Chapter 164: An Audience with the Governor
The door swung inward with a groan from its old hinges, and a shove planted between James’s shoulder blades sent him stumbling into the room. He hissed through his teeth and kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.
Milagros came in a step behind him, her chains rattling at every stride, while the two guards behind her showed no interest whatsoever in waiting for either prisoner to catch up with anything.
The room had been made for this sort of business, and had apparently been making itself intimate at it for some time. A table broad enough for the officers’ mess of a whole ship stood between the door and the wall, with harbor charts spread across it flatly.
Above the chair behind the table hung the arms of Spain, carved, gilded, and large enough to make the shuttered window beside them look like an afterthought. Through the gap in the shutters James could just see a strip of black sea.
Ambrosio stood close enough to the table to make his presence official, while Capitán Ortega kept his place near the door like his chief talent was making sure nobody went through it without permission.
In the chair sat a large, broad man with one hand spread over the charts. He looked as if he had been waiting there for hours, though it had only been moments. His clothes were rich without being foolish about it, and he wore his new authority like a coat fresh from the tailor, still awkwardly, perhaps, but already convinced it had been made for him.
James looked the whole room over once, then gave a low whistle. "Well, well. Ain’t this a handsome little kingdom you’ve got here? Pity I had to see it with irons on."
The man picked up a scrap of paper from the charts and read it without hurry.
Only when he was done he replied, his English flat and arrogant. "I am Vicente de Raja, by the grace of His Catholic Majesty and by the authority vested in me by the Crown, Governor and Captain General of Cuba.
He let the title carry the weight by itself. "Engrave the name upon what remains of your degenerate memory, pirata, for you will remember it well before you repent for your sins in Hell."
James laughed despite the chain biting into his wrists. "Hell? No, thank you. Caribbean’s hot enough for a man without the Devil stokin’ the bloody fire."
De Raja gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. "You can still find the wit to jest? Remarkable. Tell me, pirata, does nothing frighten you? I need only raise a finger, and all your swagger, all your boasts, all this foolish amusement of yours are swept away like dust before the wind. Does that not make you afraid?"
"Oh, aye, plenty of things frighten me."
James let out a thoughtful hum. "Waking up without a good bottle of rum beside me, for one, or spending a month without laboring between the sheets with my fierce Bonny would have me properly terrified, if you get me."
He gave the governor a knowing wink.
"But death? Hell? No, Governor. Those don’t trouble me half so much."
Ambrosio stepped forward half a pace.
"If I may, Excelencia."
He spread both hands as though the words had been building pressure inside him and were liable to burst out without permission. "The capture was no small matter. I confronted him myself, alone in my own home, and when he tried to flee, I put a shot in his shoulder before my men could track him down."
James looked at him. There was disbelief in the gaze, and a little grim amusement, but no answer.
De Raja looked from one man to the other, plainly waiting for the proper amount of fear or admiration.
"Curious. I had heard rather different tales of the Azote."
Ambrosio turned his attention to Milagros, and the smile he gave her was cold and ugly.
"And this one, Excelencia. My evidence against her is well-documented, plain as..."
Her chains let out a hard rattle as Milagros cut him off. "Plain as what, gordo? Plain as the lie you pulled out of your fat arse? You strut in here with that greasy smile and call yourself a witness, when every fool in the city knows you’re nothing but a puffed-up little rat who learned to suck the right pricks."
De Raja’s hand struck the table hard enough to send a tremor through the charts.
"Enough, insolente. You will speak when your betters permit it."
"Ah, forgive me, Excelencia. I forgot I was supposed to tremble."
She dipped her head as far as the chains allowed, then looked up at him with a wicked little smile.
James let out a low chuckle. "Easy, Governor. If the truth’s got you bristlin’ that badly, perhaps your witness oughtn’t be such an easy man to insult."
The governor’s face lost a little of its good humor.
"Silence."
He turned his attention to James, "The bounty on your head. I placed that price myself, and now, looking at you, I find I have been most ungenerous with the Crown’s money. You are worth a fraction of it, pirata. Perhaps not even that."
"Even so, I’m truly flattered. Can’t say me own mother ever thought me worth so much."
De Raja’s patience finally went clean out the door. He laid the paper aside, put one hand flat on the table, and pushed himself to his feet. "A pirate and a gutter-bred accomplice, fit for nothing better than the rope. Before this week is out, my city will watch the two miserable excuses for human beings you are swing from the gallows, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing your kind put back in its proper place."
James gave him a small nod, as calm as being told supper would be served shortly.
"Christ, that’s a bloody efficient timeline. I respect a man who doesn’t dawdle."
De Raja jerked his chin toward the door.
The guards came at once, each seizing an arm and dragging the prisoners toward it. Whatever pretense there had been of an escort was gone now.
James’s wounded shoulder complained immediately, and this time it complained loud enough to get a wince out of him. The guard’s grip had landed right across the wound, which was an unfortunate way of making a bad day worse.
"Easy on the arm, lads." James’s voice came out tighter than he’d intended.
The guards ignored him. Apparently his shoulder had failed to impress them.
Ambrosio and Ortega remained beside the governor, neither made any move to follow.
The door shut behind them with a heavy sound that had all the finality a door could reasonably manage.
Beyond it, the corridor was narrow and lit by torches, and the guards kept their grips hard on their arms as they marched them along.
Milagros bent her head toward James until her chains shifted with the movement, then lowered her voice enough that the guards ahead and behind had no reason to hear it.
"So, what’s the plan, señor? For all that confidence, you’ve surely got a way out of this, haven’t you?"
James only smiled.
"Who says I’ve got one at all?"
Near his wrist, hidden well enough that neither guard even bothered to look, the lock inside his chains answered with a small, unmistakable click.