Chapter 157: The Perils of Being Valuable
Don Ambrosio reached inside his coat and brought out a folded paper, its wax seal already broken. He laid it on the desk between them with two fingers, then pushed it toward James with the solemn courtesy of a man handing a fellow his own death warrant.
There were cheaper ways to ruin an evening, but Ambrosio had apparently decided to spare no expense.
"This is a bounty from a few days back."
He tapped the paper once. His tone was calm enough, almost affectionate, as he read through the trouble. "I confess, I failed to realize the description matched with the gentleman before me until the boy repeated it twice."
The little twitch in his mustache had stopped altogether. "Cuarenta mil reales, señor. Forty thousand. They call you El Azote de las Antillas in this notice, and now it seems the very man who tore apart entire navy ships is at my table."
James rose slowly.
One hand drifted toward the knife tucked inside his coat.
Behind Ambrosio, both guards had already left the wall. One drew his cutlass halfway, while the nearer man brought a pistol up until its muzzle pointed squarely at James’s chest.
Sam went rigid beside him, which was generally a bad sign, and kept both hands where nobody could see them.
James gave a low whistle. "That’s a fine number, Don. Reckon you ought to be flattered, with some governor that thinks that highly of you, he does, puttin’ a price like that on a man sittin’ at your table."
"I am flattered, señor, and considerably richer for it besides."
Ambrosio let open both ringed hands. He looked genuinely sorry, which was touching, considering his guards were closing in. "You understand my position. A partnership will give me coin for years, if fate is kind. This will give me coin today, and the goodwill of men who have the power to decide whether my warehouses remain standing tomorrow."
James let his grin come slowly.
It was the grin he kept for those rare occasions when the sensible choice and the completely mad choice happened to shake hands.
"Aye, fair enough. Reckon I’d have done the same in yer boots."
He reached for the untouched wine in front of him.
"Shame ye gave me such a fine drink first."
Then he threw it.
Wine and glass exploded across the pistolman’s face, shards biting into his cheeks as red wine and blood splashed down his coat.
Sam moved with it, his blade flashing from his sleeve and burying itself deep in the man’s body with a short, ugly noise. More blood spilled across the man’s coat as the guard folded, his pistol dropping from his hand and clattering across the floor.
While he was left to die, Sam drew his arm back for another throw.
The knife flew across the room, turning end over end.
James caught it by the grip without looking.
He had barely done so when the cutlassman came at him hard, the blade sweeping for his head. James turned the knife against it just in time, steel striking steel with a sharp crack that sent a jolt through his wrist and made the cutlass whistle past his ear.
This fellow was quicker than his dead companion and had enough sense to take the initiative, forcing James backward across the room until the cutlass caught him across the forearm. The blade cut the flesh cleanly, and blood dripped hot down his wrist.
James hissed through his teeth and came back at him.
The cutlassman kept the pressure, confident now that he had drawn blood. He swung again, and James twisted aside, letting the blade pass him before stepping inside the man’s reach.
He drove the knife up beneath the man’s ribs.
The cutlassman jerked as the blade went in, and James felt it bite deep. He ripped it free and struck again before the man could bring his weapon around, burying the knife beneath the ribs a second time.
More blood spilled down the front of the guard’s shirt as his strength vanished, until he crashed against the desk, knocking a stack of papers to the floor with him. Books, loose papers, and blood went sprawling across the boards.
After that, the room turned remarkably quiet, save for Ambrosio breathing like he had just discovered that forty thousand reales did not buy much safety at all.
James walked through the room and seized Ambrosio by the neck, hauling the fat man out of his chair.
[Counterargument] was fished out from inside James’s coat and slapped against Ambrosio’s temple.
His English vanished altogether, and so the feigned courtesy.
"Please, señor. We can still speak. We can settle this like men of business, like..."
"Shut it, you’re comin’ with us."
James kept the pistol steady and dragged him toward the door.
"Reckon ye’ll find bein’ held hostage a sight more dignified than bein’ shot. Small mercies."
Sam was already at the door, pistol drawn.
They came bursting into the courtyard with Ambrosio between them, and the place stopped being a pleasant evening almost at once.
Chairs scraped, men stood up and blades plus pistols came out.
Just before, the courtyard had been full of wine, dice, women, laughter, and men behaving as though tomorrow had never been invented.
Now every man in it was suddenly interested in staying alive.
Then they noticed where James’s pistol was pointing.
Every weapon stopped halfway out.
"NOT ONE BLOODY STEP!"
James’s shout struck the gallery overhead and came back twice as loud.
"Or yer master here loses the top of his own head!"
Kit was still in the middle of a sentence at his table, both hands held up in the idea of whatever cannon blast he had been describing.
He stared at James, then Ambrosio, then the pistol, with his mouth hanging open.
"Kit!"
That did the job.
Kit sprang up so quickly he sent his stool skittering across the floor, but instead of looking frightened, he looked positively delighted.
He exclaimed with wide eyes. "Th’ betrayal! Th’ twist! Oh, this be grand!"
"Move!"
"Aye, aye! We oughta be escapin’ like heroes now, shouldn’t we?"
He hurried after them with all the eager excitement, happy that the dull afternoon he’d expected was, in fact, turning into an adventure.
Jim required considerably more encouragement.
Sam had to seize him bodily and pull him off the lap of some woman, and from the state of Jim’s lips, his open shirt, and the woman’s thoroughly untroubled expression, it was safe to assume they had been making excellent use of the afternoon.
The conflict had interrupted them at an especially unfortunate moment, though Jim seemed to regard this less as a matter of personal safety than as an unnecessary interruption to perfectly good work.
Meanwhile, the two sailors needed no instruction. They were already halfway to the exit before anybody could call their names.
The whole party backed toward the street together, Ambrosio’s men splitting apart before them like water around a rock. They cursed in Spanish as they went, loudly enough to make certain nobody mistook their feelings.
The crew spilled into the open street beneath the full afternoon sun, with red tile roofs on every side and the courtyard already behind them.
For one simple moment, nobody appeared eager to step in their way.
Then a musket shot cracked from above.
James felt the impact in his shoulder instantly. It struck like a fist made of white fire, twisting him half a step and nearly ripping Ambrosio out of his grip.
🏴 [TITLE ACTIVATED] - Against All Reasonable Odds
The blood soaked through James’s shirt while his hand had loosened on Ambrosio’s neck, and the fat man needed no invitation.
He tore himself free, dropped onto the cobbles, and rolled clear away.
The moment Ambrosio escaped, every armed man nearby seemed to remember his duty at once.
They came at the crew from every side.
"PISTOLS!"
James’s roar went up through the street.
[Counterargument] was already coming up again, despite the fire burning through his shoulder.
The crew fired together.
Hidden pistols cracked as one, and two men dropped before the rest scattered toward whatever cover they could find.
It gained them a few feet.
A few feet was better than nothing, but not by much.
"THAT WAY!"
Sam had already chosen the nearest house.
He drove his shoulder through a shuttered window in a crash of wood, glass, and some household perfectly fine afternoon.
James followed him through splintered shutters and broken glass that caught at his coat, landing hard on the floor.
A woman inside screamed with enough force to wake every inhabitant of Havana.
Kit and Jim came tumbling in after him, the two sailors followed last.
Then all of them were scrambling to their feet and making for the door on the other side of the room, leaving the poor woman to wonder what sort of men felt like conducting their business through her window.
They burst out the back into an alley barely wide enough for two men to pass shoulder to shoulder.
James tore through a line of drying shirts while they run. The linen came loose behind them, snapping and fluttering down into the ground like a collection of surrender flags nobody had thought to ask for.
"CHRIST, ME SHOULDER!"
James managed it half laughing despite the pain.
Behind them, Ambrosio’s voice rose above, barking orders in furious tone.
"Reckon that partnership’s off, then!" Jim shouted after him, grinning, rouge and all.
James did not answer.
He had no breath left to waste on it.
Besides, Havana had plenty more to do before any of them found somewhere safe enough to stop.