Chapter 160: Hope Has Conditions
The woman walked to the hearth, taking down a rushlight, and coaxing the wick to life from the last red coal. Behind her, a stair had been cut straight into the plaster, climbing up into darkness. It looked narrow enough to make a fat man reconsider his dinner.
"Up." She tipped her chin at it. "The room above has better manners than the one you’re sittin’ in."
James pushed himself off the bench and followed her up the stairs, steep enough that a man counted them by reflex. Sam came after him, then Kit, then Jim with linen clamped to his ribs, followed by the two sailors from the Marianne.
The room upstairs looked as though it belonged to another house altogether. A hearth burned low against one wall, a table stood under a shelf crowded with jars, and four men were around a board with dice lying between them.
At the first sound of strangers on the stairs, all four sprang from their stools, with hands on sword hilts.
The woman said three quick words in Spanish.
The four men sat back down at once, like dogs whose master had called them off a scent.
"They mind me, mostly."
She caught the leg of a spare bench with her boot and dragged it nearer the fire.
"Sit before you fall down, señor. I’ve no desire to help you twice in one afternoon."
James lowered himself onto it.
"I’m called Esperanza-"
Sam interrupted her, "Beggin’ your pardon, lass, but that can wait."
Her eyebrows climbed, more interested than offended.
"I know pirates are not famous for their manners, but couldn’t you pretend at least a little?"
"Why, lass, I can be as polite as a priest at a christenin’, but there’s urgent business needs tendin’ to first."
He remained standing. "Ambrosio’s men’ll have my ship picked out soon enough. I need word sent down before they come nosin’ round her, get my lads out o’ the harbor and into open water."
Esperanza nodded once. Then she snapped two fingers toward the door. A boy of ten or so appeared through it.
"Un mensaje. Rápido."
Sam crouched until he was even with the boy and put a coin into his hand. He first arduously explained which ship and man through the language barrier, then the message.
"Tell him the goat’s shat in the flour again. No bread till the tide turns."
The boy repeated the words exactly, tucked away the coin, and disappeared before Kit could decide whether Sam had truly said what he thought he’d said.
"...The goat?"
"Our quartermaster’ll know what it means." Sam dropped onto the bench. "You lot wouldn’t."
Esperanza folded her arms. She was plainly willing to suffer no more interruption, and not a syllable beyond it.
"As I was saying. Esperanza."
She touched two fingers to her chest. "I reckon it is obvious enough, but I make my living much as Ambrosio does. The difference is that I don’t spend my time licking the balls of men in the garrison to keep the goods flowing."
Before James could introduce himself, Kit sprang to his feet, spreading both arms as though the room had suddenly become a prize ring.
He bellowed with glee, "This here’s James Calloway, lass! El Azote de las Antillas himself! Forty thousand reales on his head this very day, and the man who sank one man o’ war with only his ships!"
James winced. His shoulder complained so sharply it seemed to take offense on its own behalf.
"Christ, Kit, you needn’t holler the bloody bounty at the woman who just hid us from it."
"Reckon ye deserved yer introduction proper, Cap’n."
Jim stood up theatrically, one hand pressed against his chest. "And I’m Iron-Gut Jim. Fourteen times the sea’s tried to drown me, and fourteen times I’ve spat her back out. Once she even left me with a shark’s tooth lodged in me boot."
He bowed low enough to put his bandage in danger.
"Pleasure, lass."
Esperanza laughed outright, enough to change the room more than the hospitality.
"El Azote de las Antillas."
She rolled the name over her tongue. "I knew who you were before you’d finished runnin’ through my street."
Her gaze passed over James and found the last two men, who were still hanging back near the head of the stairs.
"And these?"
The big one made no effort to straighten.
"Ox."
That was all.
Jim lips parted open, apparently intending to provide the rest, but one look from Ox closed it again.
The rat-faced man gave a brief nod, looking as gloomy as a man who’d misplaced his last bit of luck.
"Bad-Luck Barnaby. Don’t ask why, ye’ll only bring it on yourself askin’."
Esperanza pulled a scrap of paper from her sleeve.
She tapped it against her knee once, then unfolded it. "I’ve an ear inside that fat man’s house, señor. Thirty-eight in the hundred’s what you agreed on for the one sale. Thirty-seven’s where you left the trade route before his boy came runnin’ with better news."
She folded the paper again and put it away before James could get so much as a glance at it.
"I’ll take both, and we won’t haggle twice over the bargain. You won’t find a fairer offer anywhere in this city."
James considered that. He liked the sound of it, which was precisely why he treated it with more care than a good offer usually deserved.
"That’s uncommon generous, lass, for a woman who’s known me the length of an afternoon."
"Is it?"
Her mouth curled at one corner. "Or does it only seem generous because the fat bastard tried robbin’ you blind first?"
She shrugged, as if couldn’t be helped.
"There is another part to this, before you decide the bargain is finished."
The room seemed to lose a little warmth.
Esperanza explained bitterly, "My sister, four years younger than I am, and right now she’s sitting in a cell on a smuggling charge Ambrosio made up from the first word to the last. So I’d be left with no choice but to hand the whole business over to him and become his kept woman besides, whichever he decided he wanted first."
She raised her eyes, only tempered rage in her face now. "Milagros. Get her out, and I’ll not argue with you over another coin for as long as either of us draws breath. That’s my price, señor."
James locked his gaze with hers. He trusted a look like that across a card table more than some page full of promises, and he saw nothing there that made him doubt her. Besides, she saved their arses, and it wouldn’t be right to not repay the karma.
"Well?"
He glanced around at the others. "Speak now. I don’t want to hear any of you callin’ me a bloody fool afterward when every soul here had the chance to tell me so."
Kit was already pushing himself off the bench. "Cap’n, we’re breakin’ a lass out of a Spanish gaol! Christ, ye know how many taverns’ll be tellin’ that story by tomorrow? Half of ’em won’t even know what bloody sea the tale sailed to get there!"
Ox gave one short nod. From Ox, that was practically a speech.
Bad-Luck Barnaby crossed himself once and shrugged. One more curse hardly seemed worth worrying about when a man had already collected so many.
Jim threw him a careless smile, "Cap’n, I’d follow ye straight down to Hell itself. Though I’d appreciate it if ye stopped findin’ new ways to drag us there before we get old enough to enjoy it."
Sam let out a breath and shook his head, but there was little fight behind it. "Christ, mate, ye’ve barely cheated death once today, and already ye’re lookin’ for another go at it."
He looked directly at James. "Aye, count me in. If only to keep ye alive long enough for the rest of the week."
James turned back to Esperanza.
"Done, then. We’ll get your sister out, and you’ll get your cargo moved."
He spat into his palm and held out his hand, just as men struck bargains on the docks at Nassau.
Esperanza accepted it without hesitation. She spat into her own palm and closed her hand around his hard enough to make the promise plain.
By then, some relief finally loosened in her expression.
"Bueno."
She released him and reached for the shawl hanging over the back of her chair. "We don’t plan a jailbreak while sitting in a borrowed house, though. I’ve got a place of my own in this city, señor. That’s where we plan the rest of this."
⚔ [QUEST ISSUED]
The Jailbird Sister
Esperanza has a thriving smuggling trade, a network of contacts, and enough cargo through the city to make Ambrosio wish he’d thought of it first. All she needs is her sister back from a prison. In return, she’s offering a deal that could make a man very rich indeed, provided he doesn’t mind adding a jailbreak to his afternoon’s work.
Reward : 30 Fate
Reward : ???
I do recognize your title has always promised that other people’s troubles would find you eventually. I’ll admit I hadn’t expected you to go out and collect another one before the blood from the last had even finished drying.