Chapter 74: The Rose Comes Home
Nobody aboard had any interest in finding out what kind of creature called the bay home once the sun dropped low enough to paint the sea orange. Brave as they liked to think they were with cutlasses in hand and rum still warming their bellies, that courage had limits.
Every man who’d spent the day wrestling in the shallows and cursing Doyle’s mystery brew climbed back aboard before darkness fell over the water. None of them wanted to discover exactly what Mackerel Jim’s long fella really was.
James spent most of the voyage to Nassau explaining his plans to Cudjoe.
He laid out the settlement he intended to build, the number of people it would take, and the simple fact that neither ship had a single spare hand for construction while they still needed every sailor just to keep the vessels afloat.
Cudjoe listened without interrupting through plans that seemed to breed three more plans before the first one had finished.
By the time the silence came, he let out a slow breath. "Captain, I’ve sailed long enough tae know when a man’s thinkin’ farther ahead than I’ve any interest in followin’. Ye keep us alive, paid, and headed somewhere worth reachin’. I’ll worry about the men. Ye worry about whatever tomorrow’s already whisperin’ in yer ear."
James laughed.
"So... more hands?"
Cudjoe nodded once. "See? Now you’re speakin’ a language an old sailor can understand."
They arrived at Nassau two days later.
The harbor looked just as crowded and lawless, masts packed so tightly together that finding room to anchor took longer than sailing into port.
The crew needed no encouragement once both ships were secure. Men who’d been carrying their share of Spanish treasure-fleet silver, with nowhere respectable to spend a single coin, poured down the gangplanks the moment they touched solid ground.
"I’m drinkin’ somewhere the floor’s too filthy tae notice if I fall over."
"Luxury, that. I want a place where the barkeep’s uglier than the customers. Means the ale’s honest."
"Ye’re both thinkin’ too bloody small. Find me a tavern with hot food, cold rum, and a whore who’ll rob me proper instead o’ insultin’ me with amateur work."
"Then ye’d best pay for the room before she gets a look at ye."
"I’ve got Spanish silver. She’ll squint."
"If she’s squintin’, it’s only tae count how much she’ll steal before mornin’."
"Good. Means she’s experienced."
Laughter rolled as they argued over which tavern deserved the honor of relieving them of their newly acquired fortune.
They hadn’t gone more than a few steps before Nassau spotted them.
News had reached the island weeks ahead of the Rose, just as it always did in a town fueled equally by rum and gossip. Every telling had grown a little larger before the ship behind the stories ever reached harbor.
Five Guarda Costa sloops sunk off Florida would’ve kept Nassau drunk on the story for a month by itself. Add a French fort disappearing into the sky at Mobile, and by the third telling there’d be men swearing James had sunk the sloops with one hand while slapping the fort over with the other. Whether any of it still resembled the truth by week’s end hardly mattered.
A shout rose nearby.
One dockhand pointed toward the Rose, where her colors stirred lazily against the mast. A grinning skull above crossed bones held a single crimson rose between its teeth, faded by salt but unmistakable to anyone who’d heard the stories.
"That’s her! That’s the Bloody Rose!"
The street became a flood.
The Rose’s crew didn’t make it out of the harbor.
Men spilled from taverns with mugs in hand, some still buttoning their breeches, others already shouting before they were close enough to recognize a face.
"Which one o’ ye bastards stole a whole bloody fort?"
"Forget the fort. Is it true ye robbed the Governor’s dinner while the cannons were still firin’?"
"I heard one o’ ye bastards sold cannonballs back tae the Spaniards after they fired ’em?"
"Did ye really tow a prize ship home with the French governor still asleep aboard?"
Laughter rolled through the crowd.
Hands grabbed shoulders, mugs were shoved into fists, and more than one pirate found himself answering three impossible questions at once as Nassau tried to wring every outrageous tale from the men before anyone else could hear it first.
James couldn’t help grinning.
The last time he’d walked these streets he’d come home after the frigate disaster. He’d been mocked almost as often as he’d been welcomed.
Today no one seemed interested in mockery.
Kit had already disappeared into a knot of admirers, standing on an overturned crate like a stage had been waiting for him all along.
He swept his arms grandly to the crowd, "...and there I stood! Betrayed by Spaniards, hunted by the French, abandoned by fortune herself, with naught but me courage, me wit, and a pistol that only worked when it felt charitable!"
The crowd cheered.
"Did the pistol actually fire?"
"No!"
"Then it were mostly the wit, was it?"
"It were the principle o’ the thing!"
Kit jabbed a finger toward the heavens.
"Then came the lady!"
"What lady?"
"The beautiful one, ye illiterate bastard. Every adventure’s got one."
"Thought ye preferred goats."
The street erupted in laughter.
Kit carried on without missing a beat.
"She begged me to flee with her. Said we’d sail away and leave war behind us."
"And?"
"I told her me heart already belonged to the sea."
"Bullshit!"
"It belongs tae whichever port’s buyin’ the drinks!"
"Aye!" someone shouted. "Now he’s tellin’ the truth!"
Kit bowed deeply as if the interruption had been planned all along.
"I suffer greatly fer bein’ misunderstood."
Farther along the street, Mackerel Jim had another crowd. Nobody listening expected the tale to resemble anything that had happened, and nobody listening cared.
"...then the sea opened up beneath the fort, see, and this great beast come crawlin’ out lookin’ hungry enough to swallow France whole. Smart creature, too. Took one look at me, tipped its head polite-like, and asked which end o’ the fort tasted best."
"What’d ye tell it?"
"’Start wi’ the officers. Too much gristle in the common soldiers.’"
The laughter carried across the street.
"After that the beast thanked me, swallowed the powder storage in one bite, sneezed once, and that’s the explosion everybody keeps talkin’ about."
"Ye never left the ship, Jim."
Farrow’s voice drifted over the crowd.
Jim looked genuinely offended. "Well, somebody had to stay aboard and keep an eye on the sea monster. Ye think those things watch themselves?"
Farrow hadn’t escaped the attention either. Three men cornered him at once, all wanting to know whether it was really true a single mortar shot had blown apart the fort.
"One shot did it, aye. But the poor lass needed four chances to find her confidence first. Can’t go cursin’ a mortar fer bein’ shy, just took her a little while to gather the courage."
Past the cheering sailors came Nassau’s working women, weaving through the crowd with far more purpose than anyone else. A crew returning from legend almost always returned with heavy purses, and Nassau’s courtesans had never been slow to notice opportunity.
"There he is! Sweetheart, I’ve missed ye terribly. Don’t fret that we’ve never met."
She caught a sailor by the arm and pulled him snug against the swell of her chest, smiling when the poor bastard forgot where his feet belonged.
"I’ve got a bed upstairs, a bottle worth stealin’, and ideas that’ll leave ye thankin’ God He made sinners."
The men around him howled.
Another courtesan slipped between two sailors, throwing an arm around each neck like she’d been sailing with them for years.
"Come on, ye pair o’ useless bastards. One o’ ye can buy the rum, the other can spend the night tellin’ me what a fearless hero he is."
"We’re both fearless."
"Perfect. Then neither o’ ye’ll cry when I rob ye blind."
Even that won another round of laughter.
Across the street, one girl gave a sailor a slow once-over, then grinned.
"I’ll have ye crawlin’ back tomorrow beggin’ me to charge ye twice."
The sailor snorted.
"Big promise."
"Sweetheart, I’ve been disappointin’ wives since I were eighteen."
Before anyone could outbid that offer, two laughing women hooked themselves through the sailor’s arms and spirited him away while his mates cheered after him, already arguing over whether he’d come back penniless, married, or missing a boot.
James would have laughed too, but the voice interrupted him.
🏴 [FACTION STATUS — UPDATE]
Technically Still Welcome → Name Spoken in Rum
🏴 [JAMES CALLOWAY — STATUS]
Rank : Captain, Flying Gang
Reputation : Rising Legend
Influence : A Seat at the Table
Fate Balance : 95
James relaxed when he saw a real title beside his reputation instead of another vague promise about climbing higher.
"Took you long enough to make up yer mind."
Too early would have deprived me of the entertainment of watching you crawl toward it.
"Aye. Glad I could keep ye amused."
Regardless, it wasn’t time to stand idle. James gestured to Cudjoe, besides him at the Rose’s deck.
"Go find me enough bastards to crew both ships."
Cudjoe snorted. "Ye ask fer that like Nassau keeps ’em stacked in barrels."
"It does."
"...Fair point."
James grinned. "I’ll worry about findin’ a captain for the Fortune. Quartermaster too, navigator if I can find one sober enough to read a chart."
He caught a hanging rope, stepped onto the rail, and looked down at the dock.
"If I’m not back by dark, assume somebody’s offered me honest employment."
"I’ll know ye’re lyin’."
James laughed, swung out over the pier, and dropped lightly onto the dock below.
By the time he’d fought his way through the wall of greetings, impossible stories, and invitations to spend his money in increasingly inventive ways, only one destination remained in his mind.
The Drowned Rat.