pink saliva onto the planks, and winced. "Before I anthwer a thingle quethtion from pirateth! Finish what your chain-dog thtarted and thpare me the talk! God thave the King!"

Cudjoe’s eyebrow went up exactly one inch.

James crouched beside the kegs, laughing. "Finish it? Gods above, mate, you’ve barely opened your eyes! Don’t spoil it now, I was just gettin’ comfortable for the rest of the speech."

"Enjoy..." Radcliffe wheezed.

His eyes moved from James to Cudjoe, and the pain let way to sharper fury. "And you! Standing there with all the airs of a gentleman, are you, but just one more kennel-born colonial. No better than the blackguard who laid that iron upon me, and no less a slave for all your swagger!"

Cudjoe retorted with indifference. "Aye, slave an’ chain both, an’ ye’ve lost tae the pair. Save what breath’s left in ye, Englishmen, ye’ve made the point once, no need tae choke it out twice."

Laugh came from James, who added. "Easy now, mate. Cudjoe there could fold you up like an old sail, tuck you under one arm, and eat his breakfast with the other."

"Colonial rabble! A pack of dockside savages!"

Radcliffe spat, sending a fine mist of blood and saliva across the space between them.

"Cutthroats, every last one of you! A bloody pack of heathens fit for nothing but the gallows!"

James nodded cheerfully. "Rabble, are we? Aye, rabble with a frigate under us, her crew laid out on deck, and your teeth rattlin’ around in a bowl. Sounds like a fine bit of rabble to me."

He scratched at his chin and dropped onto a cask. "Now here’s the part that’s got me curious. The King’s ships, all that powder and canvas, sent chasin’ one wee brigantine. So who pointed you at us, mate? What were you told to do?"

"I shall breathe not one thyllable of what Parliament and the Admiralty have seen fit to command!"

Radcliffe tried to draw himself up, but the wounds forced him back down. "I am a King’s officer, and I demand the treatment due a prithoner of war!I shall not be cross-examined like some common felon dragged from a gaol!"

"Prisoner o’ war, is it? Ha! That’s rich!"

James laughed until the kegs rocked beneath him.

Cudjoe leaned back and shot him a slightly alarmed expression. "Some fine lord’s sittin’ warm in Parliament, or some admiral, an’ one o’ ’em’s marked ye for the grave, James. Be a shame not tae learn whose notion it was."

"Fools, you haven’t the wit to understand what you’ve stumbled into."

The words came out hot and wet.

"Commodore Nathaniel Falcombe will have every damned one of you on the gallows!

James and Cudjoe exchanged one quick look.

Then the captain, as casually as if he were in a tavern. "Sounds a fine gentleman. Does he always send King’s ships after one wee brigantine, or have I been granted some special distinction?"

Radcliffe’s laugh broke in the middle. "You vain colonial cur! A barnacle, that’s what you are! The navy shall scrape you from the hull, and the hole you’ve crawled into shall avail you not a whit when a Governor’s commission comes down to finish the work."

Every ’s’ whistled through the gap in his teeth, and the last of it came out as a groan.

James kept the grin right where it was.

Beside him, Cudjoe turned serious at last.

Both watched the captain realize what he had just said. The little expression Radcliffe had left drained from his face.

He shut his mouth hard, winced at the pain, and kept it shut.

"Which governor, mate?" James asked.

"And how many ships’re comin’ with him?" Cudjoe added.

The captain watched the beams overhead as though the answers might be written there.

"Aye, shut the hatch, then. Cargo’s already gone over the side."

He shrugged and pushed himself off the cask.

"Reckon that’s all the mate got left to give us."

"Plenty tae chew on already, without wastin’ time more out o’ a fool too proud tae spit it up."

Cudjoe finally unfolded his arms. "Then there’s the frigate, battered half t’hell an’ too fine a prize tae burn, whatever lads o’ hers chose the deck over drownin’, an’ Concordia’s waitin’ on us wi’ a sight more tae answer for than either o’ us reckoned on this mornin’."

"Then we’d best not keep them waitin’ on us."

James climbed the ladder into the sunlight with Cudjoe behind him.

Below, the lantern swung gently over the bound man, who had finally discovered that silence was the safest thing he could put in his mouth.