Chapter 286: Senate of Runts

"Lord save us, would you look at the state of you! Crammed in like swine in a bloody cage!"

James kept his boots on the entrance and the grin on his face. "The minute I sail into the bay, every last one of you’re down on your knees scrubbin’ my planks like penitent nuns, swearin’ blind it was the Lord’s work!"

His voice grew higher. "Captains, ha! Och, I’ve seen better command in a chamber pot, and the pot, God bless it, at least keeps its water in!"

Then it dropped, almost kind, and the whole hall leaned in without knowing it. "Runts, the Rose’s lads call you, and they’re bein’ bloody gentle, so they are. Some runt, at the very least, has the wit to fight for the teat!"

The hall erupted. A hundred sunburned faces and beards let out one great roar while pipe smoke gathered beneath the rafters and the stone floor stank of tar, sweat, and rum. There was enough noise to wake the dead, though most of the sailors present looked as if they’d been trying to join them for years.

"Hark at him! Hrk at the Scotch bastard, lads! Strike me down, I never heard such cheek!"

"Runts, is it? RUNTS?"

"By the left foot o’ Saint Elmo hisself!"

A boot sailed over a hundred heads and slapped the upside-down ensign beside the door, followed by a tankard that struck the Falmouth gun with a clang like a ship’s bell.

James grinned at the whole hairy lot and stepped inside.

The crowd parted open to let him through, then closed behind him, leaving nothing but shoulders and stale breath. The round table stood in the middle of the floor, the chart pinned on top, with twelve chairs around it and no head seat.

The ship’s bell hung beside the window, and benches climbed across the walls with an officer on every step. James had seen stranger assemblies than this, but never one that made so much noise over so little business.

It was a peculiar sort of senate, even by the standards of Venice.

He dropped into a chair and hooked his boot over the polished rim.

"Sit, the lot of you, you daft, glaikit bastards, afore someone gets himself gutted!"

Eleven seats for twelve captains. The chairs shrieked across the floor, one captain vaulted a bench, and a huge man with a peeling scalp pinned a rival to the wall with his belly.

It took a good while to sort out the winner, and the whole business was no better than the scramble itself.

When the dust settled, a stout fellow in a nightcap and banyan stood alone with his hands hanging at his sides. He lowered himself onto a wall bench and fell asleep without much complaint, or really any awareness.

At last, every captain in port sat in one room.

"Right, then, the roll. Name and hull, one at a time, and loud with it."

The huge man rose and drew a breath that seemed to take the oxygen out of the hall, his peeling scalp flushing the tone of boiled ham. "HOGSHEAD HAL, FOGHORN, AN’ THE FIRST BLEEDIN’ BASTARD TO LAUGH GETS HIS TEETH FED BACK TO HIM, ONE AT A TIME, WITH GRAVY!"

Then a middle-aged broad woman plucked her pipe from her teeth. "Ma Bess, The Matron, hinny, an’ ye’ll get a pie an’ a clout, an’ don’t be askin’ which comes first, for ye’ll nowt like..."

Hal, taking this for his cue, bellowed again and drowned her out entirely. The pipe cracked off his skull like a mallet on a melon, and a fresh flake of scalp drifted down onto the chart.

"Don’t ye shout over me, ye great peelin’ onion, or I’ll take the other half o’ that scalp an’ all!"

The next captain took the pause for an invitation and went off, words piling over words so fast that the sailors who tried to cut in were flattened under it. "Dai, mun! Gabby Dai, they call me, an’ fair play, I’ll not argue! Duw, duw, the Gabbler, boyo, my lovely, sweet as a nut an’ tight as a drum, not a leak in her, look you, bar the one in the bow, an’ that was only ever a dampness, mun, a dampness, there’s a world o’ difference, ask any carpenter."

When there was finally room in the conversation, more words crawled in from the bench with a pause, and then, finally, a little more than before.

"Lem... mmh... Lazy... Lem... o’ the... ahhh... the Drowsy..."

A lean man in a mended coat spoke next.

"Tom, Spry Eel. That be all."

He laid his name and his hull on the table flatly, one atop the other, then sat back with his hands loose on his knees, wanting nothing.

Across the table, a sweat-slicked captain flipped his hat, jowls quivering, each word hauled up from near his boots like a bucket from a dry well.

"Wat... hhhff... Fat Wat... hhhff... Plump... Partridge... Lord, the wind... where’s me... wind..."

From the next seat a captain clapped a hand to his ear and leaned forward. "SHAME AN’ HELL? SHAME AN’ HELL, IS IT? SPEAK UP, YE MUMBLIN’ SCOTCH SWAB, I CAN’T HEAR A BLOODY WORD!"

There wasn’t a reply, and the captain figured the silence was a challenge and heaved himself halfway out of his seat, ear still cocked at nothing. "I’VE MORE O’ BOTH THAN YOU, YE SCOTCH SWAB! NAT! SILENT MOUSE! AN’ STOP BLOODY WHISPERIN’!"

Near them, an one-eyed captain swept a bow from his seat and swung a wink across the table with all the confidence. "Olly... Winkin’ Fox, darlin’, an’ don’t ye look a vision this day’, Moll! Fresh as a daisy on a dung-heap!"

The wink came down and turned his entire world into darkness. He groped for his bearings, found Wat’s elbow, and through it Wat’s greasy belly.

The captain that he flirted, some enormous woman, tipped her chair back and let loose a laugh, taking her measure with one brazen eyebrow. "Mad Moll, so I am, an’ Brazen Hussy, proud! An’ if that’s an offer ye’re makin’, Olly Fox, ye’ll wash first, ye one-eyed divil. Wash, mind, with soap, an’ then the answer’s maybe!"

The next captain spoke down into it as into a well, in a depressed voice. "Sour Gil, Sweet Lemon. Not that it matters, mark, she’ll founder by Michaelmas, they allus do, an’ we’ll all be drowned, an’ nowt to be done about it."

By his side, a Cornishman raked his rust-red beard with all five fingers, and sighed at the heavens as if they’d insulted him.

"Rusty Rob, my lover, an’ the Sweet Reprieve. God help her, for there’s none other will!"

Next on, a Dutchman radiated. His round face split in wide smile, and he delivered his proverb to the whole table. "Hans, ja! Hans! Salty Tulip, my ship, ja? An’ a stitch in time, it catches de worm. Ja, ja, always I say so!"

James let his eyes crawl down the table, lips moving as he tallied, then raked them across the stretches of empty bench where three more should have sat.

He then cocked an eyebrow. "That’s twelve here, and fifteen on the muster. Where in the name of the Almighty are the other three?"

"Three’s at Nassau, Cap’n! On the dispatch run, sir! The lot o’ ’em, sir, on the dispatch!"

James tipped his chair back on two legs, laced his fingers behind his head, and let the silence stretch. Nassau’s run was still on the works, and soon enough the pretty rock would receive the folks from the piss poor rock.

When the silence became too much, he started. "Here’s the truth of it. This merry band is the idlest, drunkenest pack of reprobates ever to foul a harbor, so I’m findin’ you work, because a name’s not a thing handed, lads, and by Christ, you’ll earn a better one than Runts!"

The room’s pride stumbled over the word, then found its feet.

Then Hal’s palm came down on the table. "RUNTS! AYE, RUNTS, BY GOD! RUNTS! WE’LL BE YER BLEEDIN’ RUNTS, AN’ WE’LL BITE YER ANKLES OFF FOR THE PRIVILEGE! RUNTS! RUNTS! RUNTS!"

The hall took it up, tankards, fists, and boot heels hammering the beat until the axes over the hearth chattered on their pegs. It was a magnificent show of unity, if only about a name they all claimed to hate.

Gil’s moan rose beneath the chanting, long and low. "Work kills, lad. Killed me father, killed me best dog an’ all, God rest ’em both. Worked ’em right into the ground."

Rob swore it with one hand on his heart. "Work afore noon, my bird? ’Tis agin nature! Work afore noon sours the rum in a man’s belly, ’tis well known, an’ I’ll hear no different!"

Nat’s head snapped up out of the fog of his own deafness. He was half out of his chair, eyes scouring the rafters.

"WHORES?! WHERE?! WHERE’S THE WHORES? SOMEONE SAID WHORES! I HEARD IT PLAIN!"

James killed the uproar with one jerk of his thumb toward the window.

Every skull in the room swung after it like sunflowers after the sun, all the way out to the frigate sulking at the far pier.

He put it simply enough. "First matter, the bloody frigate, sittin’ sweet as a swan at the far pier, and not a soul aboard to give her an order. She wants a captain, a crew, and by God, she wants a name!"

Twelve backs straightened at once. Hal sucked in his belly, Bess spat on her thumb and smoothed an eyebrow, and Dai shut his mouth, an event no one present had ever seen.

James looked down the row.

At the end of the table sat the lean man in the mended coat, salt-stiff to the collar, with tar cracked into both hands. Tom had insulted no one, which in that company was enough to make a man stand out.

He clicked his tongue. "Now then. Who among you has done actual bloody work since I sailed? Officers! Speak plain, and speak true."

The benches answered all at once.

"Wat ain’t stirred from his galley since Candlemas, sir!"

"Lem drinks in his sleep, Cap’n! An’ sleeps in his drink! Never seen the like, sir!"

"Olly’s been out all week, out an’ about, sir! Workin’ hard, sir! Hard as... hard as... well, hard!"

"OUT COLD, JEM, ye lyin’ sod! Out cold! Behind the Rat, sir, face-down in the muck, an’ a pig lickin’ his ear!"

Short Joss, Tom’s first mate, stood behind his chair with his arms folded. "Every mornin’, sir, since ye sailed. The Spry Eel’s hauled quarry stone fer the Frenchman’s wall. Rain, wind, or hangover, sir, every blessed mornin’.

A hiss of contempt went around the table.

James looked at Tom’s hands, at the cracked tar and the salt. He let three full seconds fall into the silence, then spoke his verdict. "Tom, the frigate’s yours, provisional, mind, under the articles, till your crew says otherwise. Now get your arse to that window and name her."

Tom rose and walked to the window while the room held its breath. He inspected the frigate, her length and her sulk, then turned back to the company.

"Royal Mistake."

The silence lasted one breath. Then the hall came apart.

"AH! AH! AH! HAH! ROYAL MISTAKE! OH, THE SLY CHEEKY BASTARD!"

"ROYAL MISTRESS?! ROYAL MISTRESS, SAYS HE! I’LL SAIL ON HER! TILL SHE SINKS!"

"Ach, sure ye’d sail on anythin’ wid a hull, Nat, an’ half the things wid none!"

"...Pie..."

James let the laughter crest and break, then swung round. "Royal Mistake it is! May she be every bit as royal as she’s mistaken, God help the Navy. Joss, the Eel’s yours, lad. Name, hull, and every last bad habit."

Joss’s jaw dropped. For a heartbeat the stoic mate looked like he was struck by lightning from a clear sky. Then training took over, and he snapped to attention and, forgetting entirely where James stood, saluted the wall.

"Aye... aye, sir! Aye!"

"A SLOOP?! A BLEEDIN’ SLOOP, FOR HAULIN’ ROCKS?!"

"I’LL HAUL ROCKS, CAP’N! I’LL HAUL THE ROCK O’ GIBRALTAR IF YE’LL JUST POINT!"

"POINT AT ONE, SIR! ANY ONE!"

The envy hit the room like grapeshot. Officers surged up the benches, boots cracking skulls, some benches snapping under six men at once.

James crossed to the window, caught the bell rope in his fist, and hauled. He kept ringing until the room stood silent, every mouth open, some boots suspended in midair.

The bell’s hum vanished away in the headquarters. The captains leaned over the chart as James set twelve tankards on the chart where no mapmaker had bothered to ink Concordia.

He shoved three more toward Nassau and planted a boot beside them for the frigate.

The French sugar coast lay fat and warm to the south, while the Louisiana shore and the Gulf of Mexico curved away to the west.

The Antilles trailed off in a string of harbors, South America sprawled below, and the coast of eastern North America spread off the paper to the north.

The Bahamas sat in the middle, marked by a nest of thieves. At least the mapmaker had got that part right.

The hall waited. There was only one question left, where to send them first.