GOVERNOR DU’MARTINIQUE commanded the lashings be delivered on the spot, and the men of the Fury and the matelots we had met stripped off their coats and shirts and lined up against the stone wall. I noticed from the scars that many of them had borne whippings before, as lashes were the common punishment aboard ship. None were as severe as Sun’s, whose scarred back showed the savagery of his previous owners and the fighting pits, and caused the crowd to murmur again.
A large, dark-skinned soldier was given the whip, and he did due diligence to his assignment, delivering one lash to each man in order, then a second. In most cases the lash didn’t break the skin, but the man did not shirk his duty. The whip bite stung like the dickens, and when it came time for the second, I tried not to flinch away from it and failed. But then it was over, and soldiers came forward to apply ointment to the few bleeding, helped us on with our shirts and coats, shared freshwater with us from the spring, and let us go.
While our punishment had been carried out, the governor’s grandson wrote up in triplicate the decision of the court concerning the murders. All was ratified and signed by the governor, with signatures from Dom Miguel for Portugal and Captain LeFebvre for France, concerning their citizens. I took the ruling and folded it carefully into the leather wallet where our precious matelot agreement was kept, inside my jacket, next to my heart.
“There are opportunities for mulatto in the government of the Republic, Mr. Lector. I would be pleased to write a letter in support of your application,” Governor du’Martinique said as the crowd filed out.
“I hold to my matelot contract, sir. Sólmundur would not find safety here.”
The governor looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “I thought that might be your answer. If things change, the offer remains open.”
“My thanks, sir.” I bowed. I was grateful to him—the trial could have gone much, much worse. It was because of this man that Sun wasn’t hanging from the yardarm. Therefore, I graciously took my leave, with nary a thought for my stinging back, and returned the sentiment to him that I did hope we would meet again.
In fact, I hoped the Fury came often to Tortuga, because there had never been a place in the world where I’d felt more safe. I laughed out loud at myself as we walked away from the well-defensible cliff. The place I felt most comfortable in the world was one of the most infamously lawless ports of all time. Sun looked up at me questioningly, but I only squeezed his hand and walked proudly through the streets with my matelot by my side.
THE WHOLE lot of us retired to the Perle, where the men of the Fury and the matelots were treated to drinks by Captain LeFebvre, who kept offering the men French commissions, saying the French Navy could use sturdy lads like them, which they declined, saying Captain Benji had already rounded out the crew of the Fury with their signing on. It seemed most of the population of the port of Tortuga was giving the Perle their custom for the afternoon, and every seat was filled with people discussing what had happened.
Artur sat at our table and paid for food for all three of us.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was I who…. I told the Haitians you were with us and at the Perle and that they could arrest you when you came back to the ship.”
“We know.”
“I came and told them I’d lied, but—you know?” My words sank in while he was confessing, and the weight of guilt was replaced by surprise in his countenance.
“I saw it on your face.”
He looked openmouthed from me to Sun and back again.
“We’re men of the Fury,” Sun said. “We saved you in the alley. You saved us from all but two lashes. We do as we should.”
“And I would again, I promise you,” Artur said fervently. “You’re good sailors and true, and I was wrong about you.”
I smiled slyly at Sun, then said to Artur, “And even if you are a bit of a goat turd from time to time, you’re our goat turd.”
Artur laughed and bought us three more plates of boiled crabs. “Well, I for one plan to never piss without you again. To the Fury and turds and men,” he said, and he raised his mug in a toast, which we fervently joined.
“To the Fury!”
“Aye, aye!”
“To Captain Benji Swift!”
Agreement rang from our shipmates around us. I was still beset with emotion for all that had been done for us, so much so that, when Lovelie offered her fiddle, I declined because I was in no fit state to play it. Sun was safe. We were both safe, among friends, with a future ahead and adventure beckoning. We passed the afternoon coming to know our newest shipmates, who were a hardy and experienced lot. Captain Benji was quite pleased with his fortune of rounding out the crew of the Fury. His usual ship, the original Sea Swift, was undergoing an extensive refit in New Orleans and would be for some time, and he shared that he did not mind sailing the Fury until then.
“This ship needs a good name renewed by the right people,” he said. “And I can complete the work we’ve been given aboard her as easily as another.”
I pressed him to reveal more, but he only shook his head and said we were bound for New Orleans to look into a few things for King Louis, which might then send us back across the Atlantic, with a side journey north to Iceland, so Sun and I could pay recompense for Big Swede Erik, who it turned out was not Swedish at all but Icelandic, which was currently a colony of Denmark. Captain Benji said we might meet a Danish dignitary in New Orleans to whom we could pay Erik’s recompense, but I still wanted to meet Sun’s family and see what a volcano beset with ice and snow and glacier might look like.
Sun seemed more interested in New Orleans than Iceland, and when I pressed him on that point, he shrugged.
“What’s in your thoughts?” I asked as we walked back to the Fury to start repaying our debts. “You seem troubled.”
Sun fiddled with the bottom button on his coat as we walked down the boardwalk, dodging the various two- and four-legged population of Tortuga. “I… it’s only…. I have not been home for a very long time. I do not think they would even know me….”
He fell silent, and I offered, “You feel like you’ve changed from who you were—so much so that even people you were once close to wouldn’t recognize you?”
He nodded.
“I sometimes feel my own mother wouldn’t recognize the man I’ve become.” I had been through so much—shipwreck and falling in love and pirates and joining Captain Benji and all—I felt like the nymph that crawled up from the muck and became a dragonfly, completely transformed. And yet still the creature I was born to become.
I squeezed his hand, and he said, “I don’t even know if Afi and Amma are still alive.” In his voice lurked the boy he had once been—the fear and loss.
“If we go to Iceland, you’ll know.” When he didn’t answer, I said, “And I’ll be with you there, whomever we meet, whatever they think about you, and whatever we find there. I’ll be with you, Sun. Always.”
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles and smiled. We walked hand in hand, in the open streets of Tortuga, stealing glances back and forth at each other, without worrying who saw us holding hands or what they thought. For me, there was only Sun, and freedom, and our future together.
AT THE docks, Captain LeFebvre gave Captain Benji the official corsair letters of marque actually signed by His Highness and the prime minister, and agreed to take Dom Miguel and Marisol, with promise of a reward, to Lisbon so they could do their best to foil Brazil’s bid for independence. However, if it had the positive result for slaves and my fellow mulattos that the independence of the Republic of Haiti did, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to fail. But I kept those thoughts to myself.
Captain Benji, Sun, and I oversaw the appraising, bartering, cataloging, and transfer of goods from the Fury to Captain LeFebvre’s Les Amoureux, which, true to its name, had a most scandalous figurehead of two nudes, entwined. Their slender grace had a feminine quality, but one could not have truly named their gender. The question if Christophe LeFebvre had perhaps been born as Christophine rose in my mind, but I dismissed it. Did it matter? Not to me. LeFebvre was a kind soul and amusing—a joke ready here and there, but through and through a sailor, speaking with authority and grace. Les Amoureux would set sail in the morning with Dom Miguel and Marisol aboard, under a very capable commander.
I was so meticulous in the accounting and my clerk’s duties that Captain Benji offered me the post of quartermaster on board the Fury. I gratefully accepted; the position of quartermaster was second only to the captain, just above the boatswain, and would give me a lot of authority. I was intimidated, but thought that was probably a good thing. And, anyway, I already knew I wasn’t ready for my own captaincy. I’d been uncomfortable the entire voyage of the Swift, having to rely on Miguel to preserve me from my mistakes. When I earned my captaincy, I wanted it to be by my own merits.
The proceeds from Edwin’s share of the guns, after an amount was taken out against repairs and provisioning the Fury, was split among all hands, old and new, and doled out to them before evening fell. Since we needed another night in Tortuga to see to the repairs on the Fury, we all returned to the Perle, where the men were not in the least shy about spending their coin—and celebrating their new quartermaster. The main part of the sailors from Les Amoureux joined us, as well as Dom Miguel and Marisol.
Having somewhat recovered from our ordeal, I accepted Lovelie’s invitation to play her fiddle and managed to keep up with Cuicatl as we played our way through the more popular sailor’s sea songs. I was pleasantly surprised Captain Benji joined in, his deep baritone barking out “haul-in, haul-two, haul-belay” as Captain LeFebvre’s men sang “un, deux, trois.” Dom Miguel joined with his tenor, singing “um, dois, três,” and Sun, who had no fit singing voice whatsoever, joined in with a hearty “einn, tveir, þrír!” I laughed myself from my stool then and returned Lovelie’s fiddle to her so I could pass some very pleasant time with Sun on my lap.
The evening and everyone’s cups deepened, coin and wine flowed, and the stairs to the levels with the beds saw frequent use by the matelots who would soon set to sea with us, both crews of the ships, some of whom went up together—the sailors of Les Amoureux seemed to take the name of their ship as a personal duty—and the good folk of Tortuga. Through all of it, as he had the night before, Captain Benji stayed with the men and did not fondle the staff, made no invitations to accompany anyone upstairs, and none was offered by those who served under him, due to the status of a captain. It felt good to hold Sun on my lap, but I didn’t want the captain to feel lonely. As I was about to stop exploring Sun’s earlobe with my mouth to invite our captain to play a hand of cards with us, Captain LeFebvre and Marisol, her cheeks crimson, approached Captain Benji. He looked up at Marisol as though some unlooked-for angel had fallen from heaven.
“Allons quelque part moins bruyant,” Captain LeFebvre said, inviting Benji to go somewhere more quiet. They both offered him their hands, which he took, and they drew him up the stairs among teasing shouts and lewd suggestions from both crews. Captain LeFebvre and Marisol glided with the indifference of circus performers before a crowd, a slight smile curving Marisol’s lips, but Captain Benji walked like a man stupefied. The last three steps up, he seemed to come to himself, because his deep baritone sounded out “un, deux, ménage à trois” as he climbed and went through the door, accompanied by gales of laughter from all and sundry.
Sun showed our new friends the game of tafl, which all players had vigorous arguments about and enjoyed immensely. Dom Miguel sauntered by where we were playing with two young partners and invited both Sun and me to join them upstairs. I shared a glance with Sun, who had stilled the way an animal does when it senses a dangerous predator nearby.
“No, thank you. I barely have the wits to be in love with one person. More than that is beyond my ken. In fact, one is probably beyond my skill, but I have no other choice. I am his.” I smiled at Sun to take any sting from my flippant words.
“Benjamin is mine,” Sun told Miguel firmly. “And I am his.”
“Ah! A mal desesperado, remédio heróico,” he said, which was a Portuguese saying that meant a horrible disease required drastic measures.
I wanted to shout after him that love was not desperate, and monogamy not a heroic sacrifice, but reasoned it was a waste of breath.
We stayed far too late, drank a bit too much, gambled more than we should, ate heartily, and tearfully shared promises with the Frenchmen and Dom Miguel that we would most certainly see them off in the morning. When Captain Benji didn’t return and seemed to be making rather a night of it, I inquired after him and was told Marisol had booked the room for the duration of the evening. So, in my duties as quartermaster, I joined with Abellard the boatswain in rounding up our drunken crew, who gave hugs to the crew of the Les Amoureux, whose quartermaster wobbled to his feet and followed my example. The whole lot of us tumbled out into the street without our captains, singing “un, deux, ménage à trois” and laughing uproariously.
There was another parting at the docks, the French kissing the cheeks of our men, who clapped them heartily on the back, and this time there weren’t soldiers waiting at the gangplank to arrest us. I saw to the men getting settled—many of whom dropped off to sleep—set the less drunk ones to a half watch, sent the short watch who had been guarding the ship off to take their leave at the Perle with a little extra coin to spend and instructions to keep an eye out for our captain, and then Sun and I retired to our cabin.
I lowered myself to the bed and let out a long breath, my limbs falling limp and akimbo as I lay back, having drunk enough wine that I barely felt my lash marks.
Sun watched me settle in with that long, slow blink I’d learned meant he was about to do something lascivious. I could not help grinning, but he didn’t let my enthusiasm break the mood. He disrobed slowly, deliberately, revealing the savage god I had fallen in love with one piece of clothing at a time. I was breathless with desire by the time he stood naked before me, but when I reached for him his soft “nei, nei” stopped me. Apparently, for this game, I was not allowed to move. The anticipation I’d felt in la prison returned, and I was powerfully hard and ready for him as he disrobed me slowly, then placed his body along mine, and touched me, withholding permission for me to touch him in return until I was panting with need. I begged him. I cussed him. He laughed at me and insisted on bringing me off, not once, but twice—which, I must admit, with the many hours I spent as a teen with only the images of the stableboy to amuse me, I had not been able to accomplish alone since I’d first discovered what my runner and tackle were for. Then, and only then, was I allowed to touch him. I worshiped his body with a fervor and devotion I had never given anything else in my life.
Spent, we rested in each other’s arms, in our own bed, aboard our own ship, free men, members of a crew, servants of the French Crown. Sun was going to get to see his family again, if we could find them. All was well, except….
“Sun, I’m sorry.”
“Hmm?” He blinked sleepily up at me from where he was nestled across my chest.
“All your booty, my guns. It’s all gone. We could have lived quite handsomely off the proceeds, but now we will have to earn our keep. Sailor’s wages and a share of what we capture as corsairs. It won’t be much, and it won’t be glamorous.”
“Remember what I said? Þetta er ekki upp í nös á ketti.”
“Yes, but now we really don’t have enough to fill a cat’s nostril.”
“You forget, Benjamin.” He got fluidly up off the narrow bed, his bronzed muscles glimmering in the lamplight, and shuffled around at the foot of the bed under our sea chest. Then he lifted a small, ash-scarred box decorated with elephants onto the bed.
The gimsteinar. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten completely about them.
“We can use this when we need to,” he said, inserting his key and opening it so the gemstones sparkled in the lamplight. “And still free everyone we can. I would like to do that, Benjamin.”
“We will,” I promised, gathering him into my arms and kissing the top of his head. We’d started by freeing ourselves, and now we could pass that gift on to others.