On Stranger Tides (38 page)

Shandy's heart was beating faster, for he thought he almost did see. “Cold iron, solid iron, works on magic the way brandy
works on fermentation,” he said unsteadily. “Is that what you mean?”

“
Seguro!
A cold iron knife is very good for getting rid of a ghost. Those stories you have heard, I'm sure. With a lot of iron around, solid iron and cold, you still have blood, like the sugar in the sherry, but it cannot be used for magic.
Bocors
carry no iron, and they do magic, and they are very lacking in blood. You've seen their gums? And around the houses of the most powerful ones is a fine rusty red dust of,” he leaned closer and whispered, “
iron
.”

Shandy felt goosebumps starting up along his arms. “And in the Old World,” he said softly, “magic stopped being an important factor of life at around the same time iron came into general use for tools and weapons.”

Sawney nodded and smiled wryly through his wild white beard. “Not a…coincidence.” He blew across the neck of his bottle again:
hoot
. “And any magically resurrected consciousness is damaged by proximity to cold iron.
(Hoot.)
A little at a time.
(Hoot.)
By the time I learned that, it was too late for me. It turns out that ever since I came out of that damned hole in Florida I should have been staying clear of iron—not wear it, not hold it, not even eat something that was cooked in an iron pot!
(Hoot.)
High kings used to have to live that way in the Old World, before magic was quite all gone there. Hell. Salads and raw legumes and such you have to eat if you pursue it.”

“No meat?” asked Shandy, who'd thought of something.

“Oh, aye, lots of meat, for magic power but also for plain strength, because sorcerors tend to get so pale and dizzy and weak. But of course it's got to be meat that wasn't killed or cleaned or cooked with anything iron.
(Hoot.)
But you know, I'm not sorry. I've had two hundred extra years of living like a normal man, doing what I please. I'd
really
be crazy if I'd lived
the whole time like some damned
bocor
, worrying about every bite I ate and terrified to pound a nail into a board.”

“So do you know any way, governor, that I could use cold iron to break a sorceror who's so fresh from the Fountain that he's still got the dust of Erebus in the creases of his boots?”

Sawney stared at him for a long moment and then put the bottle down. “Maybe. Who?”

Shandy decided to be honest with him. “Benjamin Hurwood. Or Ulysse Segundo, as he's apparently calling himself now. He's the—”

“
Yo conozco
, the one with the missing arm. The one who's grooming his daughter's body for his wife's ghost. Poor child—you notice she's fed only greens, and biscuits kept in wood casks? They want her to be conductive magically, but they don't want any strength of will in her, so no meat at all.”

Shandy nodded, having realized the significance of Beth Hurwood's odd diet a few moments ago.

“Sure, I'll tell you how to break him. Stab him with a sword.”

“Governor,” said Shandy in an agony of impatience, “I need something more than that. He—”

“You think
I'm
simple? Haven't you been listening? Link your blood to the cold iron of the sword. Make the atoms of blood and iron line up the way a compass needle lines up to face north. Or vice versa. It's all relative. A working magical force will add energy to it, to its own undoing. Or else the force is undone because the lined up iron system is so energetic, you see? If you don't like the idea of a penny falling to the ground, look at it as the ground rushing up to hit the motionless penny, right?
(Hoot.)
”

“Great, so how do I
do
it?”

“(Hoot-hoot.)”

“Governor, how do I get the atoms to line up? How do I link blood and iron?”

Sawney drained the bottle and then put it down and began to sing,

Again Shandy translated mentally: Blessed be the soul, and the Lord that keeps it in order; blessed be the day, and the Lord that drives it away.

He tried for at least another minute to get a coherent answer to his question, but the rum had extinguished the brief spark of alertness in the old man's eyes, and eventually he gave up and got to his feet.

“So long, governor.”

“Keep well, lad. No chickens.”

“Right.” Shandy started away, then paused and turned back. “Say…what's your name, governor?”

“Juan.”

Shandy had heard several versions of the name the governor claimed, but it had always been something like Sawney or 'Ponsea or Gawnsey—he hadn't heard Juan before. “What's your full name, governor?”

The old man cackled and grubbed in the sand for a bit, then looked up at Shandy and said softly but distinctly, “Juan Ponce de Leon.”

Shandy simply stood there for several seconds, feeling chilled in spite of the tropical sun that was raising wavering heat mirages over the white sand. At last he nodded, turned, and plodded away, hearing the hooting start up again behind him.

Only after he had crested the rise, and was winding his way through the tangle of tents and huts, did it occur to him that the
derelict he'd left hooting into an empty rum bottle really was, or had been, at least, governor of this island—as well as of every other island between here and Florida.

HE WAS striding along between the tents, mentally calculating how much of Davies' money he still had after three months of spending it lavishly on rum, and wondering how long a voyage he could afford—of course it wouldn't have to be very long, Christmas was less than two weeks away, and Hurwood had said that he'd consummate the eviction of Beth from her body “come Yule”—when a figure stepped in front of him. He looked up, and recognized Ann Bonny. He remembered that she had started up a romance with another pardoned pirate, Calico Jack rackam, very shortly after Shandy had sailed for Haiti, and that the two of them had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Ann a divorce-by-sale.

“Hello, Ann,” he said, pausing, for he felt he owed her the opportunity to revile him a little.

“Well, well,” said Ann, “if it ain't the cook! Crawled out o' the rum cask for once, eh?”

She looked both leaner and older—not surprisingly, for Governor rogers had chosen to view the time-honored English common law custom of divorce-by-sale as the height of lewdness, and had promised to have her publicly stripped and flogged if she ever raised the subject again, and a couple of monstrously vulgar songs about that imagined punishment had sprung up and become very popular—but she still had the hot aura of sexuality in the way she stood and canted her head.

Shandy smiled cautiously. “That's right.”

“And how long do you think it'll be before you crawl right back in?”

“I'm sure it'll be at least two weeks.”

“I'm not. I give you…half an hour. You're going to die here, Shandy, after a few years of being Governor Sawney's
apprentice. Well,
I'm
not going to—Jack and I are getting out of here, damned soon. I finally found a man who's not scared of women.”

“I'm glad. I've got to admit they often scare me. I hope you and rackam are happy.”

Ann seemed disconcerted, and stepped back. “Huh. So where are
you
going?”

“Somewhere north of Jamaica. A ship's been seen there that I think is the old
Vociferous Carmichael.
”

She grinned and seemed to relax, though at the same time she was shaking her head sadly. “My God, it's that girl, still, isn't it? Hurley?”

“Hurwood.” He shrugged. “Yeah, it is.”

“So will this trip be violating your pardon?”

“I don't know. Will rackam's involve violating his?”

She smirked. “Just between you and me, Shandy—of course it will. But my Jack's got a girl that don't mind living with an outlaw. Do you?”

“I don't know that either.”

She hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed him—very lightly.

“What was that for?” he asked, startled.

Her eyes were very bright. “For? For luck, man.”

She turned and walked away, and he strode on toward the shore. Some children were playing with a couple of puppets he'd made once, and as they scrambled out of his way he noticed that they were using strings now to move the little jointed figures. Learn a trade, youngsters, he thought. I don't think your generation will have Mate Care-For to take care of them.

Someone was walking ponderously behind him. He stopped and turned, and then flinched a little to see Woefully Fat staring incuriously down at him. For once remembering that the man was deaf, Shandy just nodded.

“They'll get along without him,” the giant
bocor
rumbled. “Every land go through the time when magic work. We heahabouts is nearin' the end o' dat time. Ah'm sailin' with you.”

“Oh?” Shandy was surprised, for he'd tried, with no success, to get Davies'
bocor
to come along on the trip to Haiti. “Well, great, sure, it certainly seems like a trip we could use a good
bocor
on, and I'm just wasting my time talking, aren't I?” He made do with nodding emphatically.

“You a-goin' to Jamaica.”

“Well, no, actually—I mean, we
might
, we're going
near
there—”

“Ah was bo'n in Jamaica, though they ship me to Virginia when Ah was fahv. And now Ah'm goin' back—to die.”

“Uhhh…” Shandy was still trying to think of a response to this, and how to express it in gestures, when the
bocor
lumbered past him toward the shore, and Shandy had to sprint to catch up.

There was a gang of arguing men clustered around the boat Shandy had been wrenching at, and when Shandy approached, two of them strode over to him, waving their arms and shouting. One was Skank, and the other was Venner, his face so red at the moment that his freckles were invisible.

“One at a time,” said Shandy.

With a furious chop of his hand Venner silenced Skank. “The
Jenny
isn't going anywhere until Vane gets here,” he stated.

“She's sailing for Jamaica this afternoon,” said Shandy. Though he kept a mild grin on his face, he was peripherally measuring yards and inches and wondering how quickly he could get to Skank's cutlass.

“You're not captain of her any more,” Venner went on raspingly, his face even darker.

“I'm still her captain,” Shandy said.

The men standing around shifted and muttered, obviously not sure whose side they wanted to be on. Shandy caught part of a sentence: “…damned drunk for a captain…”

Then Woefully Fat stepped forward. “
Jenny
goin' t' Jamaica,” he said in Old Testament prophet tones. “Leavin'
now.
”

The men were startled, for not even Shank had realized that Davies'
bocor
was Shandy's ally in this; and though Shandy never took his eyes off Venner's face he could feel their confidence shift toward himself.

Venner and Shandy stared at each other for several seconds, then Skank drew his cutlass and tossed it to Shandy, who caught it by the grip without looking away from Venner. At last Venner looked down at the blade in Shandy's hand, and Shandy knew Venner had decided he wasn't quite drunk enough to take. Then Venner looked around at the other men, and his mouth became a straight, bitter line as, clearly, he realized that the emotional tide had turned against him when Woefully Fat had spoken.

“Well,” growled Venner, “I wish you'd…keep us better informed of these things, captain—I—” He paused, then started again, choking out the words as if it hurt his teeth to pass each one. “I certainly…didn't mean to crowd you.”

Shandy grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good!”

He turned and surveyed his crew—and carefully didn't let show in his face the disappointment and apprehension that he felt. This crew, he thought, is a testimonial to the effectiveness of Woodes rogers' tactics—the only ones who'll sign onto a pirating voyage now are the ones who are too stupid, blood-thirsty or lazy to possibly get along in a law-abiding situation. And a pirating voyage it may well have to be, if we can't find the
Carmichael
—these thugs and clods will demand plunder.

Here goes my pardon, likelier than not, he thought. But maybe it's better to be an outlaw with purpose than a citizen without.

“Skank,” he said, deciding that that young man was the most reliable of them, “you're quartermaster.” He noted, but didn't acknowledge, Venner's quick frown. “Get 'em all aboard and let's be gone before these Navy lads figure out what we intend.”

“Aye aye, cap'n.”

And twenty minutes later the
Jenny
, with no fanfare, but with some uncertain glances from the officers aboard the H.M.S.
Delicia
, sailed out of the New Providence harbor for the last time.

PATTERNS OF morning sunlight dappled the south-facing balcony of one of the grandest houses on the hill above Spanish Town, and when the breeze-shifted pepper tree branches overhead let the sun shine directly on the elegantly bearded man sitting at the breakfast table, he instinctively shaded his face, for it was important to him to keep himself as unlined and youthful-looking as possible. For one thing, investors seemed to feel that a younger man would know more about current markets and the most recent developments in prices and currency values; and for another, the whole point of attaining wealth was lost if one was obviously an old man when one got it.