Pirate Blood

“Come closer”, Avery called him, handing a bucket of water to him, “and wash yourself, to begin with”.

Johnny obeyed, without uttering any single word. He placed the basin on a barrel and put his head inside. The fresh water gave him a light thrill. He held his breath for a short while. He then came out, breathing the fresh air deeply. His fingers went up unintentionally to touch the top of his nose.

“So?”, the old man spurred him.

“The pain has decreased”, Johnny answered. He could hardly believe it.

“If it was broken, you would cry as the snotty kid you are. You were lucky.”

“Luckier than them”, he replied, showing the flat-top knife. He turned it in his hands. The blade was stained with coagulated blood.

Avery stared at him with a satisfied smile. “Stop boasting, boy. Try to tidy yourself up. Work is waiting for you.”

***

At the very moment when Johnny was wrestling with Alejandro, captain Woodes Rogers was thoughtfully scanning the horizon from one of the windows of the governor’s villa. His blurred shape was reflecting on the glass like a ghost’s one, his short, brown hair and his large forehead were giving him a look of solemn austerity, softened by his short height. His mouth, reduced to an almost invisible cut, showed up a feeling of uncertainty. But maybe the feature which made him look more strict was the thick cobweb of scars disfiguring the left part of his face.

He wished heartily that his meeting with Henry Morgan would be as short as possible. He had never accepted his political success willingly, especially after his lucky attack to Panama. He was jealous of him, at least. He had always said there was nothing trustworthy in a pirate who had been chasing his fellow men, just to please the royal family. Ceremonies and banquets were part of a lifestyle he wished he could have too, even if the most important thing for him was to find out why Morgan had summoned him again.

“Your task is simple”, he had told him during a previous meeting. “You have to catch monsieur Wynne. He’s a pirate, so any other reason is useless. He won’t be able to escape being hanged forever. As governor of Jamaica and spokesman of king George’s will, we are morally obliged to give this order to you. We wish you will understand.”

Of course, he had thought. Damned pompous idiot.

And he was still thinking the same, when a soldier walked into the room. He stopped at the door and stood at attention.

“Captain Rogers”, he addressed him. “His Excellency sir Henry Morgan is waiting for you.”

He waved absent-mindedly to him and let himself be driven into the narrow corridor taking to the anteroom, made even narrower by the host of works of art crowding there, a clear sign of the wealth the governor liked to be surrounded with.

“The execution will be held tomorrow morning, captain.” The soldier had stopped in front of a door strengthened by iron bars. “The governor wishes to curb piracy strongly. He hopes you will be there too.”

Your hypocrisy is astonishing, Henry, Rogers wondered. You found a more decent mask to put on. You would have ended up hanged too, if your friend hadn’t helped you.

Meanwhile the soldier was knocking on the planks with a resolute air. Morgan’s voice echoed on the other side, inviting them to come in and followed by a baritone voice which made Roger feel a new wave of scorn.

“He still laughs as a pirate”, he muttered to himself. He grasped the door handle and close it behind his back, leaving the soldier alone. He was immediately assailed by an intense smell of burning incense, a penetrating fragrance of dried herbs. The light was filtering through the windows and the velvet curtains were trembling in a breath of sea wind. Yet there was no sign of the governor. Neither of him nor of anyone else. He went on suspiciously till he got to a big table covered with maps.

“Is there anything wrong?”, Morgan suddenly asked him.

Woodes Rogers turned on his heels and feared to stumble on his feet. He was feeling terribly vulnerable. And slow. When his bewilderment vanished, he found himself facing a well-built man with a prominent belly. He had come out from a private room, wearing a showy light blue dress with large lace lapels. He was wearing on his head a long powdered wig, matching very badly with his red and bushy moustache.

“You’re too nervous, captain”, Morgan laughed again. “In our opinion you should learn to enjoy the pleasures of life better.”

“Pleasures are a luxury I can’t afford”, Rogers replied.

“It’s a real pity, then.”

“Why have you sent for me, Your Excellency?”

Morgan looked him up and down. He then stretched his face muscles, with a clearly amused air. “We wish to discuss a very important matter with you. We know your inclination very well. We know you aren’t a man who likes wasting his time.”

“So we can get to the point at once”, the pirate cut it short. “More than twenty days ago you sent me in search for Emanuel Wynne, a cheap pirate who…”

“Rather by chance”, the governor interrupted him. He kept smiling. “Finding him floating off, not far from Nassau was really providential. It turned your hunt into a rescue mission.”

“That was just good luck, in fact.”

“And is that what you’re worrying about?”

“Absolutely”, Rogers lied. He had to strive to stay easy. Henry Morgan had hit the point. He had left on board the Delicia to go hunting a pirate, but he had found him just a few miles from the port. “I’m trying to get the positive side of the situation. I avoided useless days of sailing. But you haven’t answered my question yet. Why did you send for me?”

Morgan approached. He put both his hands on his shoulders and grasped them with a slight pressure. Rogers considered the possibility of being strangled. As if he had read into his thoughts, the other man let him go and moved a few steps away from him. He took one of the maps from the table and started studying it.

“I think you’re a careful man”, he said sharply. “So you’re deceiving us, captain. The answer is just under your eyes.”

Rogers raised his brows. He didn’t seem to understand. Then a memory flashed suddenly in his mind, cold and merciless like lightning. He turned his eyes to the object Morgan was keeping in his hands.

“It’s just a map, your Excellency”, he commented.

“You’re right”, the other one agreed and handed the roll to the pirate. “I suggest you to observe it better, by the way. It’s the only thing Wynne had with him when he was rescued. He didn’t care about it. He should have. Why should a dying man worry about protecting a map?”

He unfolded it in front of himself. He could feel the mouldy cracking of the paper under his fingertips.

Straight and curving lines were crossing each other, making definite and linear signs. They became then more and more indefinite, chaotic. Besides, there was no course to follow, as if Wynne had got lost.

“He was heading to this island”, Rogers claimed, plunging into the drawing. “But I can’t understand which sea he was sailing.” He turned his eyes to the lower corner of the map. Then he raised his brows. A series of words had been written on that side. He read them and his eyes opened wide in surprise. Anger came later.

“Do you think I’m a fool?”, he burst out. “Was it all just a joke?”

Henry Morgan held his glance with a harshness which didn’t let any emotion come out.

“No joke”, he replied.

“That’s impossible! Wynne can’t have drawn this map. He was completely out of his mind when we found him. He hadn’t eaten and drunk for days. He kept muttering meaningless words.”

“And he’s still muttering them at the moment.”

Rogers didn’t gave up. He studied the map once more, his eyes flashing frantically into their orbs. “I’ll tell you again: he can’t have drawn it, simply because this place doesn’t exist!”

“The Devil’s Triangle exists, really!”, Morgan exclaimed. He looked breathless. “Wynne has been there, no doubts. And not only the piece of paper you’re holding shows it, but also the fact we knew he was preparing to sail those seas.”

***

When they came out of the villa, some soldiers approached them, ready to escort them to the coach. Roger had wanted Morgan to let him meet the prisoner. He still couldn’t believe the story he had told him.

“Please, Excellency”, one of the guards suddenly said, opening the door of the coach which would drive them to the jail.

The coach turned into a strip of land bordering the beach. Morgan caught the opportunity of greeting the colons. Many of them bowed. A bit farther the coast made a small inlet, which was considered the real heart of the bay. There were a dozen ships at anchor there.

“Here we are, Excellency”, the coachman shouted after a while.

The road they were driving through was scattered with stones everywhere, becoming closer and closer till they formed a pavement ending in front of the fortress entrance. The access was composed of a brick arch obtained in the main wall. The grey mouths of the cannons came out of the upper cornice, surmounted by imposing battlements.

Once inside Fort Charles, they got off the coach in the middle of an octagonal square. Afterwards, they were led to the jails through a stone corridor, on whose walls some torches were flaring. A well-built man with a scornful air came through the dim light. He was panting and his face was wet with sweat. He was wearing a plain dress with dirty spots everywhere. Rogers could see blood trails both on his sleeves and on his collar. He then had the unpleasant feeling of facing the hangman.

“Excellency”, the last one greeted Morgan respectfully.

“Best greetings, master Kane”, Morgan replied. “This is captain Woodes Rogers, a corsair at His Majesty’s service.”

“How can I help you?”

“We’re here to meet Emanuel Wynne.”

The hangman nodded decidedly, he caught one of the torches hanging on the walls and took them to another corridor, where some cells were alternating. When they got to the end, they walked down a flight of stairs. The slope became steeper halfway so they had to bend, as the ceiling was gradually stooping. They would find themselves underground soon.

“Before we go in, I wish to ask you a question”, Rogers told the governor. “You’ve prepared the execution for tomorrow. Why such a hurry?”

“Wynne is a pirate, so he must pay for his crimes”, the other man replied.

Without a fair trial? Those thoughts flashed in the corsair’s mind with a disarming easiness. Do you really consider me such a fool, Henry? You’ve dragged me here for a much more important reason. Why are you spinning out? Lost in those thoughts, he got in front of a cell, without even being aware of it. The interior, which had been enveloped in darkness till then, was lighted by Kane’s torch. He saw him fumbling about a heavy brass ring enclosing a dozen keys. He put one of them into the keyhole and made it turn, producing a resounding creaking. The bars opened on a poor, bare room, whose only furniture was a bedstraw. Being underground, there wasn’t any kind of window, neither simple slits. A heavy smell of mould, excrements and urine was hovering all around.

Morgan was very interested in the shape lying on the bedstraw. It was still, covered in a filthy blanket. “Are you sure you didn’t go too far, master Kane? We want this man to be hanged before a jubilant crowd, not to die here like a rat.”

“Don’t worry”, the hangman assured him and moved towards Wynne. He then kicked his ribs. The pirate got up in a hurry, squealing. He looked like a ghost in the dim light. His thin face was marked by a bristly beard surrounding his cheeks in a mess. His long oily hair was falling on his eyes and behind his shoulders.

The governor showed a very false grin. “ Monsieur Wynne is very worn out by what happened to him. We don’t need to treat him like this. We are among gentlemen. Now, please, leave us alone. We can manage by ourselves.”

“Really…”, Kane tried to disagree.

Morgan’s face became gloomy at once.

“You can go”, he repeated slowly.

The hangman left his torch on the cell wall and disappeared.

“Wynne”, Rogers called him. “Can you hear me?”

The corsair waited, hoping the other man would answer. But when he realized he would have to wait forever, he knelt down, a few inches from the prisoner. “My ship found you off Nassau, do you remember? I’m here to talk about the map. What happened to you?”

Wynne lifted his head, staring at his interlocutor, but it looked as if he couldn’t see him. Rogers thought he saw a greenish glare coming from one of his eyes. He held his breath. He wasn’t sure, as the pirate had his hair stuck on his face. He then was persuaded that was just the reflex of the torch hanging on the wall.

“The Devil’s Triangle”, Wynne croaked after a while.

“Did you really sail those seas?”, Rogers questioned him.

“I shouldn’t have left my place. The captain’s orders. He will be furious.”

“He keeps telling the same story again and again”, Morgan said in an irritated tone. “He wants to go back to Bellamy. Even Kane’s whip strokes couldn’t make him change his mind.”

When he heard those words, the pirate started, gasping like a fish out of water and letting deep rattles come out of the bottom of his throat.

“Were you at Samuel Bellamy’s orders?” Rogers moved his fingers cautiously, catching his arm softly. Wynne was clearly made shy by Morgan’s presence. If Rogers couldn’t make him calm down, he would withdraw into numbness again.

The small man let out a surprised gasp. “We got lost.”

“Explain it better.”

“The fog… was everywhere.”

“Which fog?” Rogers spurred him. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I must keep on watch”, Wynne changed his voice. It sounded like the one of a man looking for confidence. “The captain’s orders.”

Rogers kept silent, waiting again.

“There’s nothing to do”, Morgan asserted. “We are wasting our time. You have been able to learn something more, captain. We’ll grant it. However…”

“That’s just what you don’t understand!”, the pirate burst out. A spark of consciousness seemed to light again into his brain. “There’s a price to be paid by those who are looking for the treasure. A treasure which can change the destiny of the man who will find it.”

“Which treasure?”, the governor suddenly asked.

Wynne started. He got free from the corsair’s grip and crouched back on the bedstraw, in a foetal position. From that angle, Rogers could see the fresh whip signs.

“Wynne!”, Morgan exclaimed in a threatening voice. “What treasure are you talking about? Answer, God damn!”

The pirate burst into a series of moans and stopped talking. The governor’s insults couldn’t stir him anymore.

“Was that all you wanted to know, Excellency?” That sounded more like a bare statement than like a question on Roger’s part. “You’ve used me to find out the possible existence of a treasure?”

Henry Morgan’s face turned gloomy. “I didn’t use you, captain. You had a precise task. To catch Wynne. And you succeeded very well.”

“It was a simple chance, to use your same words.”

“Of course.”

“What are you playing at, Henry?”

The man stared at him doubtfully.

“You owe me some explanation”, Rogers went on soon after. “I did my duty. And I thought that was all. But now you’re involving me in this story.”

The sound of some steps came from the bottom of the corridor, together with Kane’s light whistle. They had clearly remained in the cell too long and the hangman was coming back to check if something had happened.

“There’s no need of discussing the matter here, captain”, Morgan hissed.

“I’m afraid there is”, Rogers disagreed.

“What do you want to know?”

“The truth.”

“Ok”, the governor replied. “You’re a trustworthy man, after all.”

“Hurry up!”

“Bellamy himself came to tell me what he wanted to do. Our past is not a mystery, isn’t it? So you won’t be surprised by our friendship.”

I’m not surprised at all, Rogers considered.

“He asked us for a loan.” Morgan was talking fast and he sometimes turned his eyes to see if Kane suddenly came. “He didn’t have enough money to afford starting such a dangerous journey. We wanted the list of the crew in return. Experience has taught us to get to know who is going to use the money we are spending. The only name of the list we already knew, was Wynne’s.”

“So you sent me to look for him”, Rogers highlighted.

“Exactly. When we learnt that Bellamy had disappeared, we couldn’t do otherwise.”

The French man started talking again. He was sitting on the bedstraw, crossing his legs. “I’ll be punished because I stirred up a mutiny. But it wasn’t my fault. I can swear it. Don’t trust the man with golden teeth.” Even if his face was hidden by his hair, he was clearly smiling. “What’s more, I was the only one who could see. I was on the observation mast. I had to watch, just like the shaman had told us.”

Rogers bent down once more. He was going to open his mouth, wanting to know what Wynne was referring to. The pirate was faster.

“Our eyes often deceive us, captain Rogers!”, he said.

“And what about the treasure?”, Morgan intruded.

There was no answer. Edward Wynne bent his head back and burst into an obscene and powerful laughter, clashing with his body’s thinness. He kept laughing also when the hangman came back. The governor had he whipped again and again, hoping to get more information. But the more Kane tortured him, the more the pirate laughed. He went on till his vocal cords broke and disgusting sounds came out of his mouth, forcing Rogers to shut his ears.

CHAPTER TWO

THE EXECUTION

Late in the afternoon, Johnny started on his way back.

Remembering what had happened in the morning, he decided to take the longest way. He could avoid going through the Spanish area in doing so. His mother was certainly at work, plunging as usual in the suffocating smell of spices which impregnated the Passàro do Mar’s kitchen. She wouldn’t notice him, if he came home late.

He moved on along the east end of the harbour, getting over docks and road-steads. He sometimes cast a glance at the moored ships. Most of the crews had landed. He had often felt the impulse to sign on and leave Port Royal. But how? He wouldn’t bear the sea, not even for a week.

He heard Anne’s voice echoing in his mind at that moment, as powerful as only she could have, accusing him of being just like his father. He thought again over the story he had invented with Avery’s connivance.

I had to hand him some pincers, he revised it mentally, trying to look convincing even to himself. He told me to hurry up, so I turned. I didn’t notice a lower beam and I hit against it.

She might believe him, even if he could foresee her worried look, her goggle eyes and he wide-open mouth.

She was going to overwhelm him by her usual wave of scolding, about how dangerous the world was and everything else. Obviously, he expected her to ask the old man for an explanation. He would prove everything was right that same evening, when he was going to have a drink at the tavern.

I hope he won’t get drunk, he thought.

Farther on, the ground made some terracing, following a flight of steps which had been built against the walls of the harbour. Johnny walked up there without even stopping to think about it. He knew the area like the back of his hand. When he got to the top, he stopped there to look at the bay.

He had seen that sight lots of times, but he felt a different emotion that day, which he had never felt before. The dying sunset light was enveloping everything in violet brushstrokes. He felt sure for a moment that the air was even full of electricity, almost bringing some change forward.

“The wind is changing.”

Johnny winced. A man had come close to him while he hadn’t even noticed him, and he was staring at the inlet just like him. He was wearing a blue jacket and a shirt opening on his chest, tied by a green sash on his waist. He had knee-high boots on his feet. His face was pockmarked, as if he had been stung by hundreds of voracious insects and it was framed by a pair of long and thick dark sideburns, making it look as long as a beech-marten’s one.

“Something is going to happen, isn’t it?”, the boy asked him, not even knowing why he was addressing that man.

The other one nodded.

“Go back home, guy”, he told him. He put his hands on his hips and pushed his clothes aside in doing so. A sword hilt came into view. “A storm is going to break out soon. You don’t want to be around here, when that happens, do you?”

Johnny didn’t answer. He realized that he didn’t like that man. Especially when he smiled: he had his upper incisors set in gold.

He is a pirate, he thought and, while walking away, he could hear him sneer. It was a gloomy, unpleasant laughter. He turned, fearing the man was going to follow him. On the contrary, the pirate wasn’t caring at all about him.

The frantic life of the colony was dying away meanwhile. The streets were getting empty. The people who didn’t have a house to go back to, were showering inside the inns. The lamp men had started on their tour, lighting lamps and filling them with new oil. Oddly, there didn’t seem to be any dead man lying in the mud. But the night was going to be still long, to be sure about that.

Johnny walked all along the street separating him from the Pàssaro do Mar in a strange state of excitement, which he couldn’t understand. It was the fault of his meeting with the mysterious man. And he was still thinking about him, when he met one of the several guard spots scattered along the street, where a boy, about twelve years old, was hanging a warning. Some soldiers were surrounding him, looking curious.

“At last!”, one of them exclaimed

“I feared the governor had got soft”, another man added.

“Shut up”, a third one warned him. “You don’t want to be hanged too, do you?”

They went on discussing without really caring about it. It was different for Johnny. As soon as the boy had finished, he decided to move closer, attracted by the words heading on the sign.

ACCORDING TO HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE OF ENGLAND’S WILL,

THE GOVERNOR OF PORT ROYAL SIR HENRY MORGAN

ORDERS THE EXECUTION OF THE PIRATE EMANUEL WYNNE

AT THE FIRST LIGHTS OF DAWN

He kept staring at it for a long time. After those words, there was a list of crimes Wynne had made. When he finished reading it, he started walking again.

He recollected the day when his father had taken him to watch an execution for the first time. He had put him on his shoulders, so he could see beyond the crowd. Johnny had kept laughing amused, till something had changed. His child excitement for that show had turned into horror, as soon as the rope had been passed around the prisoner’s neck. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t expected to see him hanging there dead after a few seconds. Tears had suddenly started streaking his face.

“Why are you crying?”, his father had asked him.

“That man over there…”, he had just answered, pointing at the swaying dead body.

“He was a wicked man.” Stephen Underwood had tried to calm him down. “He had to pay for his crimes.”

Johnny had nodded, but he hadn’t perfectly understood what he was talking about. His gesture had been an instinctive one, due mainly to his irrepressible urge to go away as soon as possible.

“Just remember that you are going to meet a lot of people in your life”, Stephen had gone on. “Each of them made some mistakes. Some of them have mended their ways and decided to leave their past behind them. Some others, on the contrary, wear them proudly on their face, like sorts of masks. I’m warning you, don’t trust the latter. They will go on making mistakes and justifying themselves by saying that it’s your fault. And the worst thing is, they really believe what they are saying. Just like the man who has been executed today.”