Chapter 83: No Governor, No Law
"Aye, well."
James nudged an empty stool away from the table with his boot, more out of habit than courtesy. "Didn’t figure you for a man who goes lookin’ for trouble, Hornigold. Thought that was my department these days."
"Hornigold."
Thatch dragged the name out slowly, letting the room hear it. The grin was still there, but whatever joke had been waiting behind it was gone.
Hornigold’s three men drifted toward the bar without waiting for instructions.
Hornigold himself eased himself into the stool as though he meant to stay longer than anyone at the table cared for. He tugged his coat free beneath him, then folded his hands on top of the table.
The barmaid wandered over, ready to take an order.
Hornigold waved her away without looking away.
Across the table, Hands caught James’s eye. The warning in his stare was clear before he looked back toward Hornigold.
"Careful. Table’s gettin’ crowded with men who actually own the ships they’re standin’ on."
Caesar replied with a grunt that passed for agreement. His attention never left the doorway, where Hornigold’s men had already spread out.
"I assume you’ve heard about the Bristol ship."
Hornigold kept his hands folded. "Let’s spare ourselves the trouble of pretending otherwise. I let her pass."
"Really?" Hands gave a faint shrug. "Mighty courageous of ye."
"I’ve already had men question the choice. More than once."
Hornigold paused. "And I told them the obvious. Nassau survives because someone has to know when not to draw blood."
His gaze moved between James and Thatch. "I’m asking for what stability’s worth, nothing more. Because Jennings doesn’t know when to stop, and Vane never learned why he should. Let either of them take Nassau, and sooner or later the Spanish, the English, and every other power tired of pirates will come looking for a reason to put us down."
James arched an eyebrow.
"You say that like Nassau was ever supposed to answer to anyone."
"Enough of it."
The corner of Hornigold’s mouth flattened. "I put the two of you together on that treasure convoy job. Back when neither of you had any reason to trust the other and I needed to know whether a Scotsman with more luck than sense could keep a ship afloat beyond the horizon, while Thatch needed a ship bigger than his ambition."
His eyes rested on James.
"Both of you came back richer."
He let that linger.
"I’d remember who arranged that, were I either of you."
Thatch clicked his tongue.
"Ye’d remember it for me, you mean."
"Thatch, I’ve never raised a hand against my own flag."
One finger tapped the tabletop. "Whatever else I’ve done under this one, that line’s never moved. Every man who’s sailed under me knows it, every one of them still drinks because of it."
James realized his grip had tightened around his cup.
He’d heard men speak with that certainty before. He knew where that kind of conviction led a captain in a world like this.
For a heartbeat, the noise that filled the tavern seemed to fade before rolling back around him.
He set the cup down before anyone noticed.
"Aye. And how many of those men are still hungry for a fight you won’t let them have?"
He didn’t avoid Hornigold’s gaze.
"A code’s worth plenty right up until the men followin’ it start wonderin’ whose hand wrote it."
Thatch leaned forward until both forearms rested on the table. "I’ve sailed under your name long enough to know what you’re building, Hornigold. You call it order. You call it survival."
He tapped a finger against the tabletop. "But tell me something. What are we, if every ship we pass has to be weighed against a king’s permission? What makes us different from the men who fly his colors and wait for him to tell them who to fight?"
His eyes hardened.
"That’s no piracy, no freedom. You’d have us wearing a leash."
Uncertainty shifted behind Hornigold’s expression. Then it turned into icy resolve.
"That name bought you the time to build a reputation, if memory serves."
He gave the words a moment.
"Funny how quickly a man forgets where he started."
James let the silence stretch while he slowly turned his cup across the tabletop.
"I owe you nothin’, Hornigold."
He looked Hornigold squarely in the eye. "But since you came all this way wantin’ a straight answer, here it is. Nassau was built by men who refused to bow to anyone, and now you’re surprised when they refuse to bow to you. If any of us was fine with obedience, we wouldn’t be here."
Hornigold considered that with patience.
He set his untouched cup on the table and sighed.
"That was surprisingly introspective of you, Calloway."
He smoothed his coat with one hand, and let his eyes linger first on James, then on Thatch.
"Think on it awhile longer, if you like. I’ve nowhere pressing to be for the next month."
He never got another word out.
The door was slammed open hard enough to rattle the shutters.
Every head in the tavern turned for the second time in less than an hour.
Henry Jennings strode across the room as though the place belonged to him.
His face looked younger than Hornigold’s, though the years beneath the sun had left their mark all the same. Where Hornigold dressed like a shipmaster who still kept accounts, Jennings looked like a man who’d forgotten what money was for.
Rings crowded nearly every finger, their silver polished bright enough to suggest a Spanish strongbox cracked open only days before. The sword at his hip was finer than anything Hornigold carried.
His eyes swept the room the way a seasoned captain counted exits without thinking.
Two of his own men were close behind. Unlike Hornigold’s crew, they made no effort to linger by the door.
Jennings hooked a chair away from the next table without asking, spun it around backward, and dropped into it with both forearms resting across the back.
He sat close enough for the scent of pipe smoke clinging to his coat to drift across the table.
"Well now."
His gaze swept over the table before settling on Hornigold. "Didn’t expect to find ye away from yer charts, Benjamin. I’d heard ye traded prizes for prayers these days."