Chapter 293: Luck’s on Loan

The Rose climbed the swell and sent sheets of white water over her bow, and James drove her into the next wave with hands on the spokes, grinning like a groom late to his wedding.

The bride was a fever coast, and no one had bothered to ask whether she wanted him.

Some week or so was behind them as the wind blew warm over the larboard quarter, stuffed the claret canvas, and sang through the stays. It brought the smell of salt with wet earth beneath it that the old sailors at the shrouds recognized before they could even name it.

These men lifted their noses like hounds that had caught a scent worth tracking.

The ship was busy all around him. A topman on the foot-rope re-reeved a brace and gave the block a thorough account of what he thought of its mother, while below him, Concordia’s limes and oranges passed down the waist in crates, each man handing them to the next.

Below decks, the guns stood run in and lashed, the powder remained dry, and the mortars wore their canvas caps. Cudjoe had checked every last detail and received no thanks, which saved everyone the trouble of deciding how much he deserved it.

Gulls wheeled overhead, drawn out by land still beyond sight, while dolphins raced the Rose’s bow and leaped clear of the water in bright arcs. The whole Caribbean seemed to have come out to watch Calloway sail toward a plague coast, and it appeared to be enjoying itself.

James watched the dolphins for a moment, then let his gaze outward from sail to sail.

The Spry Eel led the way, small and dark against the glare, like a pup that had got ahead of a wolfhound and was pleased with its own judgment. The Marianne and the Fisher held their places on the flanks, two restless colts that would have preferred a longer gallop.

At the Marianne’s wheel, Williams’s gold tooth flashed as he surveyed the mainland and pondered what it might fetch by the pound.

Then there was the Whydah.

Besides the Rose, she was the largest vessel on that stretch of water, and there was no mistaking it. Her sides rose high above the swell, her three masts stuffed bellies of canvas, and the sun caught the gilt of her stern gallery until it shone like a coin held to a candle.

Freemen occupied her rails as sheets of water washed away from her bow, and she moved heavily, without hurry, with the impression that the sea could wait its turn.

Sam stood at her wheel, his dark hair tied back, and raised one hand across the water toward the Rose. James raised his own in answer, his gaze lingering on the Whydah a heartbeat longer than it had on the other ships.

Every account he remembered had her sunk off Cape Cod, her captain beside her, until he figured he refused that outcome.

As the squadron found its places, the shimmer appeared above the binnacle. He lifted his thumb from the spoke and read it without taking his eyes off the water.

?? [FLEET OVERVIEW - THE DARIEN EXPEDITION]

Bloody Rose — Flagship

Type : Brigantine

Size : Large for her class

Role : Line Combatant

Armament : 44 Broadside Cannons, 2 Mortars, 4 Swivel Guns

Perks : [The Rose’s Luck], [True Shot], [Devil’s Hull], [Calloway’s Armada]

Captain : James Calloway

Status : Underway, Darien Heading

Spry Eel — Screen

Type : Sloop

Size : Average for her class

Role : Scout

Armament : 8 Broadside Cannons

Captain : Short Joss

Status : Ahead, Darien Heading

Whydah — Allied Vessel

Type : Galley-Built Ship

Size : Large for her class

Role : Line Combatant

Armament : 42 Broadside Cannons

Captain : Samuel Bellamy

Status : Underway, Darien Heading

Marianne — Allied Vessel

Type : Sloop

Size : Average for her class

Role : Skirmisher

Armament : 14 Broadside Cannons

Captain : Paulsgrave Williams

Status : Underway, Darien Heading

Fisher — Allied Vessel

Type : Sloop

Size : Average for her class

Role : Skirmisher

Armament : 10 Broadside Cannons

Captain : Under Bellamy’s Flag

Status : Underway, Darien Heading

Congratulations, you have found the costliest way yet devised to sail toward a fever, and I admire your efficiency. I keep a file on your near-deaths, you understand.

You call this adventure, but the tally keeps coming out the same.

The wind brought James’s words away before they could reach another soul, so no one noticed when he tipped his head toward the topsail and listened to the voice that began speaking there.

"Ha! I’ve died the once already, damp and dull it was, and not a shilling refunded."

He flung the grin sideways into the wind.

"This time I’ll spend me life on rivers no mapmaker’s ever had the balls to draw."

Your luck is a loan, and you have exceeded your allowance every month since you arrived. One day it will fail to cover you, and you will die, probably in the middle of a grin and over some ridiculous and small trouble.

The experiment will record the hour and charge interest.

"Then I’ll make sure you have a nice and tidy record."

The voice had no more to say.

Gulls filled the silence, and James kept grinning as comfortably as before.

After a short pause, the shimmer returned. James braced the wheel against his hip and read the new message with a short laugh.

? [QUEST ISSUED]

Know Your Enemy, Intimately

A commodore has marched a column and a line of empty boxes up a brown river. What he plans to do to a free harbor, and what the Crown intends in reply, are known to him and no one you can presently ask. Learn them.

Reward: 50 Fate

You may discover a commodore’s intentions by watching him, asking him, or persuading him by other means. I decline to specify which. I have priced your curiosity at fifty, a generous sum for a hobby that has so far failed to kill you.

"LAAAAND HO-O-O!"

Kit’s voice came cracking down from the foretop, high and wild. "Dead ahead, Cap’n! Dead ahead, sir! I seen her first, green as a pox-doctor’s coat, she is, an’ near as friendly!"

James snapped his head up. Kit hung from the shrouds by one arm, his other arm stretched toward the haze, and every head aboard turned to see what had caught his attention.

The sea changed first, its clean blue becoming like strong tea as a piece of driftwood swept past, a drowned tree turning slowly with its roots in the air.

Then the wind brought the smell of wet earth, rot, and pitch, thick enough to chew.

At last, the green wall rose out of the haze.

Mangroves stood on their own roots in the tide, and behind them, silk-cotton giants rose into the mist while macaws flew over the canopy and howler monkeys bawled inland like damned souls enduring a dull sermon.

Over the interior, thunderheads piled up, black underneath.

The sailors crowded the bulwarks, and the noise went up like a flock of birds startled from a rice field.

Jim hit the bow, fists hammering at the sky. "Twenty-seven brushes wi’ Death, lads! Twenty-seven! An’ this stinkin’ coast’ll hand me the twenty-eighth afore the anchor’s e’en wet! Fetch me a bigger slate, some Christian soul, afore I run out o’ room to boast!"

Doyle poured a thimbleful of rum over the lee side and doffed his hat to the sea. "The top o’ the mornin’ to ye, Yellow Jack, ye black-hearted old devil! A drop on the house, so it is, an’ me kindest regards to the missus! Now go easy on the lads, there’s a decent fellow, an’ I’ll leave a full cup out for ye on the road home, God’s truth!"

Pete clapped a fist over his nose and reeled from the rail as if the coast had slapped him. "Christ’s bleedin’ bollocks! God help us, it stinks like the Devil’s arse after a week o’ salt beef an’ no wash!"

Hobbs spread his instruments across the hatch and spoke to no one in particular, his voice as rough as a spade digging into wet clay. "Yellow jack, the ague, the flux, the black vomit. Take yer pick, damn ye, they’ll all put a man in the ground inside the week, an’ I’ve the one saw."

The talk faded as the squadron drew closer to land. Cudjoe came up beside the wheel, raised his spyglass toward the Eel in the van, and watched a string of flags climb her masthead.

"Aye, there she goes, Captain. The verra flags Joss an’ I settled on afore we sailed."

He pressed the glass into James’s hand. "Deep water, mangrove close enough tae moor tae the roots, and a creek a league along. It’s the self-same one he laid up in, she’s askin’ us tae follow."

James put the glass to his eye. A black gap cut through the mangroves, and the Eel was already turning toward it.

"Then follow her we shall, shorten sail, Cudjoe, an’ have the boats ready."

"Aye, Captain."

The Eel turned left toward the passage, and the Rose’s bow swung around after her.

Behind them, the Whydah, the Marianne, and the Fisher followed in a line like geese behind a gander, while the creek entrance appeared before them, black water beneath a roof of roots and the jungle stretching inland as far as anyone cared to look.

"Landin’ parties to the rail, ye sea-dogs! Up, up, up! The jungle’s waitin’!"