Chapter 283: Concordia’s Traffic is Terrible

Concordia’s reefs slipped past the Fortune’s bow, and beyond it the bay was clean out of space.

There were simply too many ships in every fathom.

Trade ships sat on double anchors, smugglers flew their signs from every stick that could hold a rag, and the Runts, apart from the handful away on dispatch, were packed together in a knot big enough to be a village.

Voices spread across the water in four languages, and not one of them was wishing their fellows an excellent day.

The corvette that had crossed the Caribbean in five days was now creeping forward, stopping every few moments to take a sounding. Bonnet held the wheel, Crick watched the gulls at the binnacle, a leadsman called from the chains, and James leaned on the rail, wearing [Discretion] and the black hat.

"By the maaa-ark... thrrr-ee!"

Some smack, a type of small boat, cut across the bow with a boy in the stern eating an orange, and the Fortune came to a dead stop.

Bonnet’s grip tightened on the spokes. "James, James, I must draw your attention to that child. He is eating an orange at us, and with a relish I can only call insolent."

He drew a deep breath through his nose. "I have been outflanked by Spaniards, outwitted by storms, but never, upon my honor, never by citrus."

Back in Edinburgh, James had seen the Canongate on a fair day, and even that many cars couldn’t rival this mess. It was, to put in perspective, if an enormous bus was forced to stop by a scooter.

"There be free water a-runnin’ past they two, plain as a parson’s nose of a Sunday. Free water."

Crick rapped the binnacle’s oak three times, hard.

"And ’tis the dearest kind there be."

Two sloops choked off the water, their jib-booms tangled in each other’s shrouds while their captains shouted at one another. Those ships were called the Foghorn and the Preacher, respectively from the Runts and smugglers.

The Foghorn captain was built like a hogshead, scalp burned red peeling like old paint coming off a bulkhead, as for the Preacher captain, he was some gaunt stooped man in a black coat green at the seams, with white fringe around his bald crown, a broken nose pointing left, and a fat Bible hanging from his belt.

"BACK YER BLOOMIN’ BOWSPRIT OUT O’ MY SHROUDS, YE PIOUS, PSALM-BLEATIN’ FUSTILUGS, OR I’LL HANG YER BIBLE FROM IT AN’ YE ALONGSIDE!"

The Fortune’s wake, large waves, slapped the two sloops together, and both men turned on her.

"OI! WHO’S THE BLACK COLLIER WALLOWIN’ BETWEEN A MAN AN’ HIS BLOODY QUARREL? STEER, YE LUBBER, STEER, OR I’LL STEER YE MYSELF, WITH ME BOOT, UP YER BLEEDIN’ BACKSIDE!"

"Behold! BEHOLD, the ninth plague of Egypt cometh upon the waters, sailing under black canvas! Woe, woe, and thrice woe unto the hearse that thrusteth itself ’twixt a servant of the Lord and his lawful water! For the Lord shall..."

The captains looked up, spotted the gold at the cuffs and face beneath a brim.

"Sweet Christ on a crutch."

Whatever courage had been in the Foghorn left him in a single exhale.

The voice that followed was, by his own reckoning, a whisper. "It’s the Scourge, lads. The Scourge o’ the bloomin’ Antilles! Him what ate a Spaniard’s whole crew for breakfast, boots an’ buttons an’ all. For the love o’ God, no one says shite."

The Preacher tacked the whole sermon about in mid-clause, and clutched the Bible to his chest as though it might hold off the disaster. "...shall BLESS the Scourge of the Antilles! Blessed art thou, O Scourge, in thy coat of gold! Selah! Blessed thy hat, blessed thy keel, and blessed the very waters that part before thee! Amen, and AMEN!"

Bonnet swept off his hat in a flourish. "A thousand pardons, gentlemen, a thousand and one, to be thorough. The Fortune has the most deplorable manners, I do trust her wake hasn’t done your quarrel injury? It was coming along so nicely."

James tipped his own.

"Mornin’, lads. Carry on with your wee quarrel, I’d not dream of spoilin’ a good one."

Behind them, the argument started up again in whispers.

Crick then informed. "There be a passage ahead, Cap’n Bonnet, wider’n the lass by half a fathom. Half a fathom, mind, ’tis a sliver of a thing."

Ahead of them, more sloops waited. Those were named the Matron and the Gabbler, round and small in the water.

The Matron’s captain was a broad woman of fifty, wearing a battered tricorn, with a clay pipe between her teeth and a cutlass through her apron strings. Across the water, the Gabbler’s captain was a small, nut-brown man sitting on an upturned bucket, his hat folding his ears out like jug handles.

"It’s me berth, me lamb. So take yer bucket an’ yer manky wee kedge an’ go somewhere warm, pet, an’ by warm I mean the sort with pitchforks and torches at the door."

Bonnet slipped into the passage.

The Matron’s cable passed beneath the keel, the Gabbler missed the shrouds by a hand’s breadth, and the Fortune squeezed through in shallow water.

"Bloody hell, great black pudden, ye! I’ll skin ye for bunting, an’ flog what’s left for sausages, pet. An’ I’ll take me time over it!"

Bonnet bowed from the wheel. "How terribly kind of you, madam, I’m quite overcome. It’s the loveliest threat I’ve been told, and might I add, what a handsome pipe."

"YOU GREAT BLACK BASTARD OF A CORVETTE, YOU’VE GONE THROUGH THE PASSAGE I’VE BEEN SAT HERE WAITING FOR SINCE THE TIDE TURNED, I HAVE, MUN, AND I’LL HAVE THE LAW ON YOU, AND MY MAM’S GHOST, AND MY MAM’S GHOST’S DEBT COLLECTOR, AND..."

Then recognition came, James aboard the ship watching them all.

The pipe fell from the Matron’s mouth. "Oh, it’s you, hinny! The Scourge himsel’, an’ me bawlin’ me gob off like a fishwife, which I am, mind, but I never meant a word, pet, not one. Don’t take it to heart, please, have ye eaten? Ye look peaky, I’ve a steak an’ kidney pie goin’ spare, still warm."

"Och, aye, a pie would go grand, lass. I’ve not had decent pastry for a while."

"...an’ it’s the Scourge sir oh Duw Duw sir I never said bastard sir I said bustard it’s a bird sir a very respectable bird sir big fella long legs ask anyone sir ask the Bishop..."

He stepped back to give the salute room, found the rim of the bucket with his heel, and vanished behind the bulwark with a crash.

"...an’ I’m perfectly well sir tidy as anything sir thank you sir never better sir it’s the bucket sir the bucket’s at fault I’ve told it before sir..."

The passage closed behind them, and the Matron and the Gabbler went back to their feud over a patch of water that no longer existed.

The harbor narrowed ahead with one sloop moored broadside across the entrance, stopping the passage as neatly as a cork in a bottle. Her captain swung in a hammock between mast and shrouds, an enormously stout man in a nightcap and banyan, with a mug of rum on his belly.

The waves rocked his hammock, and one eye pushed open.

"Beggin’... yer... pardon... y’ave... rocked... me... ’ammock... ye... black... bas... tard... o’... a... col... lier..."

The Fortune sailed on, while his voice came crawling after her, each word requiring a breath of its own, and interestingly enough, the mug on his belly rose and fell with the swell, never spilling a drop.

"James, my dear fellow, do look. I do believe the gentleman in the nightcap is addressing us."

Crick, without taking his eyes off the gulls, rapped three times on the rail, a small drum for a large doom. "Four words in, Cap’n, and we be a full cable gone. Mark me, at this rate we’ll be dead o’ old age, and our grandchildren’s grandchildren a-kneelin’ at our graves, afore he finds the verb."

"...and... a... coat... at... the... rail... all... gold... at... the... cuffs..."

James laughed into the back of his hand until his eyes watered.

"...is... that... the... Sc..."

The Fortune sailed through the narrow passage.

"...ourge..."

A boat’s length of silence followed.

"...oh... bug... ger..."

James tipped his hat toward the hammock a cable astern, and finally understood the delay. Every boat in the harbor had been waiting for one sloop to move since the tide turned, and not one of them had dared wake the captain.

The Fortune’s mooring post stood at the head of her berth, painted black, with a bluff-bowed trade ship snug against it. A round, pink man in three waistcoats leaned over a notebook, spectacles on with twine and a quill tucked behind each ear.

Bonnet eased the Fortune into her berth, and the jib-boom scraped a flake of paint from the trade ship quarter, no bigger than a thumbnail.

The round man bellowed. "TWO SHILLIN’ AN’ FOURPENCE! Fourpence for the flake, two shillin’ for the outrage, an’ eleven pound, ELEVEN, mind, for the ruination o’ me mornin’, tha coal-black coxcomb!"

Then he looked up, and the pink drained out of him one waistcoat at a time. "F-free, sir. Free! No charge, none whatsoever, sir, I’ve been airin’ yer berth for yer, sir, damp, tha knows, gets in t’ timbers, an’ that at me own expense, sir, which is nowt, nowt at all, a pleasure, sir, a privilege."

He wheeled on his crew. "CAST OFF, YE THREE-FARTHIN’ SONS O’ CLERKS! IT’S THE SCOURGE! THE SCOURGE WANTS ’IS BERTH, AN’ IF HE TAKES ONE MORE BREATH WAITIN’ I’LL DOCK YER WAGES TILL DOOMSDAY!"

The crew fell over itself in its haste, and the trade ship wallowed away, trailing her bow cable behind her like a tail.

The Fortune slid into place as neatly as a hand into a glove. The Rose was furled at her own post beyond her, and the Dame lay low at hers.

Three private berths, kept by custom and dread.

Along the piers, the Runts had spotted the black coat.

The crews that had been sprawled about with their boots up and bottles out scrambled to work, scrubbing planks clean enough to eat off, hauling an empty line hand over hand with the solemn devotion of a saint.

"Scourge, sir! Mornin’! Hard at it, sir, hard at it! Not a minute’s rest since the flood, sir, on me mam’s life!"

Work. Bloody work.

There were a dozen ships out there, drinking Concordia’s rum, and they’d spent the whole dawn corking up the harbor. He ought to find them useful jobs to do before they sank the pilings.

Then there was the frigate at the far pier, waiting for a captain, a crew, and a name of her own.

Then came the harbor. The town needed a second basin farther inland, or more docks around the headland for the ships that fought.

And Zephy. Three chests, a basin, and a white lamp brought through the market in front of the whole town, past a chapel bell and a crowd that had once howled for a thief’s hand. And the Code required every newcomer to put a name or mark on the stone within a week, with no provision for sibyls.

Work was a miserable mistress, but James ought to pay attention to it.