Reborn as a Pirate Captain – My Journey to Build a Pirate Republic

By the time they had crossed most of Havana to get there, the sun was low enough to turn the rooftops orange, and Esperanza’s courtyard made Ambrosio’s look like a chicken yard the moment James laid eyes on it.

A woman by the wall weighed dark and fine object on brass scales, taking as much care as a jeweler with a diamond. Another checked crates against a record book with a stub of chalk, marking each before it disappeared into the storehouse. Similar scenes happened through the entire courtyard.

The whole place had an unexpected professionalism, especially for smugglers.

A physician had already been sent for, an old fellow with more grey in his eyebrows than hair left on his head. He cut away the bandage from James’s shoulder and pressed a thumb beside the wound hard enough to make James’s teeth meet.

Kit could not resist speaking. "He’s the man they’ve put forty thousand reales on, ye know. El Azote de las Antillas himself, and you’ve got him under your own thumb."

The old man grunted. "I’ve stitched three viceroys, an archbishop’s nephew, and a woman who bit her husband’s ear clean off. Reales don’t make the thread go in easier, muchacho."

Kit’s clicked his tongue, plainly expecting a little more ceremony.

The physician worked another minute, then sat back on his heels. "The shot grazed the meat and went clean through, missing bone and muscle nowhere. It’ll ache like the devil for a week or more, but you’ll survive."

He moved on to Jim without waiting for thanks, muttering how the cut across his ribs wanted stitches more for the appearance of the scar than for keeping him alive, then vanished before either man thought to pay him.

The crew sat at a table in the room behind the courtyard, where someone had already pinned a city chart flat with weights at all four corners.

Esperanza tapped the place with one finger. "They’ll have thrown my sister in the Cárcel Real, down by the cabildo at San Francisco. The very hole they use for drunks, debtors, and every sailor who’s ever put his fist through a tavern window."

Some of the strain left James’s shoulders. "Bloody hell, that ain’t the place to send some wee lass. And who’s watching the door, if it isn’t soldiers?"

Esperanza explained, "A turnkey drunk more nights than not, and about a dozen watchmen taking turns through the dark hours. Nobody there expects worse trouble than some fool bawling for his madre after one of his cellmates turned him into a prison wife."

She folded her arms and leaned back from the chart. "I’ll say it plain, since there’s no profit in pretending otherwise. I haven’t the hands for a job like this, nor the stomach for it, or Milagros would already be walking free and the lot of you would be halfway back to your ship."

"Aye, well."

James let a grin loose. "Lucky for you, you’ve found a man who’s built a whole career being a nosy bastard."

Kit was already off his bench, his hand dropping to the table excitedly, "We just march in and take her, Cap’n. It’s six of us against a turnkey and some drunk watchmen, simple as that."

Esperanza slapped his hand away from the table, "Simple as having the whole garrison crawling up your arse within the hour, and every one of ’em eager to find out who invited you."

She shook her head in exasperation.

"Might as well knock on the governor’s door and ask him to send the soldiers."

Jim leaned back with his cup, comfortable into the posture he always took when a story began taller than it had any right to. "Hear, I broke a lass loose from a Portuguese stockade once, in Recife. Just bribed the guard with a bottle of good rum and a story that she was me own wife."

"And did it work?" Sam asked.

"...Mostly."

James shook his head. "For one of your mad bastard stories, Jim, that counts as a bloody failure."

Ox spoke from his place against the wall without troubling to sit up.

"Burn it."

"And why not? We can bury my sister under the ash with the rest of them and call it a rescue."

Esperanza nearly threw a bottle at him.

"Brilliant, cabrón. Kill her yourself and save Ambrosio the trouble."

Barnaby crossed himself quickly before speaking.

Sam couldn’t help himself no longer, and facepalmed in resignation. "Well, this has been encouraging. We could storm the place, bribe ’em with Jim’s lies, burn down the street, or sit on our arses and pray for a miracle. At this rate, I’ll save the Spaniards the trouble and tie the bloody knot around my own neck."

James waited for the mood in the room turn from doubt into closer to real attention.

He leaned forward and put a finger on the jail itself.

"We’ll get ourselves arrested."

Kit’s whole face lit up.

"Cap’n, that’s mad. I love it already."

"Then what, stroll into the bastard place ourselves and let them lock us in beside her?"

Esperanza’s eyebrow climbed.

Sam eyes narrowed in that particular way they had when an idea was turning over behind them.

"...Go on, then."

"What crime gets a man there without anybody making much fuss about it?"

Esperanza counted it on one finger. "Drunk and brawling in the street. Happens a dozen times a week and nobody checks a drunken sailor’s face against some notice before morning, and only then if some bastard with enough coin complains loud enough."

Jim brightened at once. "Christ, Cap’n, that’s me natural condition, ye’ll not need to ask me twice."

"And where do they chuck the bastards?"

She raised a second finger. "One communal cell, packed in like sardines until they sort you out, close enough to smell your mate’s arse the whole bloody night."

Sam folded his arms. "Wonderful plan. Now tell me how men with empty hands and a locked iron gate behind them intend to walk back out, because I’ve not heard that part yet."

James clicked his tongue, his hand stopping just short of the cup.

I feel obliged to correct a rather unfortunate impression you seem to have of the shop, as it, it does not cheat its customers. If you purchase an item or information, you receive it, whether you’re standing in a comfortable room or packed three deep in a cell is, frankly, not my concern.

James let the thought sit a moment, then answered aloud with rather more confidence than the truth had earned.

"I’ve a contact in this city who can get what’s needed once we’re inside. Leave that part to me."

"Hm?"

Esperanza folded her arms again. "In my own city, señor, whom I’ve never once heard mentioned, and knowing rumors is half my trade."

Sam stared at him. "That’s twice now, Calloway. First some ’trustworthy’ smuggler, and now a contact nobody’s heard of either. I’m beginning to think you’ve got a whole crew of invisible friends tucked away for occasions like this."

James only grinned wider.

"A man is entitled to keep a few friends to himself, Sam."

Neither of them looked persuaded, but they didn’t bother to argue the point, either.

Esperanza rolled the chart shut and laid it aside.

"Then that’s what we’ll do."

She looked from James’s shoulder to Jim’s ribs. "The finer points can wait until healthier men are available to sort them. From the look of you two, it’ll take a few days before either is fit to be thrown anywhere at all."

"Aye."

Sam slapped a hand onto James’s good shoulder. "Nobody’s breaking anybody loose with a shoulder that’ll split open the first time some watchman gives him a shove, nor ribs that’ll do the same."

"Fair enough."

James breathed out, and there was more relief in it than he cared to show.

"We heal first. Then we get ourselves thrown into a Spanish gaol like sensible men."