OUR JOURNEY to Tortuga was not as smooth as hoped. Though we flew the French flag, we were waylaid off the coast of Puerto Rico by a fleet bearing the Stars and Stripes, which cruised close with gunports open, and we were obliged to allow them to board the Fury and prove we were actually French corsairs guarding His Majesty’s interests in lawful ways. Captain Benji produced the paperwork Dom Miguel and Marisol had worked so hard to create over the last few days and satisfied the commander of the USS Grampus, one Lieutenant Francis Gregory, who released us with a warning that any and all piratical acts would receive swift justice.
Fortunately we all had time to dress as sailors before we were boarded, including Marisol and Dom Miguel, and the good lieutenant did not inquire after each sailor, in part owing to the excellent forgeries, as well as Benji’s convincing role as a French corsair out of Louisiana, complete with heavy accent. I could see why the men respected him—not only was he shrewd, straightforward, brave, and kind, the man was a consummate actor.
When the lieutenant paused for a more discerning look at my face, then Benji’s, I realized enough time had passed that, with my bruises gone and my nose mostly healed, our similarity passed into twin-like status without my noticing. The oddity wasn’t enough to waylay us, though. If Sun’s fame as a fighter had reached so far, there was no one to recognize him. I’d captured his white-blond hair into a queue and tied it with a short, blue ribbon, but, like a playful afrit, it continued to escape and wisp about his head in the winsome sea breezes.
Captain Benji and Marisol joined me at the gunnel as we watched the distant, battle-scarred USS Enterprise follow us to Tortuga—for protection, they said, but more likely to ensure we were really going where we said we were.
“The American West Indies Squadron is going to make a smuggler’s job harder, little brother, policing these waters so vigorously. The age of piracy, of slavery, and of the sailing ship are at an end, my friends. The SS Savannah has crossed the Atlantic using steam power. Soon there will be no more need for sailors at all, because there will be no need to harness the wind. Men will sail metal boxes over the sea, and machines will do all the work.” Benji sounded melancholic.
“The world will always need sailors, mon ami.” Marisol rose to her tiptoes and kissed the captain’s cheek. “Who else will spread pox, clap, and pregnancy?”
“You do realize pregnancy is not the same as syphilis and gonorrhea?”
“Oui. There is no ointment for pregnancy.”
I laughed so hard, I felt sure the sailors aboard the Enterprise could hear me over the bright blue water.
Sun tugged the ends of my matelot belt and gave me a sly look but didn’t speak.
“Yes?” I urged him.
“I saw the way you looked at those men in uniform.”
I sputtered, but I could not deny that Lieutenant Gregory and his men had cut very dashing figures in their blue jackets, red vests, and black hats all a’ matching.
Sun crisply pulled the wrinkles from his jacket and then aped the posture of the military men, marching up and down the deck, swinging his arms. Catching sight of his performance, some of Captain Benji’s trusties hollered encouragement, having no particular love for those enforcing the law. Abellard sang out, “Away-o! Oi-o! I’ll go to join the Navy-o and set the lasses crying!” Other voices joined him, and I was delighted by a most inappropriate ballad about a young man who joined the Navy looking for adventure and found a “pinch and tickle” where he least expected it, and it wasn’t from a lass. Scandalized, my face burning, I laughed and shook my head for sheer joy. I did not, however, miss a dark look from Artur manning the rudder. Whatever truce had been forged was a tenuous one, but I didn’t let my concerns about him stop me from memorizing as many lines of the bawdy song as possible.
TORTUGA WAS a rocky island eight leagues in length and two in breadth, with tall palms, rust-red dirt, and, from a distance, the aspect of a great floating sea turtle, for which it was named. The small port held centuries of fortifications built by Spanish, English, and French settlers as well as navies, pirates, smugglers, and anyone else who had used the natural rocky cliffs of the sheltered southern bay as a refuge. The coastal town was packed with taverns, and Cookie said it was fed by a natural freshwater spring, which was another reason it had been used as a base so often by so many.
The narrow streets were filled with such a cacophony of dogs, sailors, horses, adventurers, pigs, whores, cats, soldiers, parrots, merchants, pet monkeys in tiny vests, and a great press of sights and sounds as to bewilder us after weeks of quiet sailing. Tortuga’s governor required a payment of 10 percent of our cargo’s value for the Fury to berth, but this custom, and the haggling thereof, Captain Benji handled with shrewdness and grace. He also bargained further repairs to the damages the Fury suffered from Dread Island’s eruption.
After Marisol’s reminder of the unpleasant diseases sailors contracted in such places and might be lingering on flea-bitten beds, Sun and I resolved to sleep aboard the Fury but went ashore with Marisol, Dom Miguel, Captain Benji, Abellard, Cookie, Hardanguer, Quinn, and four other hardies to guard us. We were each well outfitted with cutlass, flintlocks, knives, and personal weapons of choice, though with Sun’s and Marisol’s proclivities, I wasn’t sure such a show of force was strictly required for our safety. We positively clanked with every step, but our display was probably a kindness and convenience to prevent the unnecessary deaths of rogues who might have attacked a smaller, less-provisioned force. Sun committing more murders was something I wanted to avoid when our fate had yet to be decided by the French capitaine we hoped to meet. Marisol made a few inquiries on the docks, paid some likely urchins to act as lookouts for her contact, and then led us into the town proper.
Sun stayed close to me, so tense that muscles corded on his neck and arms, jumping at every loud noise. He’d become quite comfortable among the men of the Fury and they around him, but after living alone on the island for so long, and surviving the horrors he experienced before escaping slavery, I could understand why being among such a press of humanity would challenge his nerves.
“Do you want to go back to the ship?”
“Where you go, I go, Benjamin,” he said breathlessly.
I reached for his hand, then stopped, not wanting to make a public spectacle and endanger us.
“It’s all right,” Hardanguer’s voice growled from behind us. “Look with the eyes in your head. We’re headed for the Huîtres et Perle, and there’s naught to object to such. Especially not on Tortuga, boy.”
I looked around us in the press of animal and humanity coursing around our little party—indeed there were men arm-in-arm with women in a variety of scandalous states of ravishment, but also men holding hands companionably with men, and women likewise with women. I nearly tread off the boardwalk in my astonishment.
“There she be.” Hardanguer pointed to a large wooden sign cut in the shape of an open oyster with a huge round pearl carved into it, sporting the gilded script Huîtres et Perle. The establishment behind was two-storied and bursting with light and song.
Marisol took Dom Miguel and Captain Benji’s arms and led them inside, Abellard and Cookie behind them, and the rest of us filed in two by two. It was very different from the country taverns of my boyhood, but also from the opulence of New Orleans gin palaces and gambling establishments. The boards forming the walls of the Perle had been garishly painted in a variety of colors. However, what immediately caught the eye was the carved and decorated—gilding stripped, of course—sterns of decommissioned sailing ships forming a bank of private dining compartments on the north and south walls.
Two dark-skinned women—a mulatto and a mestizo—played a ferocious fiddle battle, accompanying each other in the center of the room, which was an open area strewn with rough-hewn tables and rougher clientele. Many were as armed to the teeth as we were, both men and women and people not easily identifiable as either gender, who all looked more or less able to defend themselves in a fight. At the moment, those who weren’t heartily clapping along to the fiddlers or losing themselves in cups and loud conversation, were locking lips with a variety of colorfully dressed men and women and people I could only class as both or neither gender. The lack of specificity didn’t seem to matter to anyone giving or receiving affection, so I decided not to worry about it either.
A flat bar of dark wood was a commanding presence along one wall, stacked towers of kegs of various spirits stamped with languages from around the world piled behind it, and through a rectangular widow, a kitchen full of steam and bustle. As I watched, a huge platter of boiled crabs passed through the window and was picked up by one of the brightly dressed servers, who brought it to a table of sailors. I recognized at least one couple wore a pair of matched matelot belts. I hadn’t realized they were something Sun and I could wear on shore to show our commitments to each other, and I suddenly wished we’d brought them—we’d decided to remove and leave them aboard because I did not want to risk them getting muddied or frayed on land. I did capture his hand, and held it proudly in mine. The astonishment on his face at the location we presently found ourselves was much like mine. I wagered the fighting slaves were not brought out carousing with their masters, if slave masters ever went to a place such as this.
Marisol led us through the tumult, graciously avoiding disrupting the fiddle players, who, as a fellow player of no small skill myself, I must admit were possessed of most impressive talents. She approached a large African woman with a deep, friendly laugh, who spoke in a smooth Jamaican patois and guided us to one of the former ship sterns. Within, we still heard the fiddle players and the carousers quite clearly through the glass panes, but the illusion of privacy was welcome. We arranged ourselves around the table while Captain Benji ordered of one of every dish for the company to share.
“When should we expect this capitaine of yours?”
“As I did not see Les Amoureux in port, we must wait for her to finish a patrol. Captain Christophe LeFebvre will seek us here at the Perle. Until then, alas, we must find some way to amuse ourselves.”
Neither she, Miguel, nor Benji looked at all dismayed by this prospect. I, on the other hand, preferred to have the matter resolved straightaway—Sun was tense as a cat with all these people around him, and I felt he’d be more comfortable out to sea. Furthermore, while we were formally members of Captain Benji’s crew on board the Fury, which made us French corsairs under the contract created by Marisol, with a pardon for Sun from Miguel, Sun had still not been tried by an official court of law, and that was something I very much wanted as soon as possible. I prayed that our matelot contract and joint belongings were enough for reparations, and that the French governor of Tortuga, once we approached him with the official backing of the French Navy in addition to the Portuguese throne, would be swayed. If only Marisol had been born a man and could reveal herself as a royalist spy—I felt certain her connections to her powerful uncle would have been enough. Alas, as it stood, we needed this Captain LeFebvre, and I hoped he would listen.