Pirate Souls

I - Chapter 10 - Take heart

I cannot take in what is happening. I walk free in the streets of Tortuga towards the Anarkhia. Steven following. We have not spoken a word.

Marcellin let us leave. He demanded in payment for his generosity of spirit forty per cent of the income from the transaction on my person.

For myself, I still do not know who ordered this masquerade. The brother has kept the document to make sure that Steven honours his debt. He threatens to take the parchment to the Governor of the island if Steven does not return to Tortuga with his pieces of eight. He would become one of the most wanted pirates of the Caribbean and the continent.

I am in a state of shock. I am lucky to be alive and intact. Free, if we dismiss the fact that I am still destined to be sold to a rich merchant in Louisiana. And that I was a witness to the obscene scenes in the tavern before I made my way outside.

Cook was moving his enormous body frantically above a frail silhouette. I should have looked away. I did not do it. His partner was a man. This explains why the Irishman trusted him when he was in charge of accompanying me everywhere on the Anarkhia. I am not to his taste, and therefore safe by his side.

And that is not all. It takes more to shock me now. I have another atrocious image etched on my retina. The vision of Rotten Rick (he truly is) coupling with a girl who is probably younger than myself. I felt a wave of nausea submerge me. It was too much. I lowered my eyes. What else could I do?

At the corner of an alley-way, Steven grasps my arm and pushes me up against the wall of a modest dwelling.

"You are mad!" he cries. "you could have got us killed."

"I saved us, idiot!" I rage, pulling my shoulder back in order to free myself from his hold.

The effort is wasted as he is much stronger than me.

"You were lucky."

"You too."

Our ragged breaths cut into the oppressive silence.

"I know," he at last admits. "Even if Tortuga has calmed down and is no longer the freebooting capital, I would rather not show myself too much. And not show you either."

Stupid brigand. Has he not just admitted that he is wanted by the authorities?

A few minutes later, we board the Anarkhia. Jaime awaits me on deck.

"Still there?" grumbles the captain.

"Donde esta la sirena estoy yo."

I burst out laughing.

"Fucking Spaniard," Steven sighs.

After giving my new friend a smile, I go to the cabin. There is a flask of rum on the desk. I pick it up and swallow it in one gulp. It hurts. It warms. Mouth, throat, belly. I do not care. The pain brings me back to the present. The alcohol helps me to forget the horrors I have witnessed this evening. I want to bury it all.

"More," I demand throwing the flask to the Irishman as he comes into the room.

"Right-hand drawer," he says with a nod of his chin as he lights a small oil lamp.

Of course, I know full well that a bottle of liquor is hidden here; I had turned the cabin upside down. But I want him to serve me.

"Captain, do you not intend to haul aft the mizzen mast?"

He turns round, surprised and bursts out laughing.

"The mizzen sheet," he corrects me. Good.

He places two glasses on the table and fills them to the brim with the liquid which is as transparent as spring water. In one shot.