Chapter 211: Bring Your Beard and Your Appetite

The Grand Dame sat easy against Concordia’s pier, sails furled and lines made fast, looking as if she had never doubted for a moment that the reefs would let her through.

James came down the gangway into a dock considerably more crowded than the one he had left a week and some odd days before.

The Bloody Rose sat proud and mighty. The Black Fortune rode beside her, and beyond that was the Marianne, all three exactly where James had expected to find them. Beyond the three of them, moored a little apart and flying colors he didn’t recognize, sat a small brigantine.

Her canvas had been patched more than once, and her hull looked like the sort of ship that had earned every scar and worn plank she carried. A few hands moved about her deck, taking their time with whatever work belonged to them.

James shot her a long look.

She told him nothing at all.

He put the question aside, because considerably louder problems already came down the pier behind him.

The old sloop Revenge docked into the bay, without fuss, and within a few minutes she was warped in tight beside the others.

Thatch dropped onto the pier boots-first, shouting as he moved, then crossed the whole crowded stretch of dock close to a run.

"CALLOWAY!"

He hadn’t even come to a stop. "How in the name of every god that’s ever ignored a sailor’s prayer did that fat lass of yours cross a reef mine can’t get within a cable’s length of? Out with it, ye bastard, or I’ll have it out of ye myself!"

"Trade secret, Thatch."

James spread both hands, looking as innocent as a man in his position could reasonably manage.

"Costs ye something dear, learnin’ a trick like that."

"I’ll pay it! Name yer price!"

"Can’t be bought with coin."

James rubbed his chin as if the matter deserved serious consideration. "She’s a fine judge of character, this reef. Took one look at that beard hangin’ off yer ugly mug and decided she’d sooner drown the lot of ye than let ye near her."

That earned him a laugh from every pier hand close enough to hear it.

Thatch scowled. "Bollocks. Try again."

"Simple, then. Fasted three whole days beforehand. Very devout ship, the Dame."

"There’s no such thing as a devout ship, ye lyin’ bastard!"

James grinned. "The truth now, sacrificed a goat to Neptune off the stern on the way in. Fine goat. Named her after you, out of respect."

By then the sailors unloading the Dame had stopped altogether, laughing over the tops of the barrels. One laughed loud enough that Thatch rounded on him, then turned straight back to James.

"Bloody hell, if there’s goat in your ship, that’s your arse."

"There was. Neptune’s got her now."

Thatch lips parted open to start another round, but what came out was a great roaring laugh that folded him nearly in half. One broad hand slapped against James, hard enough to make him shudder. For all his efforts, he couldn’t get another word past the laughter.

He managed at last, wiping one eye with the back of his wrist.

"I’ll have it out of ye. If it takes till Christmas, Calloway, I’ll have the whole truth of it."

"Aye, when hell freezes and the Devil takes up needlepoint."

Around them, the work went on without the slightest respect for their conversation. Cargo kept coming up from the Dame’s hold hand over hand, cordage was coiled and stacked along the rail, and Concordia’s crews mixed with the fresh Port Royal haul for the first time on solid ground.

Each side sized up the other over crates and coils of rope.

Cudjoe stood in the middle of it all with a tally board under one arm, checking off casks as they came ashore. That was where one of the new men found him.

He was big enough to make the plank complain beneath him and hesitant, like a man who had rarely, if ever, been asked what he thought.

"Beg pardon." Anvil turned his hat over in both hands. "What manner of place is this, exactly?"

Cudjoe raised a brow.

"The kind wi’ a vote decided by pebbles instead of a whip, and no soul is above another."

Anvil considered that with slow care.

"Are there whales?"

Cudjoe nearly let his tally board fall down.

"Past the reef, in the deep water. Try nae tae drown askin’ one."

James and Thatch left the noise of the pier behind and climbed into the town proper. It was there that Thatch found himself with nothing to say.

He hadn’t set foot in Concordia for some few weeks, and the fact was written plainly across his face. The timber walkways carried them where there had once been nothing but mud, while the assembly hall now occupied the crossroads, humble and welcoming, and near enough, the small chapel sat with its wee mass.

Beyond that was a brothel doing brisk, respectable business in broad daylight.

James let him look. There was little sport in interrupting a man who had never in his life had trouble finding words to say.

Past the chapel, the ground that had been three posts and a promise when now looked like a proper district. Fresh timber stood framed against the sky and stone had been laid out for what would become the base of a workshop once one stopped expecting mortar to appear by magic.

Better than a dozen hands were working even at that hour, sweat darkening their shirts and none of them in much of a hurry to complain.

He had been gone barely more than a week.

The place simply went on building itself the whole time.

By then Thatch had found his breath again, along with his curiosity. He opened his mouth, plainly preparing to nag him more.

James interrupted him first. "Couldn’t have picked a finer week to come sailin’ up under a warship, Thatch. Ship or no ship able to cross that reef of ours just yet."

"Aye, and whose fault is that, exactly?"

Thatch never got the chance to take it further.

"I’ve a venture in mind."

James kept walking easily, as if the words cost him nothing. "A bold one. There’s business wants doin’ off Cuba, and I’ll not pretend one ship’s enough to see it through alone. I’ll need a few more mad captains at my back before I try it."

Thatch’s eyes lit, and every scrap of his earlier outrage vanished in a breath.

"Cuba, is it? Go on, then. Out with the rest of it."

"Not yet."

James grinned wider. That was answer enough to keep a man like Thatch interested, and nowhere near enough to satisfy him.

He continued. "Time enough for the whole of it later. For now, I reckon this bay’s earned itself a pirate council, every captain who calls Concordia home, sat down together in one room."

Thatch looked at him for a long moment, hunger for glory and all.

"Bring your beard and your appetite."

James said, clapping him once on the shoulder.

"I’ve a feelin’ we’ll need both before this business is done."