#C: Queen Anne's Revenge Crew

[ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme]

Queen Anne's Revenge Crew — Blackbeard’s crew are all cryptids

Whether it was intentional, or because cryptids are the only ones robust enough to survive Ed’s idea of piracy, by the time the series starts Blackbeard and his crew are 100% different flavours of non-human. Blackbeard’s legend has only been enhanced by him and his crew really being able to do supernatural things. Keeping outsiders from finding out goes without saying. Humans are so quick with the torches and pitchforks.

Stede and his people are entirely human (except for Buttons, who is a sea witch natch), just for one reason or another not able to properly live their best lives in regular society. The Revenge became a refuge. Found family vibes abound.

Ed is completely besotted with Stede and enamoured with the way of life on the Revenge, and since he’s feeling so safe and happy he eventually just kind of… outs himself and his people to the humans. Izzy takes it about as well as can be expected, because what the hell were the last [however long they’ve been together] years even about if Edward’s just going to spill everything the second he falls in love? Fang is possibly not thrilled either, considering his thing with Lucius and Pete.

+ Jim may or may not be a hunter, but something about them sets off those vibes with Blackbeard’s people. The humans are kind of baffled as to why these big, bad pirates are giving the resident stabby gremlin such a wide, respectful berth.

+ Before the reveal, Frenchie is absolutely convinced Something Is Up with Blackbeard and crew. None of his friends pay him much mind, because it’s just Frenchie being Frenchie, y’know?

+ Izzy’s preoccupation with survival at the cost of actually living is taken up to eleven in this universe, since at this point in his life he’s a career criminal (and a deserter if we assume he was in the navy) AND a non-human. 24/7 threat assessment of everything that moves and most things that don’t.

Any and all ships welcome. Dealer’s choice how common knowledge it is that cryptids exist in this universe.

Fill: None

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

IZZY HANDS FIC RECS! (I want em', I've got em')

What is everyone reading in OFMD fandom right now?

I am currently mostly caught up on my 'to read list' and YALL. I'd love more recomendations!! I will take ANYTHING! I will read ANYTHING!

I'd love to start a chat, so I'd love y'all to leave something you've read recently down below!

I've also added some tasty ones I've read recently down below separated by ship! THEY ARE AMAZING!

Frenchie/Izzy:

The Poetry of Flowers: By Aletea [Rated:Teen. Complete]

Frenchie falls hard and fast. It takes Izzy a little while longer to catch up. This is the slow courtship of Izzy Hands, using flowers.

This fic was written for OFMD Aro/Ace Week 2024.

[Personal notes: OMG-It's so *GOOD*. This has a bit of S2, but mostly takes place post S2, if that tempts you, READ IT. This got me back into the hobby Frenchie does in the fic and AHHH]

you steal my breath away: By ChangeTheCircumstances [Rated: Mature. Complete]

Something is clearly off about Izzy, but when Frenchie sees him petting a cat, it finally clicks. Izzy is a fucking witch! In order to protect the crew, Frenchie makes the next obvious step in logic: he has to kill him.

[Personal notes: I feel this one is just 'if you like Frenchie/Izzy, you've READ THIS- but it's so earnest! SOLID fic the 'realizations' on both ends are really amazing and well written, reread it if you have]

Warnings from the Bottom of My Heart: By scrunglebungus [Rated: Teen. Complete]

Izzy likes Frenchie's voice. He appreciates his music and his long pretty fingers as they move across his Lute. He doesn't have a crush. He DOESN'T.

...and if he did, it's not like he's obvious about it.

(Spoiler: He is) AKA: 5 times Izzy is given the shovel talk + 1 time it's given on his behalf

[An alternate S2 fic written before S2! It leans a bit more 'Izzy needs to redeem himself' than I usually read, but all the Izzy & Crew interactions are SO in character it's scary. That and the Captains are so well realized on top of Izzy and Frenchie being great. LOVE IT]

Roach/Izzy:

Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk: bongbingbong [Rated:Mature. Complete]

Of Roach, the scientist - although, that those ghoulish practices he carries out should be called science is a subject on which some might disagree - I feel like I should speak with extreme terror. In laying down those events which transpired during that winter in the turning over of our century, it seems as though on paper they create an impression of little more than a tawdry tale, a freak show in writing for the morbidly curious. It’s no question that I spent a great deal of that time afraid for my life, and for my soul. And yet, I tell you - I have never felt quite so alive as I did during the days I have spent living in the graveyard.

I wonder what this might say about me. What a pair we make.

Izzy Hands dies. Roach brings him back to life. This is the easiest part of the process.

Written for the OFMD Reverse Big Bang 2023, with art from Tarouofthesea!

[Omg. OMFG. I love this fic. I love this Frankenstein'ian/Reanimator fic SO MUCH. It is just SOOOOOOO-! AMAZING characterization, stunning art, the way everything pays off plot/reference-wise! LOVE IT!]

Blackbeard's Roach: bongbingbong [Rated: Teen. Unfinished. 4/6]

What if Roach had ended up on the Queen Anne's Revenge before the events of the show?

(A alternative universe Roach who wears leather and cooks for Blackbeard's crew, and flirts outrageously with their first mate)

[ANOTHER bongbingbong Roach/Izzy fic!!! I love the way bongbingbong writes Roach/Izzy. It's not finished, but I am SO excited to see how it goes! In this one, even though it's unfinished, I feel it GETS the pre-Bonnet life Izzy lived on the Queen Anne. If you like probably autistic Izzy, READ THIS! That, and Roach and Izzy's relationship is SO GOOD. I won't spoil it, but the mutual trust is really strong!]

Stede/Izzy:

The Mount: rainingrenee [Explicit. Complete (WLW smut<3)]

Stede Bonnet enters the Revenge self defence class expecting to learn something.

She meets instructor Butch Dyke Supreme Izzy Hands and gets more than she bargained for.

[God. I love women. This smutty 8k fic is AMAZING and honestly any WLW in this fandom needs some love!]

When It Takes Hold: krill collins (krillcollins)[Explicit: 5/12]

Izzy Hands, a 90s heartthrob turned casting director with an impressively average back catalogue, never foresaw his career trajectory bringing him back to television. He certainly never would've guessed that his big return would be on Strictly Come Dancing. At least it breaks the monotony, even if he's paired with the insufferable twat, the Gentleman of the Ballroom.

It's the kind of fast-paced environment that Izzy was sure he'd long-since grown out of, and he's sure he's not going to make it past the first few weeks. Still, the more he finds himself enjoying it, the more he hopes he'll stay, and he finds himself more in love with life than he's been in years.

Still, the talk of the curse puts Izzy on edge. Bonnet is strangely captivating and seems more interested in Izzy than Edward has in years. Izzy may not believe in them, but that's the thing about curses: once they take hold...

[OMG. OMFG?!?!? Do you know how much I love 'Dancing with the Stars' AU? NO? Well. For every fandom I enter, my first tags I search are 'time loop' 'time travel' and 'dancing'. This fic is EVERYTHING I love about the trope. I have been following this fic from Day 1 and OMG. I love it. Can't recommend it enough]

The Island: triedunture [Explicit: 10/? Updates every Friday-SteddyHands but Izzy/Stede focused]

Stede Bonnet wakes up in the little cottage he and Ed share—except Ed's not there. Izzy is. Stede is somehow stuck in a world where Ed died and Izzy lived. As he struggles to get back to his real life, it becomes clear that things on the island are very different from what he first assumed....

Updates every Friday.

[A fic that, if the premise sounds cool-READ IT! It's a bit out there concept wise, but SO fun, and a great look at how Stede and Izzy interact in a 'do I want him' type of relationship. This fic has been my weekly bed time story, and I can't wait to see how the drama UNFOLDS!]

[unencryptxd]

Title: A Treatise on Treasure Or: The Observed Effects of Risk and Romance on the Dread Pyrate and a Gentleman Scholar by S.M. Bonnet Author: unencryptid [AO3] [Twitter] Artist: vicoyote [Twitter] Beta reader: LalaLovesCakes [Twitter] Characters: Stede Bonnet, Edward Teach, Wee John Feeney, Doug, Mary Allamby, Louis Bonnet, Alma Bonnet, Izzy Hands, Crew of the Revenge, Blackbeard's Crew Relationship(s): Stede Bonnet/Edward Teach (Gentlebeard) Rating: Explicit Additional Tags: Canon Era-Alternate Meeting, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical Violence, Homesteading, Fake Science and Medicine, Blood and Injury, Illnesses, Recovery, Alcohol Use/Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, Minor Character Death, Choking (brief), First Time, Inexperienced Stede Bonnet, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sex, Bottom Stede, Top Ed, Unsuccessful Sexual Coercion, Bathing, H/C, Desert Island, Verbal Abuse (minor and brief), Attempted Kidnapping, Angst with a Happy Ending, Caretaking, Competent Stede, Life-Affirming Sex, No Stigma of Homosexuality or Divorce Warnings: None Summary: Armed with a library's worth of blank journals and more marmalade than experience, Stede happily sets sail for a year's worth of blue sky research--but all Stede's meticulous planning for his expedition to a small, unnamed aisle in the middle of the ocean failed to account for the presence of one of the Caribbeans fiercest natural predators.

Pirates.

Blackbeard is equally shocked to find an interloper on an island after Queen Anne's Revenge anchors to take care of a torn sail. It's not unheard of to stumble upon some poor marooned bastard after rowing a shore, but they're usually half mad with hunger and meaner than a snake-- not impeccably groomed gentlemen that shouted him for disrupting butterflies.

Priceless discoveries abound. Wordcount: 116k Link to art masterpost Link to story

[cannebady]

Last night my brain saw fit to throw me a fic prompt via dreams.

A canon era AU where the rift between Ed and Izzy reaches a fever pitch before Stede leaves Barbados. Maybe Ed's just really done being Blackbeard and knows he can't move on with Izzy at his heels, expecting things he can't give. Or maybe Izzy tires of Ed's disinterest and flagrant risk taking.

Whatever the circumstances, Izzy leaves the Queen Anne's Revenge in Barbados without much of a plan. He's about to break one of his cardinal rules by getting absolutely pissed beyond reason at a shit pub when he hears about some rich ponce who's setting sail on a brand new ship. Even though he's deep in his cups, an idea starts to form. One that would allow Izzy his own command within a matter of months, almost guaranteed.

Izzy spends some time doing recon because he's nothing if not thorough. He sees the man, an uptight rich twat type if he does say so himself, with endless resources and zero know-how. The thought of having to call the man Captain, even for a short while, makes him green about the gills but needs must.

The ship, at least, is new and beautiful and Izzy figures it wouldn't take long until he can call her his own.

First, he needs to get hired so he puts on his best genial expression and makes his introduction. Whatever he was expecting, the guy is even worse. He is a rich ponce, and a twat, but worst of all he's fucking cheery. He's also, inconveniently, maybe just a little good looking. He's not Izzy's type, of course not, but his eye is immediately drawn to a very well fitted waistcoat embracing what looks to be a lovely chest indeed. And well, it's been a while and Izzy's not fucking dead, okay? He can ogle someone here and there, he's a fucking pirate for fucks sake.

Anyway, it takes nothing more than an introduction for Stede Bonnet to hire him and he's first mate again by his first afternoon.

Stede's inexperience and attitude grate something fierce at Izzy's patience, and he snaps at him twice in as many days so he isn't surprised when he's asked to the Captain's quarters. He's expecting a flogging, or perhaps an old fashioned beating, but instead he finds himself presented with a cup of tea, in a fine china cup and saucer no less, while Stede attempts to talk it through. Izzy makes a mental pact with himself to be on his best fucking behavior. The sooner Stede lets down his guard, the sooner Izzy can strike.

He hates the bastard a bit, and he can't help but remind him of that sometimes, but he's also got some balls on him Izzy has to admit. And the tea is always, begrudgingly, fantastic.

With time, Stede starts asking Izzy to teach him the ropes and Izzy finally gives in, if for no other reason than it ups their general chance of surviving long enough for him to stage a mutiny.

Stede, though, is ever a surprise. He's strong for someone who has led a life of luxury, and he does have a passion for the work, though he's still fucking squeamish which drives Izzy fucking mad.

Before Izzy knows it, they've been at it a few months and Stede's getting competent. They're even starting to work well together, not that he'd admit it on pain of fucking death. Sometimes, he even has a drink with Stede, who insists that Izzy call him Stede when they're not on deck instead of Captain or boss, in the evening. It's nice and Izzy hasn't thought of mutiny in any real way in days.

It bothers him, but he's distracted enough with a green crew and a green Captain that he doesn't even realize he's started to enjoy himself until he spots an awfully familiar black dot in the distance.

Fuck.

Before long, the Queen Anne's Revenge is running up on The Revenge and Blackbeard himself is boarding, all skintight leather and cocky swagger (fuck, he's gorgeous), and Stede, who should be shaking in his ridiculous heels, instead looks at Blackbeard, at Ed, with hearts in his eyes as if he'd hung the stars himself. Izzy can relate but this development makes something strange and hot churn in his belly and he doesn't like that shit one bit.

It turns out that Ed had heard tell of a Gentleman Pirate and was intrigued, of course he was, but was quite surprised to find out that the gentleman's first mate was someone familiar.

Queue Ed and Stede being weird and romantic, and falling in love while Izzy loses his mind watching his first love and his new something become a thing.

Queue Ed and Stede bonding over shared interests, one of which happens to be their first mate and how they might just be a little smitten with him.

[feelthepxwer]

(CHINA ANNE MCCLAIN, 22, SHE/HER) | UMA VANTIS is the CHILD OF URSULA, which makes them a YOUNGER SIBLING TO A SISTER. The isle used to be their prison making them PASSIONATE + RESENTFUL, which suits them as they’ve pledged allegiance to the royal family. The new world is finally here, long live the queen.

HEY -O admin C again. tw: abandonment, under age drinking & sex, murder

First and foremost Uma is the daughter of Ursula meaning that she does have magic in her blood but she refuses to rely on it, rather relying upon her sword, akin to her piracy. Which is why she had her mothers necklace, that keeps her magic in check unless her anger becomes too strong; then she’ll let it take over her.

Akin to the above information, Uma is 100% a sea witch like her mother.

Her father is open for debate but I imagine it was ether a pirate or another god, since Poseidon is her grandfather. 

Harry and Gil are her number one and number two. Period. You fuck with them, she’ll gut you. Plain and simple.

Along those lines, she lost her virginity to Harry.

The isle of the lost isn’t exactly a place where LOVE or simple touch is welcomed, if anything it’s forbidden.

That being said, she feels a lot of things for Gil, Harry & Carlos to an extent.

Carlos’s abandonment hurt more than Mal, Evie or Jay’s because they had built up a friendship over the years on the Isle.

IS THE REASON THE VILLAINS ARE BANDING TOGETHER.

As seen in D2/D3 she can easily manipulate people both with magic and without, to the point of feigning another persona. Much like her mother Ursula did in The Little Mermaid when she became Vanessa; though Uma doesn’t bother changing appearances. Instead uses other peoples bodies to do her bidding. 

Akin to Descendants Under The Sea Uma is able to manipulate people’s bodies and voices, just as she’s able to take on other forms via spells and hexes.

Pirate. Pirate. Pirate. Mother fucking pirate !!

Captain of the lost revenge. Her crew is loyal to their ends.

As such, it’s in her nature to maim and kill.

Underneath her hard shell, Uma is very vulnerable and scared of what life has to offer.

Uma has teamed up with her uncle Hades to over throw King Ben, which she was ultimately successful in. He was the only one that knew she was alive after the original failed attempt at mind washing Ben; before she exposed herself during the events of D3.

Speaking of the events of D3, it was plotted that Uma and her crew which include Gill and Harry, would PRETEND to turn good in efforts to make Mal and everyone else in Auradon trust them enough. This performance was so good that it resulted in the barrier being lowered, willingly which is what ultimately became Auradon’s downfall.

Around two months prior to over throwing Ben it was decided between herself and Harry to further the relationship they’d been teetering around for years. Escalating from a Captain and her First Mate to boyfriend and girlfriend to fiancé and quickly to married. They were married in front of Matey their puppy and Tick-Tock the crocodile, after all a Captain can officiate any wedding as long as it’s at sea or aboard a ship.

Uma is now QUEEN of Auradon which makes Harry Hook by marriage the KING of Auradon.

Will never forgive Mal. Period.

Call her shrimpy, I dare you.

Small things to note:

Has her ears and nipples pierced. Technically has her septum but it’s never worn.

Has major PTSD, manic depressive as well. (If you’ve read the descendants books then you know with the latest installment meant to be D3 she tried to kill herself.)

Used her crew for tattoo practice.

Is pansexual.

Enjoys maiming a little too much.

As per the irl sea three/crew having them, Uma has an anchor on her inner left wrist.

She also has a trident on her right pinky finger, a shark on her left ankle, falcon on her right ankle and this design on her left hand.

hmu for plots !!

[quietya]

31 Days of quietYA: Books About Pirates

For today’s book rec post, let’s talk about pirates! A lot of pirate-y books don’t get a ton of hype, but they’re always out there.

Blackhearts by Nicole Castroman

Edward "Teach" Drummond, son of one of Bristol's richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There's just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back. Following her parents' deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely worked a day in her life, Anne is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Master Drummond. Lonely days stretch into weeks, and Anne longs for escape. How will she ever realize her dream of sailing to Curaçao—where her mother was born—when she's stuck in England? From the moment Teach and Anne meet, they set the world ablaze. Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances. Faced with an impossible choice, they must decide to chase their dreams and go, or follow their hearts and stay.

Blue Tide by Jenna-Lynne Duncan

Seventeen-year-old refugee Lux plots her escape from the island where her family is stranded, denying that her home was lost in the Floods. Lux is determined to get her old life back by any means possible. But before her feet even leave the sand, she's taken hostage by a vengeance-driven pirate nearly as young as she is. Her capture is the key to his freedom... Captain Draven’s scarf veils more than his face. Underneath, he struggles between morality and survival. When Lux sees deeper into his motivations, she’s torn. She can commit mutiny to escape to a home that may no longer exist, or she can try to help Draven escape the clutches of the person responsible for the deaths of half the world. Staying would mean entrusting her life to a pirate. Helping Draven would mean losing her heart to one.

Over Raging Tides by Jennifer Ellison

The pirate crew of the Lady Luck lives by many rules, but chief among them is this: they do not allow men on board. That’s a rule that quartermaster Grace Porter is willing to break when a shipwrecked young nobleman offers her information of an omniscient map, stolen from his warship by an enemy vessel. Until now, the map was only the stuff of legend… but with its help, Grace may finally be able to hunt down the Mordgris, the sea monsters who stole her mother away from her. Unfortunately, some members of her crew have other plans... To find the map and face the Mordgris, Grace will have to confront her past, put the Luck between warring nations, and uncover treachery aboard the ship. And ultimately, her revenge and the destruction of the Mordgris will come at a hefty price: the betrayal of her crew. Grace promised them they wouldn’t regret this. She just isn’t sure that she won’t.

The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination. As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix. But the end to it all looms closer every day. Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence. For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.

The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King

In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with "the dust of one hundred dogs," dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body-with her memories intact. Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller

Sent on a mission to retrieve an ancient hidden map—the key to a legendary treasure trove—seventeen-year-old pirate captain Alosa deliberately allows herself to be captured by her enemies, giving her the perfect opportunity to search their ship. More than a match for the ruthless pirate crew, Alosa has only one thing standing between her and the map: her captor, the unexpectedly clever and unfairly attractive first mate, Riden. But not to worry, for Alosa has a few tricks up her sleeve, and no lone pirate can stop the Daughter of the Pirate King.

The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara

There’s no place for a girl in Mary’s world. Not in the home of her mum, desperately drunk and poor. Not in the household of her wealthy granny, where no girl can be named an heir. And certainly not in the arms of Nat, her childhood love who never knew her for who she was. As a sailor aboard a Caribbean merchant ship, Mary’s livelihood—and her safety—depends on her ability to disguise her gender. At least, that’s what she thinks is true. But then pirates attack the ship, and in the midst of the gang of cutthroats, Mary spots something she never could have imagined: a girl pirate. The sight of a girl standing unafraid upon the deck, gun and sword in hand, changes everything. In a split-second decision, Mary turns her gun on her own captain, earning herself the chance to join the account and become a pirate alongside Calico Jack and Anne Bonny. For the first time, Mary has a shot at freedom. But imagining living as her true self is easier, it seems, than actually doing it. And when Mary finds herself falling for the captain’s mistress, she risks everything—her childhood love, her place among the crew, and even her life.

To Catch a Pirate by Jade Parker

When Annalisa Townsend’s ship is set upon by pirates in search of her father’s treasure, one of the crew, James Sterling, discovers her in the hold. When he moves to take her necklace, she begs him not to, as it is all she has left of her mother. He accepts a kiss in exchange for the necklace. “A fair trade, m’lady,” he tells her afterward, before disappearing.

A year later, with a forged letter of marque, Annalisa is intent on hunting down the wretched James Sterling and reclaiming her father’s treasure from him. But now she’s in danger of him stealing something far more vulnerable this time: her heart.

Seafire by Natalie C. Parker

After her family is killed by corrupt warlord Aric Athair and his bloodthirsty army of Bullets, Caledonia Styx is left to chart her own course on the dangerous and deadly seas. She captains her ship, the Mors Navis, with a crew of girls and women just like her, who have lost their families and homes because of Aric and his men. The crew has one mission: stay alive, and take down Aric's armed and armored fleet. But when Caledonia's best friend and second-in-command barely survives an attack thanks to help from a Bullet looking to defect, Caledonia finds herself questioning whether to let him join their crew. Is this boy the key to taking down Aric Athair once and for all . . . or will he threaten everything the women of the Mors Navis have worked for?

Pirates! by Celia Rees

Nancy Kington, daughter of a rich merchant, suddenly orphaned when her father dies, is sent to live on her family's plantation in Jamaica. Disgusted by the treatment of the slaves and her brother's willingness to marry her off, she and one of the slaves, Minerva, run away and join a band of pirates. For both girls the pirate life is their only chance for freedom in a society where both are treated like property, rather than individuals. Together they go in search of adventure, love, and a new life that breaks all restrictions of gender, race, and position.

The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie

For Cassandra Leung, bossing around sea monsters is just the family business. She’s been a Reckoner trainer-in-training ever since she could walk, raising the genetically-engineered beasts to defend ships as they cross the pirate-infested NeoPacific. But when the pirate queen Santa Elena swoops in on Cas’s first solo mission and snatches her from the bloodstained decks, Cas’s dream of being a full-time trainer seems dead in the water. There’s no time to mourn. Waiting for her on the pirate ship is an unhatched Reckoner pup. Santa Elena wants to take back the seas with a monster of her own, and she needs a proper trainer to do it. She orders Cas to raise the pup, make sure he imprints on her ship, and, when the time comes, teach him to fight for the pirates. If Cas fails, her blood will be the next to paint the sea.

Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

Caroline Oresteia is destined for the river. For generations, her family has been called by the river god, who has guided their wherries on countless voyages throughout the Riverlands. At seventeen, Caro has spent years listening to the water, ready to meet her fate. But the river god hasn’t spoken her name yet—and if he hasn’t by now, there’s a chance he never will. Caro decides to take her future into her own hands when her father is arrested for refusing to transport a mysterious crate. By agreeing to deliver it in exchange for his release, Caro finds herself caught in a web of politics and lies, with dangerous pirates after the cargo—an arrogant courier with a secret—and without the river god to help her. With so much at stake, Caro must choose between the life she always wanted and the one she never could have imagined for herself.

Steel by Carrie Vaughn

Sixteen-year-old Jill has fought in dozens of fencing tournaments, but she has never held a sharpened blade. When she finds a corroded sword piece on a Caribbean beach, she is instantly intrigued and pockets it as her own personal treasure. The broken tip holds secrets, though, and it transports Jill through time to the deck of a pirate ship. Stranded in the past and surrounded by strangers, she is forced to sign on as crew. But a pirate's life is bloody and brief, and as Jill learns about the dark magic that brought her there, she forms a desperate scheme to get home—one that risks everything in a duel to the death with a villainous pirate captain.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY The story centers on Diana “Sugar” Hill (Bey), a photographer in Houston whose boyfriend, nightclub owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson), has been killed by mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry) and his men when he refused to sell the club to Morgan. Sugar seeks the help of a former voodoo queen named Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to take revenge on Morgan and his thugs. Mama summons the voodoo lord of the dead, Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), who enlists his army of zombies to destroy the men who killed Langston and now want the club. Investigating the killings is Sugar’s former boyfriend, police Lt. Valentine (Richard Lawson).

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION The film, budgeted at $350,000, was shot on location in Houston at such locations as the Heights branch of the Houston Public Library (a historical landmark), used in the film as a “Voodoo Institute”. Sugar Hill was the last film Quarry did for AIP, after a run that included the Count Yorga movies. Also appearing in the film was Cully, who played Mama Jefferson on the TV show The Jeffersons. Charles P. Robinson, known for his role as Mac Robinson on NBC’s Night Court, portrayed the character of Fabulous. Hank Edds created the makeup effects for the zombies in the film.

Actress Marki Bey “researched her part among various voodoo cults in and around the L.A. environs; thereby acquiring the proper authoritative menace to make her role as a voodoo high priestess believable.”

Rumor has it that the afro-style hairdo worn by the character Diana Hill during the zombie attack sequences was because Marki Bey didn’t look “black enough” while wearing her hair flat and relaxed.

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Actor Don Pedro Colley also did extensive research in the voodoo practices from Haiti for his role as Baron Samedi. According to Colley, “This character was based more or less on the actual voodoo character that comes from Haiti…Papa Legre, who is all powerful, all omnipotent. Throughout the voodoo culture Papa Legre is the one single heavyweight dude.”

I’m supposed to be playing a voodoo god rising from the grave with an army of zombies. So I said, “Well, let me go back into my old theater bag of tricks here and do what I’m supposed to do. Let me do a lot of research.’ So I got several books from the library. One was written by two anthropologists that had studied voodoo religions around the world and another was written by a practitioner of voodoo from Haiti. This character was based more or less on the actual voodoo character that comes from Haiti. The Haitian characters name is Papa Legre, who is all powerful, all omnipotent. Throughout the voodoo culture Papa Legre is the one single heavyweight dude. My character’s name was Baron Samedi. It went through how the rituals of voodoo work. For those who believe in it, things can actually happen, good or bad. A woman hates her old man so she goes through a voodoo priestess who puts a hex on him and he ends up dying of a horrible disease or a heart attack or a car crash. By filling a glass with alcohol and burning chicken feathers and spiders and lighting incense and doing chants on a daily basis. The two scientists related voodoo rituals to others rituals that take place in other religions, such as the Catholic religion, the burning of the incense, the drinking of the blood, the wafer, the bread of God. These are rituals that are really taken right out of voodoo rituals. And relating the singing from the Baptist or Episcopalian or Presbyterian religions, even the Muslims and the Sikhs, all of the rituals all had a basis in the early African voodoo tribal religion that came west from the tribes of Africa when the slaves were brought. So I said, ‘I’ve now got all this information. I’m going to make Baron Samedi scary, boy is he going to be scary.””

Robert Quarry reflects on making “Sugar Hill”. The producer and the director Paul Maslansky were both white, and, of course, it was an all-black movie. They had a black actor set for the part, but they got rid of him, and Sam sent me in to take the part. So I walked in as ‘Mr. Whitey’ to play the head of the Mafia in Houston, which is where they shot it. I didn’t give a shit. They paid me. And during the shoot, my rich white friends in Houston wouldn’t call me because they thought I’d bring somebody black to lunch with me. The racism was that subtle. And, of course, they hired so many blacks for the movie, and here I was saying things like ‘nigger’ and ‘jig’ and ‘jungle bunny.’ The extras who weren’t actors were going to kill me because they thought I was a big racist. But I won them over eventually. And we all laughed so hard. I’d tell them all on the set, ‘Okay, easy fellas, get ready because I’m going to say the ‘n’ word again.” One of the locations was this mansion that looked like it had been abandoned for a hundred years. It even had an elevator in it. It had been abandoned for ten or fifteen years. The place was full of cobwebs and dust, it was really quite neat. The only thing I objected to is, here I am starring in this movie and I’m being treated like a peon. Here they are paying me 750 dollars a week and I’m starring in this bloody mess. Union law states that when the performers travel, they travel first class and they stay in a first class hotel and when they work on the set they have a first class dressing room. In Houston, I didn’t have any dressing room. It was like 95% humidity. It was 95 degrees every day. They were talking about having me stand behind a car in the street to change clothes. Forget it! So I went out and rented a forty foot motor home and I drove it to the set and the producer went bugo, he went off – ‘You can’t do that! You can’t drive that here! We have to put a union driver on that. We have to pay the union drivers a thousand a week and…’ And I said, ‘Wait a minute. Are you telling me that a driver of my motor home makes more money a week than I do and I’m starring in this piece of shit!?” I said, ‘I’m going to keep this until you provide me with a dressing room and in the mean time I’m calling the union and letting them know exactly what you people are doing down here.’ That’s what they did at American International. They exploited everybody.

The performers playing the zombies in Sugar Hill wore ping pong balls cut in half over their eyes, creating the cartoonish, yet eerie effect. Other sources say the eyes were created with broken-off spoon halves.

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SCORE/SOUNDTRACK

Supernatural Voodoo Woman Written by Dino Fekaris & Nick Zesses Sung by The Originals

CAST/CREW Directed Paul Maslansky

Produced Elliot Schick

Written Tim Kelly

Marki Bey as Diana Hill Robert Quarry as Morgan Don Pedro Colley as Baron Samedi Betty Anne Rees as Celeste Richard Lawson as Valentine Zara Cully as Mama Maitresse Charles P. Robinson as Fabulous Larry D. Johnson as Langston Rick Hagood as Tank Watson Ed Geldart as O’Brien Albert J. Baker as George Raymond E. Simpson, III as King Thomas C. Carroll as Baker Big Walter Price as Preacher

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#64 Psychotronic Video#31 Psychotronic Video#33 TCM

Sugar Hill (1974) Retrospective SUMMARY The story centers on Diana "Sugar" Hill (Bey), a photographer in Houston whose boyfriend, nightclub owner Langston (Larry D.

[qqueenofhades]

The Rose and Thorn: Chapter II

summary:  Sequel to The Dark Horizon. The New World, 1740: Killian and Emma Jones have lived in peace with their family for many years, their pirate past long behind them. But with English wars, Spanish plots, rumors of a second Jacobite rising, and the secret of the lost treasure of Skeleton Island, they and their son and daughter are in for a dangerous new adventure. OUAT/Black Sails. rating: M status: WIP available: FF.net and AO3 previous: chapter I

Sam awoke to the strong smell of brine and fish, the sound of a loud argument in what he thought might be Portuguese, and a dog licking his face, which made him curse and push it away. He understood the principle of having a cat on board ship; they kept the rats down, tended to themselves, and stayed out of the crew’s way, but a dog must eat as much as a sailor while doing none of the work (what did it do, bark at dolphins?) This seemed a seriously questionable decision on the part of his current vessel, but as the theme of his adventures to date appeared to be shaping up,  he had not been left with a great deal of choice. He had approached one of the tender boats on the beach, thinking that he could pay for it to take him out to one of the Navy frigates in the harbor. He had reckoned without the – in hindsight, blindingly and idiotically obvious – fact that all the small craft ashore were Spanish, and had absolutely no interest in transporting this pair of gormless English striplings anywhere. So in sum, to start off Sam’s vital interception mission on which the very future of the war might hang, he had strolled up and volunteered himself to be abducted. Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful. If Nathaniel –

At that, Sam’s eyes flew open, even as his skull was still aching from the smart blow that one of the Portuguese pricks had administered to the back of it. Trying to avoid moving too fast, he glanced around cautiously, forced to console himself with the fact that at least Nathaniel had not thought of this beforehand either – fine pair of secret agents they made, the both of them. As it happened, the dog was now licking Nathaniel instead, slumped against a coil of rope across the way, and after a few more moments of the mangy mutt’s devoted attentions, his eyelids fluttered. He groaned, opened them, stared at Sam with the maximum amount of umbrage it was possible to convey in a facial expression, started to say something, then bit his tongue.

Having reassured himself that he had not – yet – gotten his friend killed, Sam edged slowly toward the sound of the argument from above. The one possibility he could see was that he was increasingly certain that they were indeed Portuguese, and not Spanish. While somewhat of an afterthought in the scheme of things, not quite to the class of the heavyweights England, Spain, and France, Portugal did hold the vast colony of Brazil and other possessions in the Indies and the Main, and while they more or less cooperated and allied with Spain in doing this, their allegiance to Madrid would not be guaranteed. That, now that Sam thought about it, was likely the cause for the argument. Half of the crew must want to hand them over to the guardas costas right now, and pocket a nice reward for their trouble. The other half (well, hopefully it was at least a half) must favor keeping them around, seeing if there was some further use to them, maybe even make Spain pay handsomely for the service of returning them.

It occurred to Sam that if so, he could possibly still salvage this. Convince them that he was important enough to be taken to Havana directly, as that was, after all, where he was trying to go. It might be harder if none of them spoke English, and how exactly Sam would pull this off without actually dying remained a sticking point, but that was a problem for later. As long as he was right about all this speculation as to their disagreement. If they were just squabbling about whether to drown them or shoot them, that, well, that lengthened the odds a bit.

At that, Sam pawed at his jacket, and discovered to his astonishment that the sack of money was still there. Evidently their captors had not even bothered to search them before knocking them over the head, confiscating their weapons, and tossing them in this fish-smelling predicament, and that was a morbidly hopeful idea. It might mean that the kidnappers were as thoroughly amateur as the kidnapped, and while they would still have the money if they wanted it – Sam could obviously not stop a dozen brawny sorts from helping themselves – its presence might at least convince them that there was more where that came from, or that he was rich enough to fetch a good ransom. And while Sam did not speak Portuguese, he could just barely scrape along in Spanish, and they would have at least one man who knew that. He was feeling more hopeful than he had five minutes ago, despite still being summarily abducted and held belowdecks of an enemy vessel with a superfluous dog and a deeply unimpressed friend. Now they were getting somewhere.

Just then, the ladder creaked, and with a look at Nathaniel imploring him to trust him despite all good reason to the contrary, Sam sat up straighter. The next instant, several pairs of feet descended into the dimness – this was a small ketch, with only one deck below the main and a crammed hold intended for a few hammocks and stowing cargo. As their owners came into sight, half a dozen bearded faces regarded the boys with deep suspicion. They seemed surprised that they had come to (perhaps they hadn’t hit them hard enough) and one of them called sharply to the dog, which sat where it was and whined. Sam felt a brief and unexpected affection for the fleabag, and when the silence turned excruciating, shrugged and took it upon himself to get on with whatever was about to happen. “Hola,” he said, in a friendly voice. “Me llamo Samuel.”

There were snorts and a few startled looks, but nobody clocked him a new one, so Sam took that as a good sign. “Mi amigo, Nathaniel. Estamos – ah, what’s the fucking word – deserters. Wait – somos? Somos desertores. From del campamento Inglés. Yo tengo – inteligencia? Inteligencia importante. For el gobernador. En Cuba. Havana.”

He held his breath, hoping that this was not the most obvious of all ploys in the history of attempted neck-saving, though this lot did not look like candidates for the famed All Souls exam in Oxford (which Sam had briefly aspired to, before realizing that it would involve far more of the Latin master than anyone needed in their life). When there was still no answer, he stoutly plowed on. “Havana. Necessito to go to Havana. Dinero. Tengo mucho – muchas? – dinero.”

As he had hoped, that got their attention immediately. He pulled out the money sack, wincing at the possibility of losing it less than forty-eight hours into the venture, but if it got them to Havana, it would be a very wise investment. Glances were exchanged among the crew, someone stepped forward and yanked it out of his hand, and there was a murmur as they opened it, saw it was real silver – and then remembered one small fact, stopped, and scowled heavily. It was of course English currency, and that would do them no good in any of their usual ports of call, as they couldn’t spend it and they couldn’t trade it without someone getting suspicious as to where they had come by so much of it. The man who had taken the bag, coming to this conclusion, flung it on the boards with a curse, sending coins rolling in every direction, and started toward Sam with what absolutely sounded like the Portuguese version of “Get him, lads!” In that moment, Sam could only think of one thing, despite its high likelihood of backfiring in any number of spectacular ways. No time for another.

“FLINT!” he yelled. “Mi abuelo. Capitán Flint!”

That, at last, caught them short in a way that not even the money had done. Everyone across the Caribbean, regardless of nationality, knew who Flint was – and more importantly, what he had left behind. Half the £87,000, or 120,000 pieces of eight, that Charles Vane and Henry Jennings had stolen from the Spanish salvage camp in 1715 had been lost with the wreck of the Walrus, Flint’s ship, on the fabled pirate hideout of Skeleton Island, and he had also buried another chest somewhere ashore. (The other half, aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, had been dispersed and spent in various avenues long ago.) Rumors had long swirled about the feasibility of retrieving such a legendary stash, whether it had actually sunk or might be trapped in the ship’s decaying hulk, but had been hindered by the fact that nobody knew where Skeleton Island actually was. The remaining charts had been lost with the Walrus, if Flint remembered the exact bearings he wasn’t saying, and besides, everyone believed that he was dead. The Spanish had never stopped brooding on the insult and their desire to recoup their lost loot, and the tale of the treasure had taken on a life of its own. If Sam could possibly lead anyone to it, the Portuguese could either charge a huge price to hand him over, or take advantage of it themselves. Win-bloody-win.

There was a very long silence. Then the one who looked like the mate said, in heavily accented English, “Captain Flint – dead.”

“Aye, he is.” Sam wasn’t so desperate to save his own neck as to sell out his grandfather, but now that he’d made the ploy, he couldn’t back down. “But I told you I have intelligence for Havana, didn’t I? You want to risk telling Güemes that you had the way to reclaim the lost treasure in your hands, and let me slip through?”

The mate squinted at him, not understanding all of this, so Sam sighed deeply and was once more obligated to patch it into his terrible Spanish. The gist of it, however, was that Don Juan Francisco de Güemes y Horcasitas, Count of Revillagigedo, the captain-general of Cuba and governor of Havana, would be extremely displeased if they did not bring Sam to him straightaway, and if that lost treasure was recovered, surely there would be a generous cut of it for them. Or if they wanted, they could just die poor and stupid. No skin off his back.

There was much frowning, more muttering, and a few dangerous looks at Sam, but the end result was that someone was finally dispatched to fetch the captain. He spoke better English, and introduced himself as João da Souza, a bearded man with a somewhat misleadingly genial air; he might slap your back and drink with you, but was clearly not about to brook any challenges to his command or actually consider you a friend. Sam had gotten adept at quickly reading people, and when da Souza pressed for details, merely repeated his earlier insistence that Flint was his grandfather and this was an unmissable business opportunity. Surely this couldn’t be a terribly profitable job, slaving on this rinkidink tender boat to sell to the Spaniards at ridiculously undercut prices. Money. Just think of it. Lots and lots of money.

Da Souza clearly wanted to believe him, for obvious reasons, but not without proof. “How do I know,” he asked at last, “that Flint is your grandfather? You are a very bad pirate.”

Sam winced. “I’m a wonderful pirate, actually. If you give me a chance.”

“Yes?” Da Souza tossed a complicated twist of rope at him. “What is that?”

“That is. . .” Sam considered the object in question with all the accumulated wisdom of his family’s legendary seafaring exploits and specialized knowledge of the most arcane difficulties in the owning and operation of sailing ships. “That is definitely a knot.”

Someone snorted audibly. “You cannot be of his line.”

“My mother’s his adopted daughter,” Sam said defensively. “Him and his wife. They’re – were – my grandparents. So – “

Da Souza’s eyes sharpened, and Sam struggled not to let his expression change. He was fairly sure the captain had caught that brief slippage into present tense, the hint that his grandfather might not be quite as dead as he was trying to insist. It was thus less than entirely reassuring when the captain smiled. “Havana. Yes. Güemes, we will take you to him.”

“Er, thanks.” Belatedly, Sam supposed that his gaffe in fact might not have been the worst thing in the world – sailing in aboard a Royal Navy ship would have put all of Cuba on alert and made it impossible for him to conduct his search for Montiano’s agent in private, if he wasn’t arrested the moment he set foot ashore. Arriving anonymously aboard a humble Portuguese supply tender would attract no notice whatsoever, and if da Souza had been safely assured of mythical riches, he might even go to the bother of actively trying to keep Sam alive long enough to reach the governor. And if Sam could find out what exactly the intelligence was – Oglethorpe had not told him that, after all, just that he needed to intercept it – he could decide what to do with it, stopping it or otherwise. It was somewhat of a surprise to hear himself thinking so calculatingly about this, actively planning where it might most benefit, but. . . prior evidence all aside, he wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew this was dangerous. He had to keep his eyes open.

Sam and da Souza spat in their palms and shook hands on their agreement, Nathaniel let out a sagging breath of relief (he had certainly seen Sam talk them out of tight corners before, but that might have been the tightest) and Sam was given to wonder if, now that they were such mates, the crew might be induced to feed them. He had been constantly hungry since he left home, as subsisting on less-than-robust army rations was about the worst privation in the world for a nineteen-year-old boy (as he, like the rest of his ilk, could eat his parents out of house and home while remaining the exact dimensions of a beanpole). Asking this question finally landed him and Nathaniel with some hardtack and a weazened orange apiece. Evidently, while they may certainly die in the course of this, it would not be from scurvy. Dad would approve.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Nathaniel muttered, as they gnawed the peelings off. The crew had gone back to the deck to make ready to sail, and they could feel the ship starting to gain speed beneath them. “Next time, maybe we don’t get knocked out first?”

“Aye, maybe.” Sam chewed experimentally on the hardtack, hoping that there would not be a surprise weevil experience (that had happened to him when he was eight, which he supposed might be part of his dislike of sailing). He did not want to fall into all his successes in such an arse-backward fashion, but it was still preferable to failure. “It worked, though, didn’t it?”

“That was luck,” Nathaniel pointed out, cruelly but accurately. “Besides, I don’t trust da Souza. He’ll try to coax you to tell him the bearings to Skeleton Island before we ever get to Havana, then chuck us overboard if you can’t tell him. And I know you don’t know those.”

“Keep your voice down, will you?” Sam looked around edgily. He didn’t know who else on the crew spoke any English, and did not want to risk them finding out. He was also aware that this bluff only ran any chance of success if da Souza actually had an interest in bringing them to Cuba and assisting the Spanish war effort, as otherwise, he could indeed just throw the boys into the ocean without anyone ever knowing they had been there. He wouldn’t as long as the riches were on the table, but as soon as they weren’t, well. . .

There was, however, not exactly much either of them could do at the moment, and they settled uneasily by the bulkhead, heads still aching, as the tender boat made it further out to sea. Sam risked a peek through the anchor eyelet, clambering through the heaps of rope and sacks in the bow, to see that they were almost out of sight of land, as da Souza must have known a back route out of the harbor away from the Royal Navy blockade – probably the same one they had used to smuggle supplies through to St. Augustine in the first place. It wasn’t that long of a trip to Havana if the wind cooperated. He wasn’t going to have a lot of bloody time to come up with a plan, and the Spanish agent could be well ahead of him anyway. If so. . .

And yet, despite the admittedly uneven start to his venture, and the very real risks that remained to his family if he failed, Sam couldn’t help but enjoy himself, more than a little. Sure, he’d probably die, but he was young enough to feel immortal, invincible, and this would be enough of a ripping good yarn that he’d never have to sit tongue-tied at another family dinner while the rest of them swapped tall tales and sailing stories. He was deeply proud of being Killian Jones and Emma Swan’s son, James Flint and Miranda Barlow’s grandson, Sam Bellamy’s godson, and even Geneva Jones’ brother (though he was sure he couldn’t actually tell her that). He knew they loved him regardless, but he did not want to be the hatchmark, the asterisk, on the list of pirate legends – the runt of the litter, the black sheep. He wanted to be enough.

After a moment, Sam blew out a breath and turned away. He was still hungry, though he didn’t think any more food would be forthcoming, and besides, he had to see if he could scrounge up any of his coins from where they had rolled into dark corners. Da Souza and his crew might not be impressed with English money, but Don Juan Francisco de Güemes might, and Sam had plenty of uses for it otherwise. He was tired, but he wasn’t sure he’d sleep. He needed to think.

No comments on how well that has gone before. Sam muttered a brief prayer to Saint Jude, just because it couldn’t hurt, and went off to get started.

--------------------

At least from the harbor, Nassau Town, New Providence Island did not look like the formidable stronghold of hostis humani generis, enemies of all mankind, as the laws and tracts of all the colonial empires had – unsurprisingly – declared the pirates’ republic at the height of its influence. There were no ships flying the black flag, no roving gangs of wastrels, and, perhaps most disappointingly, no piles of treasure lying around on the beach. One John Tinker had been named the new governor in 1738, but due to the demands of the war and his concerns elsewhere, he had not yet bothered to take up residence, and nobody appeared to be missing him very much. Indeed it looked, exactly as promised, quite normal, an ordinary hub of lawful commerce. The fort on the headland remained only half-rebuilt, as Robert Gold had destroyed its predecessor during the last battle, and the Union Jack was flapping merrily overhead, which surely would have disgusted Geneva’s relations if they were present to observe. Indeed, while she hadn’t expected to arrive in some preserved bit of pirate Utopia, with rum and brawling and salty wenches and whatever else they liked, it was somewhat of a letdown. Like going to find a prince, and meeting an accountant.

Still, she did not intend to let an underwhelming first impression deter her from a closer acquaintance. She turned away, ordered her crew to put down anchor, and prepared to go ashore. It had been an uneventful voyage from Savannah, though she had veered well out to sea to avoid Spanish ships around Florida, and the mercury was holding steady, though that could never be trusted for long in the dog days of summer.

“It looks quite. . . benign,” her great-uncle said. “I suppose I had rather a different idea of it.”

Geneva had to laugh. “Aye, I was just thinking the same. Though I’m sure there is more to it than meets the eye. We might end up wishing it was as boring as it seemed.”

With that, she helped Thomas down into the boat, along with a few of her crew members, and took one of the sets of oars, pulling them toward the quays. No sooner had they bumped against the boards and disembarked, however, when a small and obnoxious individual in an excessively powdered peruke wig rushed up and thrust a ledger under Thomas’ nose, clearly taking him for the master of the arriving vessel. “Berthing fee is a shilling,” he announced. “There is the docking register and the cargo tariff to settle as well, sir, so if you would step to my office – ”

“I’m not the captain.” Thomas looked as if he was trying very hard not to laugh. “That would be my niece here.”

“You?” The man goggled at Geneva with irritating, if not unexpected, skepticism. “Are you – managing it in your father’s stead or something of the sort, miss?”

“No,” Geneva said. “I’m Captain Geneva Jones and that’s the Rose, my own ship. As for your ludicrous charges, it seems as if pirates of one bloody sort have just been exchanged for another, doesn’t it? Good to know Nassau is still a den of bald-faced thieves.”

“We are not thieves.” The port factor inflated territorially. “We charge the dues and customs as appointed by the merchant guilds and trading boards of His Majesty’s West Indian territories. Entirely lawful, I do assure you. So if you – ”

Geneva couldn’t help but flinching at the mention of New Providence being firmly back under British stewardship, no matter how peaceably it had worked out. She hadn’t expected it to affect her, since it was a fight she had never been part of except for the briefest imaginable time as a very newborn infant, but it still landed in some uncomfortable ancestral heart of her. Thomas – whose own experience of English law had been far from benevolent, even if not that of the open piracy and rebellion of his spouses – had an odd look on his face as well. Exiled to a work camp in the Colonies after his confinement in an asylum, announced to the world that he was dead, disinherited and bereft of his family name, title, and home and everything he had ever worked for in a respectable career as a peer of the House of Lords and the promising scion of a well-established family. He might be happily reunited with James and Miranda these days, and all of them had struggled to finally put the past to rest, but the wounds remained.

Still, however, Geneva – while she might have her grandfather’s advice in mind about getting into at least one fight while she was here – did not see it necessary to start off by assaulting the port factor and being shut promptly into jail. So she went to his office, paid the charges, signed the docking register, and returned to where Thomas was waiting for her in the shade. “Well,” she said, with an annoyed huff. “Being hit up for English taxes the instant we land? I suppose Nassau has changed after all.”

“Indeed.” Thomas’ cheek twitched again, but he offered her his arm, which Geneva took, and they started up toward the streets, her crew having hastened ahead in apparent eagerness to see if everything was civilized these days, or the legendary houses of booze, bawd, and bad decisions still remained for public inspection. She’d box their ears if they gambled away all their wages, or got themselves into an entanglement from which she would be obliged to extricate them. She could not blame them for curiosity, as it was after all a considerable part of the reason she herself had come here, but still.

“You’re very like him,” Thomas said unexpectedly, as Geneva pulled her skirts up with her free hand to avoid the muck – she captained a ship and managed her own trading business and took advantage of numerous other pursuits normally accorded to firstborn sons, but she still liked to wear dresses and to do her hair fashionably and to buy jewelry and trim her sleeves with lace. “Your grandfather, that is. And your grandmother. I see so much of both James and Miranda in you. I know you’re not theirs by blood, but it is easy to forget.”

“It’s never been any different for us, you know.” Geneva glanced at him sidelong. “I didn’t meet them – and you – until I was eight, but Mother and Daddy always told us about you. It didn’t feel like meeting strangers when I saw you at last. Just like family who had been away for a long time and finally came back.”

“I remember.” Thomas laughed, even as the half-sweet, half-painful shadow of memory crossed his face: the first time that Killian and Emma had seen Miranda and Flint in years, since losing them in Charlestown and Skeleton Island, respectively, and believing them dead. The introduction of them both to Thomas, and Flint and Miranda meeting all their grandchildren for the first time, as Henry, Geneva, and Sam had been fully willing to accept this in their stride and not sure why the adults were in tears. Geneva’s own recollection was of being relieved that the pirate they had hanged in the Savannah square was not actually her grandfather, hugging her grandmother for the first time as Miranda shook and shook, and being distracted with biscuits and put to bed while the adults sat up all night on the veranda. The Swan-Joneses had moved from Boston the next year, when Henry had taken his degree from Harvard, to be closer to them, to let Geneva and Sam grow up with the rest of their family, not wanting to miss any more time, and she remained deeply grateful for it.

They reached the top of the steep, cobbled street, lined with swinging signs and painted storefronts, food stands and scriveners, taverns and trading posts and other familiar features of an ordinary market town. If it was somewhat more grimy in places, it was usually down a back alley, and nobody was resorting to fisticuffs (at least not in the open). Palm trees shaded the handsomely colonnaded plaza before the governor’s mansion, which in the absence of the actual governor being in residence was evidently used as the city hall anyway, and the rich golden light slanted as thick as honey on canvas awnings and red-shingled roofs. It was. . . pretty, with a sense of being well lived in, comfortable as an old shawl or a favorite dress. Not wild, not anymore. Whether or not that had been vital to its character before, and this could only be a pale and cheap copy, Geneva could not say. Still, though. She liked it.

They went up the broad marble steps of the mansion, enquired after the whereabouts of Charles Swan, and were sent to a nearby half-timbered townhouse with a brass plaque on the door. They rang the bell, were shown in by a servant, and in a few more minutes, Geneva’s uncle – fair and blonde and retaining some of his old good looks, though his hairline had receded and his waistline had expanded – was effusively greeting them. “I had no idea you were coming to Nassau, you should have written! I don’t suppose your mum and dad. . .?”

“No, just me and Uncle Thomas.” Geneva gestured to him, as the men shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. “We weren’t intending to be here long, a fortnight or so, and we won’t impose if you – ”

“Nonsense,” Charles said heartily. “There’s plenty of room, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. None of you have ever visited me before, I should mark the occasion. Indeed, business is booming, and if you’re at all interested in remaining longer, my dear, I’m currently in the market for a new ship and captain. War always tends to be good for our bottom line, so there’s that – although there’s no guaranteeing the bloody Spanish wouldn’t ransack you. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t fancy explaining that to my sister, but the offer stands.”

“Ah – thank you, but I think I’m sorted.” With that, Geneva was induced to be shown upstairs by the maid, taking one room at the end of the hall as Thomas took another, and once she had washed and freshened up from the voyage, returned downstairs to the sitting room to visit. She, Thomas, and Charles passed a pleasant afternoon drinking tea and chatting and catching up with the news, and as dusk began to fall, Charles announced that he’d take them to his favorite supper club. No better way to really meet the locals.

Geneva, who had begun to suspect that her uncle was trying to butter her up to join the family business regardless of whatever she had politely refused earlier, agreed, rather amusedly, and fetched her hat and gloves. The evening was still very warm as they stepped out, the shadows ink-black among the waving palms and the sun a spill of claret wine in the west. Crickets shirred in the distance, torches and lanterns lit among the narrow wynds, and she and Thomas followed Charles to an appealing establishment on the harbor side of the city, where they opened the door and entered a lowlit, busy common room. Charles was evidently a regular, as he was greeted by name and seated promptly, and as they were waiting for their meal, Geneva was left to conclude that the whole thing had thus far been like a pleasant holiday. She was quite sure it had not been like this when her parents and grandparents had lived here, and briefly wondered if this could be considered any sort of authentic experience. Unless she was going to just –

“Mr. Swan?”

The table looked up with a start to see a man who seemed faintly, intangibly familiar, though for the life of her, Geneva could not have said why. He was sunburned and rough-weathered, with long black hair streaked with grey, a scraggly beard, an embroidered jacket, and – most noteworthy – a missing leg, though he wore a leather and iron replacement that allowed him to stump along with a crutch, which he laid against the table. His face was outwardly friendly, but his blue eyes were cool and shrewd, the face of a man who held the cards and shuffled the deck as he pleased. Spotting the empty chair next to Thomas, he took it without asking for permission, and smiled, once again in a friendly fashion, but with a clear sense that he was not about to be sent away without an answer. “Good evening. I regret having to interrupt you with company.”

“I.” Charles looked rather like a schoolchild who had stood up to recite before the class and forgotten his lines. “Mr. Silver. Good evening to you too.”

At that, Thomas twitched slightly, a reaction which the newcomer – clearly not a man who missed much – caught out of the corner of his eye. He turned to them. “Friends of Charles?”

“Family. This is his niece, Geneva, and I’m her great-uncle, Thomas.”

Likewise, a very strange expression crossed the man’s – Mr. Silver’s, as it evidently was – face. Something shock and curiosity and wonder and vindication and suspicion and fascination all at once, like the unearthing of a mysterious skeleton or fabled treasure from the ground where it had lain in secret for years, and was only now coming to life again. “Correct me if I presume,” he said slowly. “But you wouldn’t be – you could not possibly be – Thomas Hamilton?”

“Do you know me, sir?” Thomas was startled and wary, as any sudden arrivals with apparent familiarity of his past were far from reassuring. “Have we met – ?”

“We have not. You are him, then?”

“I am. Can I be of service?” The words were polite, but the tone was cool.

Silver did not answer immediately, continuing to regard him with an interest so intent as to nearly be rude. He realized it and glanced away, but could not help but looking back, as if Thomas was a museum exhibit or rare curio on which he intended to compose a lengthy treatise. At last he said, “I was well acquainted with a particular friend of yours, in the past. If he’s still alive – if you’ve crossed paths again – then I don’t suppose he’s mentioned me?”

“You’re – ” Just then it clicked, for Thomas at least, even as Geneva and Charles remained utterly baffled. “You’re him. John Silver, Long John Silver?”

“I’ve been called that in the past, yes. Even at times in the present.” Silver shrugged. “Well, then. This is – I scarcely know if serendipitous is enough of a word. And a great-niece?” He glanced back at Geneva. “No, wait. You’re theirs, aren’t you. Hook and Swan’s daughter?”

“Killian and Emma Jones are my parents, yes.” It was an unsettling feeling to be sitting across from someone who clearly knew far more about you than you did about them, and who might put that information to work in any number of ways. Geneva thought she might recall her grandfather mentioning someone named Silver, but he never said much about his old life, not to her and Henry and Sam. Kept it locked away, the old and wrathful mantle of Flint that he could never shed entirely, but which he had grown to master to the point that he could leave it where it lay, and just be James McGraw to his family. “You – you must have served on my grandfather’s crew. On the Walrus.”

“Your grandfather?” That seemed to intrigue Silver nearly as much as Thomas. “Captain Flint bouncing fat babies on his knee, letting them pull his beard and feeding them bonbons? I can’t see it.”

“Is it your concern?” Geneva did not feel obliged to disclose her personal history to this man, somehow both old friend and unsettling stranger, and she rather wished he would be on his way. “Do you go around bothering all the relatives of old business partners at supper, or just us?”

“Business partners?” Silver seemed amused. “That’s one word for it. I was his quartermaster, yes, so I suppose it is not entirely inaccurate. But as it happened, I was looking for your uncle. Charles, I have a venture, and I need a ship.”

“Most of my ships are abroad.” Charles fidgeted. “Indeed, all of them. I am grateful for your assistance in the past, of course, but I don’t think I can – ”

“More than assistance, wasn’t it? I daresay the Nolan enterprise on Nassau would never have gotten off the ground if Madi and I had not extensively facilitated it. There were also repeated loans on favorable terms of repayment, when your own difficulties cut into the profit margins, and introduction to those men who knew more about the Indies and the Caribbean and the general merchant business than you did. You have done well with sustaining the momentum once it was begun, certainly, but starting it? No.”

Charles, who had been about to take a sip of wine, choked and put it down, as Geneva glanced accusingly at her uncle. She was not about to say that he was openly trying to take advantage of her unexpected arrival, but this did explain quite a bit about both the warmth of his reaction and his determination to get her to stay, if Silver was holding him over a barrel for some favor that he either had to offer up, or watch his life become very difficult as a result. Thomas seemed to have come to the same conclusion, though his expression was very wry. “Well,” he said. “You are just as James described you.”

“Ah, so the two of you have been reunited. That is. . . touching.”

“I don’t believe you have a sentimental bone in your body, Mr. Silver.”

Silver smiled again, but with less humor. “We will have to agree to disagree about that, then. But given the arrival of you and your niece, surely there must be at least one ship at hand?”

“Aye,” Charles said uncomfortably. “Hers, the Rose, but – ”

“The Rose?” Silver looked as if he could barely believe his luck. “The ship which began her life as a Royal Navy sixth-rater, formerly under the command of Woodes Rogers himself, which – thanks to my own and extensive efforts – was captured and placed under the pirate flag on Skeleton Island? Which your mother then took over as captain, Miss Jones, and seems to have passed along to you? To speak of fortunate and fitting turns of fate, seeing as you owe ultimate possession of that ship to me, and given this venture’s own association with the place where that happened, that is as close as a clear-cut sign from heaven as any of us can ever believe in.”

“What venture?” Charles demanded, agitated. “What are you talking about?”

“The reason Rogers found us on Skeleton Island,” Silver said, “was because of the betrayal of another of our crewmates. Billy Bones went to Rogers and gave us up, in exchange for them both pursuing their mutual vendetta against Flint. So far as everyone knew, Flint killed Billy in their last fight there. But it has come to my attention that, rather like Flint himself, perhaps that death was not so final after all. That Bones is still alive, has emerged from whatever obscurity he has lurked in for the past twenty-five years, and may have taken ship to England to provide the coordinates and intelligence to reach Skeleton Island, and the Spanish treasure that remains lost there. Such an action would, needless to say, sharply swing the entire balance of the war, and to who knows what end. Do you follow?”

Geneva, Thomas, and Charles opened and shut their mouths in unison like a trio of goldfish, while Silver seemed gratified by the effect, but not enough to rest on his laurels. Geneva herself knew that Billy Bones had been a friend of her mother’s, at least before his betrayal of the pirates to the English crown, but everyone had likewise considered him to be dead, the loser of his final face-off with Flint, fallen into the water and drowned or stabbed or shot. Finally she said, “Why would Bones give up the location of Skeleton Island to the English now, even if he did survive? Whatever old quarrel he had with any of you, with my grandfather, it was years ago. Why just emerge from hiding and rekindle the feud? What would he have to gain from it?”

“Why, indeed?” Silver looked pleased. “Billy was – is – an utterly stubborn, blockheaded, self-righteous blonde bastard, but he wasn’t stupid. Nor was he overly burdened with a sense of loyalty to England. He was kidnapped by the press-gangs as a child, as he was out selling pamphlets for his parents – political activists, printers, the exact sort of thing that His Majesty does not want upsetting the apple-cart among his subjects. So if he is offering intelligence on Skeleton Island to the English authorities, he wants something in return for it. And since you’ve just confirmed that Flint is still alive, living out his days in happy retirement with his loved ones and family, perhaps that explains quite a large part of his motivation.”

“My grandfather has no interest in returning to the pirate life,” Geneva said, feeling slightly panicky. “Even if Bones learned that he was alive, he wouldn’t decide to just – ”

“Would he?” Silver sounded wry, almost sad. “Billy and I were also friends, once upon a time. Allied together to protect the crew, and our own interests, from the worst of Flint’s madness. But that, like much else, came to an end long ago. If he’s lived this time as a penniless mendicant, exiled and disgraced by pirate and English alike, taking work on this ship or that one, suffering, dwindling to nothing – can you really not think that learning this would make no difference? Suddenly, a quarter-century since his life was ruined, the man who ruined it has risen from the grave. He is in reach, a tangible flesh-and-blood entity to strangle with one’s own hands, a final and damning victory when Flint would altogether not see it coming, or have any reason to expect another attack, especially on this front. To make his joy turn to ashes in his mouth. That is the sort of prospect to give a man a new life, a possession of a cause, one last worthwhile thing to do before he dies. So aye. If Bones knows your grandfather is alive, you’re all in danger.”

Thomas started to say something else, then stopped, frowning and troubled. “But he – ” he began at last. “James has been reported dead half a dozen times, at least. How would Bones have any idea that those were a fraud, and what was the truth?”

“Again, another question that one might consider it imperative to investigate.” Silver leaned back in his chair, picked up Charles’ wine goblet, and took a sip, raising an eyebrow at Geneva. “But  of course, your uncle cannot spare a ship?”

Charles winced, looking at her with a guilty expression. It was reasonably clear that he was hoping for her to volunteer the Rose, rather than suffer the awkwardness of being strong-armed into doing it for her. She was aware that her family had come into possession of a Navy frigate by thievery, though not that Silver thought he was entitled to all the credit for it – yet she had no way to say that, born liar as he might be, he was fibbing about that. Thomas was not disagreeing, at any rate, which meant that whatever James had said to him about his old quartermaster and uncertain ally and ultimate friend and enemy alike, it must correspond at least roughly to this. The silence was excruciating. Then, gritting her teeth, Geneva said, “Well. I have a ship.”

“You do? Wonderful news.” Silver glanced at her with such nonchalance that it was almost impressive, despite the shameless operation of this entire little manipulation. “Available for our use, perhaps, if I was to find us a crew?”

Geneva glanced at her uncles for help, though she wasn’t sure how much to expect from either of them. Charles was clearly allowing this to happen if he wanted to stay in business, and Thomas wouldn’t argue against investigating this mystery, if there was a deranged and vengeful ex-nemesis of Flint’s out there who very much intended to see to his unfinished business. Finally she said, “We’re not provisioned for a crossing to England, we’d – ”

“That would be attended to.” Silver finished off Charles’ wine and put the cup down.

“So you want to stop Billy, do you?” Thomas looked as if he had been too well warned about Silver’s true nature to accept this explanation at face value. “That is what you’d have us believe? To prevent him from reaching Westminster with this kind of information – why?”

“I don’t believe that was the issue under discussion.” Silver’s tone remained polite, but his eyes were as guarded as castle walls. “The benefits for your family are obvious. I suppose your niece would have no objection to bringing you along. You are, after all, intimately and unfortunately familiar with the operation of English politics. You might have an old connection or two in Parliament you could approach – discreetly, naturally. It would be quite embarrassing for them to receive the disgraced and twice-dead Thomas Hamilton, banished first to Bethlem Royal Hospital and then some work plantation in the Americas, in public.”

Thomas’s fist clenched on the table, even as he fought for the poise of a lifetime diplomat and nobleman who knew he was being baited and had to resist the urge to take it. After a moment, he managed a gracious, if strained, smile and nod. “Yes. Of course.”

“Splendid. I’ll call at the house tomorrow to discuss arrangements.” Silver wiped his mouth and stood up. “So if that’s all, I’ll be – ”

“What does Mrs. Silver think of this?” Charles seemed to have taken himself aback by this interjection, but could not retreat once it had been made. “She is in accord, of course?”

Silver’s smile this time was the frostiest of all. “As we have never been married in the eyes of English law,” he said, “she is still customarily known as Madi Scott. As for her sentiments, I am afraid I would not know. Good evening, Miss Jones, Mr. Swan, Mr. Hamilton.”

With that, he took up the crutch from where it rested, tucked it under his arm, and made his determined way through the tavern crowds and out the door, leaving Geneva and her uncles in a state of mild shock. At last, she turned to the former of these in considerable outrage. “Why didn’t you tell me that this was why you were so pleased to see me?”

“I. . .” Charles trailed off under her stare. “To be fair, I had no way of knowing what exactly he was proposing. This was the first I heard the details as much as you. And, erm, if you and your great-uncle could see your way to doing it, I’d be very grateful. I would write to your parents, of course, mention that it was only a small errand and I would reimburse you for all reasonable expenses. I. . . really do not have any other candidates, and Mr. Silver has been helpful in the past, and it, well, it does sound rather serious. If you might. . .?”

Geneva chewed this over. She did not particularly want to say yes, but she was also not sure it was wise to say no, and if this did have to do with Bones and some revived revenge plot against her grandfather and by extension her family, it was best that she get to the bottom of it. She had wanted to make a trip abroad, after all. Might be able to fit in a side excursion to Paris to see her uncle Liam and aunt Regina, though she had meant to bring her parents along on that one. But as it would take more time to make another trip to Savannah and back, and as time was plainly one thing Silver did not want to waste, it did not look likely that she could pop by to pick them up. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, not that she needed her parents’ permission to sail as she pleased. She was a grown woman, and the Rose’s rightful captain. It was her call.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll do it. But you owe me really bloody marvelous Christmas presents for at least the next ten years.”

“Ten?” The relief that spread across Charles’ face was palpable. “My dear, I would say twenty.”

------------------

Killian and Emma did not say much on the way back from the harbor. They had to drive James and Miranda home first, and as they pulled up and Flint climbed out of the buggy, thus to offer his hand to Miranda with somewhat stiff courtesy, they all knew him well enough to see that he was ruffled. Not necessarily at any of them, but Nassau was quite clearly a sensitive subject, and one which he could not help feeling haunted by. As Miranda took his hand and stepped down, she said, “Are you going to tell us what is troubling you, my dear, or wait for me to draw it out?”

“I still don’t know if it was wise to let them go alone.” Flint glanced at Killian and Emma, as if to say that surely they must have an opinion on letting their only begotten daughter walk into a nest of vipers without due and extensive preparation. “Who knows what scum is lurking around there, waiting for an opportune moment? Thomas doesn’t know the place like you and I did. If he or Jenny get themselves into a situation they can’t escape – ”

“They are both very clever people, and doubtless will endeavor all they can to remedy it.” Miranda squeezed his hand comfortingly. “If you really thought it was so dangerous, you could have said otherwise, or – ”

“I couldn’t have gone, we both know that.” Flint was still vigorous enough that he rarely looked his age, but just now, the weight of nearly seventy hard-battled years had settled on his shoulders. “And I didn’t want to leave you alone. It’s not that I think Thomas and Jenny can’t handle themselves, but we all know what that place made us, and how. It’s . . . easier to bear it yourself, than to watch.”

“Aye,” Emma said quietly. “Sam said something much the same to me once.”

There was a communal heavy silence, as all of them knew that she was not referring to their son and grandson, but to their late – well, there was never any easy word or way to define what Samuel Bellamy was to them, even in the comparatively brief time he had been in their lives. Sometimes Emma thought she had only ever loved Killian more, and the notion that they were now going on twenty-five years without him was an almost unbearable crime. Sometimes Sam seemed half a dream they had all had together, and still lingered at the edges of waking, never quite banished or sent to rest. Flint and Miranda could not regret having Thomas back, but she knew that sometimes they wondered if it would have been so easy to choose, if Sam had lived. They had shared him with each other, and their grief with him, and his death, coming so soon after Miranda’s apparent loss in Charlestown, had been the final heartbreak to push Flint over the edge and into his desire to seek his own end and cessation and the drowning of his burdens in the sea. Even now, Killian, Emma, James, and Miranda were careful with Sam’s memory, the moments at which they conjured him, the times at which they did not. They could not fail to hear his name spoken every day to the boy who carried it on, but that was different. Sam Jones was his own self, not a shadow of his godfather, and they were all grateful. And yet.

“Well,” Miranda said briskly, rousing everyone from their reverie. “I doubt even Nassau can wreak too much mischief in a fortnight, now can it? And I rather suspect you enjoyed the opportunity to tell Jenny to embrace her pirate roots, James, even if you won’t admit it. Come, help me inside, and let Killian and Emma be on their way.”

Flint looked briefly as if he was about to respond to this, but waited as Emma leaned down to kiss her mother. “We’ll be in touch,” she said. “If Sam comes home soon, we’ll all be by for supper, how does that sound? I’m sure he has a great deal to tell us.”

“Aye,” Flint said cynically. “Best hope he’s not wearing a red coat when he does.”

Emma shot him a look, as while Flint was generally very fond of his younger grandson, he had not ceased to offer his disparaging opinions on the vastly ill-conceived decision to take part in an English war on any side except that of their enemies. “I just want to see him safe.”

“Of course.” Flint nodded to them both, then took Miranda’s arm and walked them up the path to the house. He let them in and shut the door, and Emma paused, shook herself, then took up the reins and wheeled the buggy around. They had a few things to pick up on the way back, so she’d best get there before the shopkeepers all went to lunch. It would also be good to have something to take her mind off Geneva and Sam alike. She was likewise confident in their ability to take care of themselves, but trouble, especially for a Swan-Jones child, was rarely too far away.

They drove back into downtown Savannah, as Emma parked the buggy at a hitching post and went into the grocer’s with her list, as Killian stepped down to enjoy the shade. She stood out among the flurry of sensibly mob-capped, plainly-skirted women jostling to the counter and vying to attract the attention of the grocer or his apprentice. For a lady of her status – not ridiculously wealthy, but between the portion of the Spanish treasure they had invested, the income from Nassau, Killian’s owned shares in several ships, and Geneva’s trading business, more than comfortably off – doing one’s own errands was clearly déclassé.

Once Emma had been apportioned her goods, Killian appeared to help lug them out to the buggy, causing another stir among the women – whether for a gentleman hauling heavy flour sacks, his missing hand, or his striking good looks even in his mid-fifties, it was hard to say. Emma had just returned inside to fetch her potatoes when she overheard the grocer arguing with a particularly persistent customer who wanted two parcels of sugarcane, not one. “Miss, there’s no telling if there’ll be sugar next week or not, not if the Spaniards come marching up from the south! I need to be sensible about what I’m buying and selling, if they – ”

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Emma leaned over. “Was there news about an invasion?”

The grocer squinted at her, but gave in, as Leroy Small could rarely resist the urge to do, to gossip. “Aye. The Spaniards, they might be here soon. Oglethorpe’s in full retreat, he’s even left his artillery behind, some said. Take my word on it, sister.”

Emma raised an eyebrow, as she did not want to be so pompous as to snobbily correct his assumption that she was another of the maidservants, but found it slightly irritating nonetheless. Especially as Small had been responsible for crying wolf several times in the past, she was not sure she entirely trusted a loud-mouthed purveyor of public hysteria, yet wanted to know just how bad the situation might be. “So he’s retreating with his army, then? Do you know when they left St. Augustine?”

“Week ago? That and a bit?” Small shrugged. “You have a son in the ranks, then?”

“Actually,” Emma said, “yes, I do.”

“Well. Hope he’s not dead, sister.” Evidently viewing this as a positive remark on which to close out the interaction, Small nodded chummily to her and went back to his argument about the sugar, while Emma rolled her eyes heavenward and hoisted the potato sack. She went out and put it with the others in the buggy, then got up with somewhat more emphasis than she intended. The confirmation about the retreat was grim, but at least Sam would be back soon. He was fine.

“Hey, love.” Killian put his hand on hers. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, just something he – Small – said.” Emma forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

Killian’s lips went thin, as he and the grocer had not been on the most spectacular of terms since Leroy had interrupted a romantic supper Killian and Emma were having on the waterfront for their twentieth wedding anniversary by shouting that the market was on fire (the market had not been on fire). “That short noisy bastard? I’ll sort him if you like, Swan.”

“No, no, nothing like that. He said Oglethorpe’s all but running out of Florida with his tail between his legs, and the Spaniards could be hot on the trail after him. You know him, it could be entirely hot air, but – ”

“You’re worried about Sam, and us if the Spanish get here,” Killian completed, reading her thoughts as usual. “Well, love, no need to panic until we hear it from a more reliable source. Come on, let’s get home before we melt in the heat.”

Emma nodded, banishing the faint chill that had touched her neck despite it, and prodded the horses into motion, clip-clopping the rest of the way home, up the drive, and into the carriage house to unhitch, while Killian unloaded the groceries. Once Emma had splashed some water on her face and dusted the mud off, she fetched her quill and inkwell and paper from the desk, sat down, and began to draft an advertisement to be sent off to the Gazette. Two household staff, a maidservant and footman, sought for a modest family estate. Pay would be generous and treatment fair, references and discretion appreciated. Address all correspondence to Mrs. E. Jones, care of the City Hall, Savannah, Prov. of Georgia.

Once Emma had folded it and set it on the side table, she went to the kitchen to start supper. Still unable to banish a certain lurking disquiet about Sam, she distracted herself with reading the letter from Henry and Violet that Geneva had brought back from Boston. Her grandchildren, Richard and Lucy, were eight and five years old respectively, and while Philadelphia was not much closer than Boston in the scheme of things, Emma thought it might be nice to have them continue to progress in a southward direction. She had missed so much of Henry’s childhood that she wanted to be there in some respect for the second generation, but time and distance made that difficult. They seemed to be happy, doing well. She would just have to take that for comfort. All of her children felt very far away right now, physically or otherwise.

Emma slept intermittently that night, woke early, and decided to take the letter to mail both in hopes of shaking her melancholy mood, and finding out if there was any more news to be had about Oglethorpe’s retreat. There were certainly other mothers anxious for word of sons, wives for husbands, and Emma felt a peculiar, shameful gratitude that Killian’s missing hand kept him at home – the thought of having to worry about him and Sam was too much to contemplate. For the same reason, when Henry had ventured the prospect of a visit last Christmas, Emma had advised him not to, fearing that he would be caught up in the militia recruitment. Henry was a scholar, not a soldier, and could barely fire a gun straight, but that would not have mattered.

Emma hitched up and drove into town, dropping the letter off with the packet boat that made the weekly trip between Savannah and Williamsburg. She was not quite so desperate as to subject herself to a return to Leroy’s, but she did not need to, as there were knots of worried civilians congregating in the square; this was clearly now the number one topic of public concern. There was no way to know if the governor was going to come rushing in to fortify the city for an expected attack, if this was just a prudent or even overly cautious strategical decision, or if the entire coast was burning behind him.

Emma debated joining one of these groups, but it felt rather too much like congregating at a wake, and she shook her head again, furious with herself. Yet the fact remained that the last time she had had one of these feelings, explainable only by motherly intuition and a strong sense of things simply being not right, was when Sam was eight years old, out too late on a stormy night, and when she had finally taken the lantern and gone to look for him, she found him trapped under a broken log, a few hundred yards out in the trees, the wind blowing his shouts for help in the wrong direction. He had a badly twisted ankle and was rattled and cold and upset, but otherwise right as rain by the morning, and she had always been grateful that it was not anything worse. But if she had ignored it for another few hours, if someone or something had happened by, if the storm had gotten worse, if anything. . .

Still, short of riding straight down to Florida herself and getting into the middle of whatever mess might be going on there, there was nothing for Emma to do, and she finally gave up and went home. Killian was sitting in the garden, reading another of the books that Geneva had brought back for them, but when he sensed her presence behind her, he marked his place, set it aside, and held out his arms. “Come here, love.”

Emma hesitated, then went over and sat down on his lap, settling her head against his shoulder as he linked his arms around her waist, brushing a blonde-grey strand of hair out of her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Aye, well, I do.” He pressed a light kiss against her collarbone. “I’ll promise to give Sam an extra-good bollocking when he comes home, for making you worry. If that would help.”

“If we did. . .” Emma trailed off, half-ashamed of herself for even suggesting it, but not enough to stop. “If we did go try to find him. . .”

Killian kissed her palm. “You know I want him back as much as you do, and Christ knows I’ve spent plenty of time thinking of all the terrible ways he’s likely gotten himself in hot water. But Sam’s a man now, not a boy. A young one, but still. You have to let him flap his wings a bit – aye, and crash, if only since it’s the only way he’ll ever learn. It’s hard for you, with the way you are in wanting to protect everyone, and being his mother to boot, but for better or worse, we can’t rush in and pull him out of every tight corner he ends up in. You know I’d take you seriously if you thought he was badly injured, or worse, but. . . do you feel like that, love?”

Emma considered. “No,” she admitted. “Just that something’s wrong.”

“That’s his usual state of being, isn’t it?” Killian said wryly. “You can blame me for that, if you wish.”

“I’m not sure, I think we might share it equally.” Feeling somewhat better, if still not entirely reassured, Emma nuzzled his cheek with her nose, then kissed it, and they sat in comfortable silence for some while, until a knock on the front door, echoing through the house, startled her. “Are we expecting someone?”

“Not that I know of.” Looking surprised, Killian slid her off his lap, and got to his feet. Both of them must have had the thought at the same instant that it might be one of Oglethorpe’s officers, or one of the militiamen, or – ”I’ll come with you, love. If you. . .”

“No,” Emma said, as firmly as she could. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be right back.”

With that, leaving him in the garden, she went back into the house, crossed the front foyer, had to swallow down a brief and unwelcome nervousness, and convulsively straightened her hair. Then she opened the door. “Yes? May I help you?”

“Are you Mrs. Jones?” The man on the other side was a rough-hewn sort in a homespun brown coat, with callused hands and a faint whiff of the stockyard. “You put in a notice for a footman?”

“I did.” Emma was taken aback. “But I only sent it off this morning, it hasn’t even left Savannah yet, much less reached the Gazette. How did you – ?”

“The master of the packet boat is my cousin. He saw it, knew I was searching for work, thought to send me along. A chance you’re free to discuss the position, ma’am?”

“I. . .” Emma supposed this was possible, even if this individual was rather slovenly for a prospective footman and there was something about him that put her on guard. “I’m actually rather – maybe not at the moment, but if you return when the notice is published, we could – ”

“No, ma’am, I’d really like to.”

“I don’t think that will be – ”

With that, quick as a snake, he moved. He slammed one hand over her mouth, pushed her backwards through the door, and fumbled in his jacket for a knife – an ugly, ill-kept thing which he was currently trying to plunge between her stays. Emma grabbed his arm, wrenched it over his head, and slammed her knee up through her skirts to catch him smartly between the legs, then twisted him off her as he let out a yelp. She forced his fingers open, making him drop the knife, though he continued scrabbling for it. Emma knocked it away, worked up enough momentum to throw him off her, and both of them dove for it at the same instant – she had not fought like this in years, but it came to her without conscious thought, a deeply ingrained old reflex. She opened her mouth, about to yell for Killian, then panicked about him being caught in the middle of this, if someone who was certainly not a footman had turned up apparently for the express purpose of murdering her in her own front hall –

Just then, a pistol went off at close range, Emma’s ears rang, and the next thing she saw was her erstwhile assailant crumpling to his knees, a bloody hole blown through his forehead, and a grisly amount of brain and bone splashing the whitewashed wall behind him. He folded forward, then hit the floor facedown, as she whirled to see Killian pointing his flintlock with cold and deadly intent, making sure the bastard was not about to get up again. Then when there was no sound but the echoes of the gunshot, a slow crimson trail seeping out in all directions, he demanded, “Bloody fucking hell, what was that? Are you all right?”

“I’m – I’m fine, I – ” Emma discovered that her legs were shakier than she thought as she attempted to get to her feet. It had all happened so fast that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t dreamed it, except for the indubitable presence of a dead man on her nicely swept floorboards. “Killian, he tried to kill me, I don’t – ”

“Aye, I saw, hence why I made sure he couldn’t!” Killian’s eyes flashed, until for the first time in years, she could glimpse the dangerous blue-heat glimmer of Captain Hook. “Or did he – ”

Emma steadied herself on the banister of the stairs, took a deep breath, and went over to the corpse, swallowing down her revulsion. It certainly wasn’t as if she’d never seen a man abruptly shot to death – just not, again, for a while. She knelt down and went through his pockets, and finally pulled out a small knotted sack that when opened, spilled several freshly-minted golden guineas into her hand, Georgius II Dei Gratia stamped cleanly on the face around a portrait of the king in laurel-wreathed Roman style, the inscription continuing on the back to frame the royal coat of arms. This was more money than a humble tradesman might see in a year, or several, and Emma sucked in her breath. “Killian. Look.”

He leaned over her shoulder, catching her drift. “Bloody hell. Someone paid him.”

“Someone paid him a lot.” Emma put the coins back, having an unpleasant sensation of déjà-vu to when she had been recruited in a dark tavern in the Turks Islands, to the aim of capturing HMS Imperator and destroying its commanding officers – one of whom she had now been married to for almost twenty-five years, coincidentally. “To kill us, or at least to try. For this price, you think they could have found a decent hitman.”

“Unless they did,” Killian said, very grimly. “You advertised for two servants, didn’t you?”

“What do you – ”

“If you hired two assassins, one much better at their job than the other, and sent one here knowing he’d likely be killed, but considering it a useful diversion, and that you’d get your money back as soon as he was dead anyway, where might you send the other?” Killian was already grabbing for his boots. “Especially when he made a public appearance yesterday for the first time in bloody years, so if you were paying attention to such things, you’d know he wasn’t really dead?”

Emma remained blank an instant longer, than horrified. “What – Flint? You think someone sent this one over here to distract us and make sure we couldn’t interfere, so the actually competent one could – ?”

It was reasonably plain that that was indeed what Killian was saying, and there was no time to hitch up the buggy. Leaving the problem of the dead man in their front hall for later, they grabbed a pistol apiece, flew to their feet, out to the stable, saddled the horses as quickly as they could, and leapt astride, thundering down the road, avoiding the city proper, and out to the Hamilton-McGraw residence. They dismounted almost before they had reined in, ran up the walk, and Killian kicked the door in. “Hey. HEY!”

They could hear the sounds of a struggle coming from the back of the house, and raced in just in time to see Flint being pinned against the wall by some colossal – and colossally unfriendly-looking – man in a tattered black coat. He was snapping and punching and kicking like a shark on the line, but wheezing as his throat was progressively crushed, and Miranda was bleeding from the forehead, looking as if she had been thrown back against the bookcase. She struggled to her feet and threw a very heavy copy of Dr. Faustus at the man, clearly trying to get him to drop Flint and come after her, but even this literary ambush did not succeed in diverting him from his purpose. Miranda then looked set to charge him, but as a sixty-five-year-old woman who needed a cane to walk and who was already disoriented from being hit, she would not have done much good. Fortunately, Emma and Killian had arrived in the nick of time to do it for her. Emma rushed to cover her, while Killian – evidently deciding that one dead man was going to be hard enough to get rid of and doubtless wanting to press this one for more information – snatched up the fallen Marlowe and brutally concussed Flint’s attacker with it. He wavered, then staggered back, which gave Flint just enough opportunity to wrench free, snatch the heavy pistol from the desk drawer, and shoot him anyway. As he went down, it was just possible to see Killian slap a hand to his face. “Mate! No!”

As the ruckus belatedly quieted, everyone gasping for breath and struggling to regain their bearings, Flint sprinted across to Miranda, whom Emma was just helping to sit up. “Fucking hell! What just – are you – ?”

“I’m all right.” Miranda winced, pressing Emma’s offered handkerchief to the gash on her temple. “You know, I really did think we were past all this.”

“So did I,” Flint said darkly. Having assured himself of her safety, he spun around to glare at the corpse, then at Killian, as if blaming him for its presence. “The fuck was that all about?!”

“I was going to ask him, before you shot him!” Killian was clearly not about to be blamed for his father-in-law’s trigger-happy ways. “And there’s more, one of these bastards came by our house as well, I shot that one, which is why I was trying to keep this one alive for questioning. Seeing as if someone is paying them a handsome sum to kill us, I’d like to know why!”

“They came after you. . .?” Flint’s blood was still too up to focus on much beside the presence of someone who had tried to kill him and his wife in their own sitting room, but that at least made him frown. “What the – someone knows we’re here? That all of us are here?”

“So it would seem,” Emma said, wiping the last trickle of blood from Miranda’s cut. “I doubt there are odds long enough to cover this being a case of some other notorious ex-pirates that someone wanted dead, and we just happened to be in the way.”

“If we now have a pair of dead men in our houses, that is going to be a further difficulty.” Miranda pushed away Emma’s hand and looked around for her cane, struggling painfully to her feet. “Murder, no matter how justified, is not the sort of crime to make the authorities turn a blind eye. If our real names and identities are uncovered, there will be a trial and a spectacle. We’ll have to dispose of the bodies at once, and hope no one comes searching for them.”

Flint gave her a look as if to say that this was exactly why he loved her, that she could shake off an assassination attempt and then coolly plan how to hide the evidence. It was true that any run-in with a magistrate’s court or any other instrument of justice was not going to end well for the men, especially as they had only their own word that the killing had been in defense of themselves and their womenfolk – the victims, after all, were dead and not able to say otherwise. Any jury would be quick to suspect the worst of former pirates, especially two as notorious as Hook and Flint, the legendary terrors of the Caribbean. This was exactly what they did not need.

They had to wait until dark to proceed, at any rate. Then – with Flint armed to the teeth and keeping extremely vigilant watch until they returned – Emma and Killian rode back to their house at what they hoped was an unsuspicious speed, swung down, and while Emma hitched the horses up to their cart, Killian went inside and wrapped the dead man in an old sheet. They hefted him into the back – already smelling ripe from the heat – and tossed a few things on top, so they would not be very obviously out for a nice evening drive with a corpse. It was a nerve-wracking trip back to Flint and Miranda, who, having ransacked their own dead man for any potential evidence, and finding nothing of use, had likewise unceremoniously bundled him up for burial. Flint was not leaving Miranda by herself at the house with the slightest chance of more killers on the loose, so they all climbed aboard and rode as nonchalantly as they could into the woods, flies starting to buzz above their pungent burdens.

Once they had gotten far enough outside the city limits that they were not likely to be discovered or inopportunely interrupted, Emma reined in the horses, and Killian and Flint jumped down, found a suitably soft bit of ground, and pulled out the spades. Killian wasn’t the fastest at digging with one hand, so Emma took over, she and Flint laboring in the thick, sweltering blue-black night, intermittently pricked by the glow of fireflies. The lantern hung on the spar wavered in the haze, dancing like a will-o-the-wisp, as Emma struggled not to recall several memorable ghost stories she had heard about dark nights in remote woods. God, this was not good. Even if they could hastily bury the bodies and return to town with nobody any the wiser, someone still knew they were alive, lived here, and had made a serious attempt to have them killed. If so, Oglethorpe’s retreat was the very least of their problems.

Once Emma and Flint, sweating and swearing, had hollowed out a hole of suitable size, they crawled free, got the bodies out of the cart, and dumped them in. Emma felt a faint impulse to say a prayer, not out of any real concern for the souls of the not-so-dearly-departed, but to ward them off from any desire to stay around and haunt her. Not that she believed in ghosts, not really, but any good seafarer did not take superstition lightly, and Killian had already turned in a circle three times and tossed some dirt over his shoulder. Emma herself had a brief and horrible conviction that one of the dead men was stirring in his shroud as she and Flint began to throw on shovelfuls of rich damp earth, and had to fight the urge to just pile it on all at once and run away. Maybe set a boulder on top, just for good measure. Bloody hell, she was not sleeping tonight.

At last, they finished their macabre task, and climbed back onto the cart, uncorking the water skin Miranda passed over and taking a long guzzle apiece. The stench of decay and grave dirt clung to them both, so that Emma would need to wash thoroughly in the near future. Killian had led the horses away to stop them being spooked by the dead men, so he brought them back and they hitched up again. Emma did her best not to wheel them around and lay tracks back to town, but she wanted out of that place, and badly.

“I think perhaps you two should stay with us tonight,” she said, low-voiced, as they rolled through a stand of whispering trees, moonlight casting weird shadows on the ground. “I’d feel better about it. At least until we find out who was responsible for this.”

“Aye, I’d feel better about it as well.” Miranda glanced at her, the troubled look on her face plainly visible in the silver glow. None of them wanted to discuss the dread prospect of losing their home here in Savannah, everything they had built for many years, but they could all sense it hanging over their head like the sword of Damocles. It was almost a good thing that Sam was off wherever he was, that Geneva and Thomas were in Nassau, as at least it kept them at arm’s length from whatever ugly flower had started to bloom here. “But we must be very careful at pulling at any of these threads. We may find the answers, and wish we hadn’t.”

“I want to know who’s trying to kill me,” Flint said flatly. “These days, at least.”

“Of course. But anyone who knows about us is just the beginning of the danger. Anyone they told, any way they could spread it. . .” Miranda trailed off. “I’m not sure they’ll do us the favor of barging into our parlors to be conveniently shot.”

“But who would want us dead?” Emma asked. “The Georgia authorities know who we are, or at least who Killian and I are, and as long as we pay our taxes and live quietly, they’ve never troubled us. Why would that have changed? Under who?”

“I don’t know.” Miranda continued to regard her gravely. “Who?”

[studyhelianthus]

A Pirate Story: Boca Raton Legends.

La Boca del Ratón and/or “Thieves’ Inlet”!?

If Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and ‘discovered’ America in 1492, then Florida was ‘saved’ by Latin American culture, since the English saw the land as temporarily reserved. 

My analogy of  Queen Nur ‘s re-telling of a latino folktale, sometimes called The Barking Mouse:  Boca Raton got it’s name ‘La Boca del Ratón’ or ‘The Mouse’s Mouth’, because when there were pirates smuggling things passed the rugged rocks within the lagoon and into Spanish American colonies it was essential to know at least two languages. For the Contraband (Colonial Spanish America) smuggling, fraud, illicit commerce, and illegal trade were vital elements for the economic success, the growth of the contraband’s income and it’s total market value of goods and services. 

ROWF!! GGROOWFF! ROWF!! WARF! Heh. Para- language is based on pairing the sound/tone, speed, quality/intensity, and onomatopoeia (or creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests sounds that are not real words, like “oooh”) with one’s spoken language and physical features, such as facial expressions, like a smirk, or gestures, like pointing. Other methods of communication beyond spoken languages are written language, kinesics or  body movements and gestures, and proxemics or personal space. So, when the mouse barks in the book by Antonio Sacre called, The Barking Mouse, think of how different forms of communication can drive out the darkness with the light of understanding.

Lingua Franca is a pidgin, a simplified version of one language that combines the vocabulary of a number of different languages. A trade language is a third language used by numerous communities around the Mediterranean, to communicate with diverse groups of people in different countries. Creole languages, such as Portuguese, become the primary language of an area when a pidgin is used frequently over the period. Cape Verdean Creole is the most widely-spoken Portuguese-based creole languages. Understanding is at the roots of love; those who don’t attempt to overcome language barriers to power through ‘effective communication’, burn their country’s soil, so that no one ever grows. 

Pirates began raiding the Florida’s coast when the Spanish, the first Europeans, settled here in the 1500′s. When pirates were given permission to raid and pillage Florida towns on behalf of a government, they were called privateers; therefore, Christopher Columbus was a privateer, a legal private! The English established their first colony at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and the Pilgrims - founders of the New Plymouth Colony (meaning "mouth of the River Plym") - arrived to Massachusetts in 1620; in consequence, the Native Americans began to perish. By 1650, England had formed a dominant presence on the Atlantic coast. 

More than 50 years before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, the first true Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine, Florida.  According to the National Park Service, La Florida was first influenced by Spanish traditions from the Iberian peninsula. The culture that emerged in the colonial New World was a mixture of European, African, and local Native customs. "Latinized" America at the time became a diverse, capable, and complex society. As stated in the proceedings of the Annual International Native American Language Issues (NALI), Effective Language Education Practices and Native Language Survival, the United States has been the home of more bilinguals than any other nation in world history. We have been living in the home of more bilinguals than any other country in the world, way before the 1988 Florida Official English Amendment: the passing of English-only laws.

The Spanish were open to having interracial marriages between the natives (Timucua) and the colonists, because it was a way of survival, and without it the colonies may have not lasted long; therefore, it was essential to know at least two languages. The genocide of the Taíno (Arawaks) - the native people of the northern Caribbean (present-day Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, etc.) - took place between 1492-1518, when the Spanish were led by Christopher Columbus. They killed men, women, children, and even babies; genocide and disease wiped out approximately 3 million of the 3.5 million inhabitants of Hispaniola. In the event of the Spanish missions in Florida, the souls of the Timucua were saved. The native people were transformed into loyal Catholic subjects of the Spanish crown, and mixed-race people were placed below the pure Spanish and above the pure natives. 

In 1566, Martín de Argüelles was the first child born of European ancestry recorded in the Spanish settlement of Saint Augustine, Spanish Florida. His parents were Martín de Argüelles (Sr.) and Leonor Morales.  His father, Martín Argüelles Sr., was one of the privateers who came to ‘New Spain’ or  ‘La Florida’ in the New World with Captain General Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565. During the development of the ‘New World’, money really seemed to be the root of all evil, but before the global possession of the Leprechaun, we were always enchanted by the ‘Demon of Fear’. Fear incites the rejection of diversity and a belief in scarcity. For this reason, ancient wars were fought for commodities and land or territory. Now, the monetary system controls us and plays on our fears by triggering a real sense of scarcity and hierarchical power, which sets the stage for competition and warfare. 

Nevertheless, the Spanish colonized American because they were in search for gold and silver, but they didn’t find anything. In spite of that, the Spanish accumulated their riches when they conquered the Aztec in Central America during the Spanish–Aztec War (1519–21), and Inca Empires in South America. They were able to colonize the south after ambushing and seizing the Inca’s ruler,  Atahualpa, in the 1532 Battle of Cajamarca, and engrossing themselves in 40 years of war which ended in 1572. Spanish was the official language of New Spain, and those who did not know it sought Nahuatl-speaking priests to communicate with Spanish rulers. Nahuatl, a native American language spoken by the Aztec, was the ‘Lingua Franca’ throughout Spanish North America, as it was used in trade and the courts. As stated by  Legends and Chronicles - a site dedicated to ancient history and mythology - King Philip II of Spain decreed in 1570 that Nahuatl become the official language of the colonies of New Spain, in order to facilitate communication between the natives of the colonies. 

Florida Memory, the state archives of Florida, documents the first arrival of African slaves to St. Augustine in 1581. Not too long after, the first permanent English settlement in North America, Jamestown Colony, would be established on May 14, 1607.  The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), writes that fugitive slaves were escaping from enslavement in the Carolinas and Georgia to Florida for sanctuary and freedom. Sometime between March and November of 1738, the Spanish settlers in Florida formed a town named Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, two miles to the north of St. Augustine. Spanish Florida was now the African-American slaves’ first Promised Land. Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose was a free black settlement that came to be known as Fort Mose. 

BLACKBEARD

Well... As the legend goes, approximately three years after an English pirate named Blackbeard, Edward Teach or Edward Thatch, fought in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), he wrecked havoc in the Gulf of Mexico amongst Spanish merchant’s ships; thereafter, he became known at the ‘El Gran Diablo’ (Spanish for ‘The Great Devil’). El Gran Diablo’s low-spirited crew were still dissatisfied; they wanted gold, so they sailed to the Florida coast to retrieve the treasures from the Spanish fleet that was previously wrecked in 1715.

The 1715 Treasure Fleet or Spanish Treasure Convoy was use to transport European goods annually from metropolitan Spain (’the mother country’) to the Spanish colonies in the Americas, such as, gold and silver. This fleet was seen as the holy grail and an irresistible target for ruthless pirates. Nevertheless, on July 31, 1715, seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba, eleven out of twelve ships were lost in a hurricane near present-day Vero Beach, Florida.

Now, ‘El Gran Diablo’ and his crew wanted to take possession of the remainder, but scavengers had already taken what was visible to the naked eye. Eventually, he moved north and when we reached the Topsail Inlet, on June, 3, 1718, his flagship - the Queen Anne’s Revenge - ran aground and sank. Four months later, Judge Nicholas Trott sentenced Bonnet to death, and he was said to be hung in Charleston, South Carolina, but he didn’t die yet. He was said to have died in a bloody battle, where he was beheaded to ensure his death. His head was displayed on his enemy’s ship, and his body was thrown into the sea.

CAPTAIN GENERAL PEDRO MENÈDEZ

The British attacked St. Augustine, and destroyed Fort Mose. The Spanish reconstructed Fort Mose in 1752; the settlement had a church and 22 huts housing nearly 100 people. As for Menendez, he was captured and sold as a slave, but by 1759 he was free and once again in command. At this time, Fort Mose consisted of 37 men, 15 women, seven boys and eight girls. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to note that in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the Spanish were forced to abandon Florida but gained Cuba in return. In August, Menendez led 48 men, women and children on the schooner ‘Nuestra Senora de los Dolores’ (spanish for ‘Our Lady of Sorrows’) and sailed to Cuba, where they settled in Regla, a town near the city of Havana. 

Hence, Fort Mose is now memorialized as a national historic landmark, and Florida was saved by Latin American culture! Think about it. If Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and ‘discovered’ America in 1492, then Florida was indeed ‘saved’ by Latin American culture, since the English saw the land as temporarily reserved.

[ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme]

Gen, Stede/Ed, Steddyhands, Any/Any, or Izzy/Any — Space Opera!

I'd just like to see Our Flag Means Death characters in SPAAAAAAAACE

Perhaps the Queen Anne crew's like the Space Navy and the Revenge crew is the ragtag group of Space rebels led by Stede who really has no business playing 'space pirates'.

Maybe the two groups end up stranded together after the Queen Anne tries to pursue the Revenge, wrecking both of their ships so they have to get along for the time being or they all die? Romance and Hijinks ensues??

I'm partial to Stede/Ed, Steddyhands, any and all Izzy ships but I love surprise pairings too! Anything goes.

Fill: None

[latestnewswise]

The Wikipedia article of the day for October 23, 2017 is Blackbeard. Blackbeard (Edward Teach, c. 1680 – 1718) was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. He was probably born in Bristol, but little is known about his early life. He may have served on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he joined the crew of Benjamin Hornigold, a pirate who operated from the Caribbean island of New Providence. In the Queen Anne's Revenge, a renamed merchant vessel, Teach blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, with an alliance of pirates. After successfully ransoming its inhabitants, he settled in Bath Town, but soon returned to piracy. He was attacked and killed near Ocracoke Island by a crew seeking the reward for his capture. A shrewd and calculating leader, he avoided the use of force, and there are no accounts that he ever harmed his captives. Following his death, his image was romanticised, becoming the inspiration for a variety of pirate-themed works of fiction.

[rjbailey]

Wikipedia article of the day for October 23, 2017 -- Blackbeard

The Wikipedia article of the day for October 23, 2017 is Blackbeard. Blackbeard (Edward Teach, c. 1680 – 1718) was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. He was probably born in Bristol, but little is known about his early life. He may have served on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he joined the crew of Benjamin Hornigold, a pirate who operated from the Caribbean island of New Providence. In the Queen Anne's Revenge, a renamed merchant vessel, Teach blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, with an alliance of pirates. After successfully ransoming its inhabitants, he settled in Bath Town, but soon returned to piracy. He was attacked and killed near Ocracoke Island by a crew seeking the reward for his capture. A shrewd and calculating leader, he avoided the use of force, and there are no accounts that he ever harmed his captives. Following his death, his image was romanticised, becoming the inspiration for a variety of pirate-themed works of fiction.

[ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme]

Izzy & The Crew — He wasn't sea sick he was poisoned

So I came across a tumblr post that had the theory that during the incident where Izzy got his nickname, he wasn't sea sick but was poisoned instead with someone on the Queen Anne hoping to get rid of him except that Izzy is like a cockroach and can survive anything.

So what if the Revenge gets into stormy seas - and Izzy is absolutely fine. Barking orders and being his general asshole self but not a single sign of sea sickness.

When someone mentions it to Ed he's puzzled why they would ask - Izzy's never been seasick (no seriously, the swallow tattoo on his neck means he travelled at least 5000 nautical miles. That's a lot).

When the Revenge meets up with the Revenge, they're determined to find out who poisoned Izzy out of sheer curiosity if nothing else (and maybe also because he's kinda grown on them. Like a barnacle).

Fill: None

[ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme]

Ed/Izzy/Stede (primarily Izzy/Stede) — Ed's crew legitimately respects Izzy

Early on in the throuple, the relationship is still incredibly uneven, with Stede and Izzy continuing to feel one another out. Stede gets the surprise of his life when, for (insert plot reasons here), the Revenge is introduced to the rest of Ed's crew and every... single... person... adores Izzy. There's no insubordination. There's no backtalk.

Turns out, Izzy really is a top-notch first mate. He only unleashes his inner bitch when nobody listens to what he's trying to say.

Stede wonders what he could learn from Izzy if he took the time to really listen.

Bonus: Izzy is incredibly creeped out by how attentive Stede is being all of a sudden.

Fill: None

[ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme]

Ed/Stede plus Izzy and the whole QAR crew — Izzy gets a Peggy Sue do-over

Post episode 10, something magic happens and Izzy suddenly finds himself back in that jungle with Stede Bonnet poking him in the face with that suspiciously blunt dagger.

Izzy immediately weighs his options and, looking to avoid a repeat of last time around, decides to say that he works for Blackbeard, who would like a word with Bonnet. Ivan and Fang are confused but follow Izzy's lead.

Izzy figures that having Ed meet Bonnet immediately without hearing anything about him beforehand instead of getting hyped up about the idiot while following him around for months and having it happen on the Queen Anne's Revenge, Izzy's and Ed's home turf instead of Bonnet's, is the most obvious way to keep the situation from spiraling out of control.

Izzy is very, very wrong.

Ed and Stede still fall in love almost immediately, and having it happen on the QAR instead of the Revenge means that ALL of the QAR crew gets infected with Bonnet's particular brand of muppetry instead of just Ed, Ivan, and Fang.

Izzy is pretty sure he's in hell even moreso than before.

Fill: None

[ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme]

Gen — The Queen Anne's crew is just as muppety as the Revenge's

There's quite a lot of prompts for, essentially, Blackbeard's old crew to be more disciplined or tougher or otherwise better than the crew of the Revenge, and for this to be discovered when they meet up together.

I am looking for the opposite of that: the crew of the QAR is actually just as capable of being muppetified as the Revenge is, they just never even knew it was a possibility and so never acted on it. But after exposure to Stede's crew, they are all clamoring to join storytime or play music in the jam room or have a nice group therapy session with everyone.

Basically, consider how Ivan and Fang are and then multiply it for the whole crew.

+ Anne Bonny and Mary Read are part of the crew that gets muppetified. + Izzy expected the other crew to be the voice of reason and is shocked when they also join Bonnet's nuttery. + Blackbeard's crew has ideas about new muppety things to do, one of which is actually something Izzy enjoys, and this is how he's dragged kicking and screaming into becoming a muppet with the rest of them.

Fill: None