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  “Good to s-see you a-awake, s-sir,” Harper stuttered, not meeting Archie’s gaze as he thrust a small loaf of bread out in front of him.

  “Yes,” Archie agreed. He, too, was pleased to be coherent. But instead of giving a flippant reply to the slight, nervous man who obviously felt responsible for his current predicament, Archie smiled and took the loaf, adding the warmest, most sincere thank you he could manage.

  It must have worked, as Harper returned his smile, and settled on the bench across from him, watching as Archie tore into the loaf with more enthusiasm than he thought was possible. The fact that he was oblivious to his hunger, and also that the bread was fresh, made it the best thing he’d eaten in his entire life.

  Within a few moments it was gone, followed by another swallow of rum and Archie felt his spirits somewhat restored. He turned his full attention on Harper, now intent on gleaning as much information from the man as he could.

  “My name is Jameson. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Harper. Jonathan H-Harper,” the man stuttered slightly.

  Archie smiled. “Well, Mr. Harper, I thank you kindly for that bread. It was wonderful.”

  “Welcome, sir.” Harper replied, still watching Archie warily, though he seemed at ease and his stuttering temporarily ceased.

  “Might you tell me a bit about this ship and where we might be headed?” Archie asked in such a genial manner one might have thought he inquired to the state of the weather outside.

  “Oh, aye, sir. We be on the Queen Anne’s Revenge with two hundred souls aboard under the watch of Cap’n Blackbeard. We be headed toward the Americas, I’d suppose.”

  “You’d suppose? You aren’t certain?”

  “No, sir.” Harper shook his head, sending a thatch of brown hair down into his eyes, making him seem very young. “I’ve only been here a couple months longer than you and the cap’n doesn’t tell us much as to where we’re goin’, but I’ve heard talk among the crew that he wanted to get back towards the Americas. S-something about a Lieutenant Maynard who wants his h-head on a s-spike.”

  “Well that would seem to be reason enough to leave in a hurry, I should think,” Archie mumbled. It would also account for the lack of cargo. He looked up at the squirrel of a man who stuttered again and shifted about on his seat. His face was younger than he had first thought. The perception of age came from the lines around his mouth, which was due in most part to the absence of teeth. But his eyes were as clear and brown as summer honey, and right now they regarded him with the curious caution of a child.

  “So, Harper, is it?” Archie smiled as the squirrel nodded. “Might I be so bold as to ask your age and why you’re on this ship?”

  “Sixteen. I’d be here for the same reason as you. But instead of drugging me like they did you, Caesar saw me looking at a paper and thought I was reading, so he swatted me with an oar as I walked by.” He pointed a finger to his mouth of missing teeth.

  Poor wee bugger, Archie thought, catching glimpses of a few teeth broken close to his gums. To be abducted for your ability to read and write was bad enough but to be kidnapped by a crushing blow from an oar when you could barely eek out a few simple sentences on a decree? That was most assuredly the worst luck, especially if you had your teeth intact to begin with. He wondered what would happen to the boy in front of him if the captain realized his literary skills were rather lacking. Those few remaining teeth would be doomed for sure. Well, one could hope things wouldn’t go that far. But if any of the rumors Archie heard of the dreaded pirate Blackbeard were anywhere close to being accurate, he was an even rougher character than his crew. And his crew? Well. They weren’t a tame bunch by any means, if the kidnapping old man and the oar-wielding Caesar were any example. Yes, there was more than sufficient reason for the boy in front of him to stutter.

  “This Caesar fellow sounds rather…” Archie frowned as he searched for an appropriate word. “Disturbing.”

  “Aye, you could say that,” Harper’s voice dropped to a whisper so low that Archie strained to hear him. “Black Caesar’s his name. He’d be Blackbeard’s bo’sun. And he’s got a soul as black as ’is skin so his name surely fits. Take my word; you don’t want to cross ’im. He’ll gut you and hang you from the yardarm faster than a wink. Pure evil, he is.”

  “I shall do my best to follow your advice,” Archie said.

  “There were women.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Archie focused on the squirrel again, wondering if the boy had all of his faculties in order, or if the oar took more than his teeth.

  The brown eyes that looked back at him glazed over, remembering as he repeated. “Women,” his voice came out in a low hiss, “he trapped over a hundred of ’em on an island. Stole ’em off ships that were passing through. He’d go off on raids, leave ’em locked up on his island with nothing to eat. Lots of ’em starved… died. They say his island is cursed, haunted with the souls of them women. They run him off. Only thing Caesar’s ’fraid of is evil spirits. That’s the reason he joined up with the cap’n, to get away from ’em.”

  “And your point is?” Archie said, mentally hop-scotching, trying to keep up with the boy.

  Harper tried to give him a carefree shrug, but the tense hold of his shoulders only hunched him forward, making him look even more defenseless. “I just wanted to warn you. Caesar’s an evil man. A cursed, evil man.”

  “Evil. Got it.” Archie gave him a quick, solemn-faced nod which earned him a small, toothless smile. It was then he realized he still hadn’t gleaned very much information from the boy in front of him other than that he was, indeed, only a boy, that their destination was rather vague, and that there was one pirate in particular (other than the one who drugged him) he should keep an eye on.

  He didn’t get to quiz the young man any further before shouted curses rang out overhead, and feet pounded across the deck, shaking a cloud of dust down from the beams over the cot. Looking rather alarmed, Harper jumped from his perch and flew up the steps faster than Archie thought possible.

  Well, no time like the present, he reasoned to himself as he stood from the cot, thankful that the teeter of his walk was due in most part to the rocking of the ship. The sun glared down at him from overhead, blinding him as he made his way up the stairs. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the scene around him. He gripped the railing on his right side, as crewmen whipped around him in a flurry of activity.

  “Ship off the port bow!” Came a bellow from overhead.

  Archie gripped the railing tighter as he looked up to see the man who shouted, standing on a small landing, high up on the mast, pointing at a small ship that bobbed along, a miniscule white speck on the deep blue sea.

  It was at this next moment Archie found himself wondering if perhaps the print shop might not be a safer haven than where he now stood as he spotted the man described by Harper as pure evil.

  “All hands to quarters! Let out the main sail!” The dark-skinned man barked orders as he stalked around the deck, a whip clutched in his hand. Faint blue lines swirled around his bare chest and arms, moving much like the ocean’s own tide. His muscles flexed while he delivered blows here and there, whip cracking on the backs of those too slow to do his bidding.

  Archie stared at him, completely fixated on the man with blue tattoos. So entranced he was, in fact, that he hadn’t even realized that in return, he gained the man’s attention by standing there—until it was too late.

  “Harper!”

  “A-aye, s-sir?” Harper materialized out of thin air, stuttering worse than before.

  “Take ’im with you and show him the ropes before I hang him from ’em!” the man snarled, sending a row of golden hoops swaying in his ears whilst giving Archie a rather disconcerting view of white teeth, which were filed to points. “Every man earns ’is keep on this ship. Off with you, before I take the skin from yer back.”

  “Aye, s-sir,” Harper mumbled, jerking Archie along to the rigging on the side of the bo
at as Caesar’s whip cracked on another pirate, “C-come on, then. We-we have to go up top and let o-out the sails.”

  Archie followed the boy to the side of the ship, to a confusing web of ropes that hung from the mast to the deck.

  Well, isn’t this lovely, he thought as he sighed in despair. He was by no means enthusiastic where heights were concerned. It wasn’t so much that he feared being so high up in the air, it was just that he had never been farther up than a simple ladder could take him. Oh, who was he kidding? He hadn’t been this afraid in his entire life! A fall from such a height would mean a quick and certain death, and that was one occasion he wished to avoid. He half-wondered if his chances would be better facing the sting of Caesar’s whip.

  Harper zipped up the rigging, climbing as if he were born a monkey. Archie gulped, then gripped the ropes, and started his perilous ascent. His feet slid around in the rungs and the rope bit into his hands, but still he held fast, making slow progress as he wished to be at the top and be done with whatever it was he was supposed to do to make the sail billow out into the wind.

  “Ach, ye fool,” the disgruntled pirate below him complained. “Hurry it up, then! That ship’ll be gone all way to Africa afore ye crawl yer arse up there.”

  Several more complaints were issued by the line of men behind him on the rope before Archie made it to the enormous beam, still holding onto the ropes for dear life. He ignored the cursing pirates beneath him and let out his breath. Yes, now it would be much better. All he had to do now was follow Harper and figure out how to let out that blasted sail.

  As he watched, Archie learned that the climb up to the mast was the easiest part of the task. Harper grabbed hold of the beam, bare feet walking easily out onto a single rope stretched beneath the mast with nothing at all holding him fast. He turned and gestured for Archie to follow his lead.

  He has to be joking, Archie thought as he stared at Harper in disbelief. They wanted him to walk out on a single rope with nothing to keep him from falling? It was fool’s errand. Pure insanity. The squirrel had obviously lost all of his marbles.

  “Hurry ye up, ye yellow-bellied coward,” the pirate below him snarled, apparently in a hurry to join Harper for their suicidal walk along the mast.

  Well, all the pirates below him were insane, too. Every one of them nuts, Archie concluded. He hadn’t joined a pirate ship. Nay, ’twas a circus.

  “Your shoes.” Harper pointed to the buckled, black leather on his feet. “Take ’em off. Should’ve done took ’em off first thing. Be quick now and throw ’em down.”

  “Aye, before we throw ye down!” the man below him threatened, grabbing hold of Archie’s feet and jerking off his shoes before he could object. Luckily, he had a good hold on the ropes before his feet were pulled from beneath him. Two hollow thuds sounded as his shoes landed far below him on the deck. Archie wondered if that was the same sound his skull was going to make when he landed between his shoes.

  A rough hand grabbed hold of the seat of his breeches and shoved him upward, pushing him the last few inches until he found himself on the same foot rope as Harper with the pirates behind him, pushing him along, leaving him no choice but to follow the boy. He gripped the rough rope with his bare toes as he clung to the beam in front of him. He was surprised when he didn’t slip. He scooted along after Harper, ignoring the sharp twinges as the rope cut into his tender flesh of his feet. It was much easier walking on this single rope with no shoes, than it had been climbing up the rigging with the slick-soled leather on.

  “Aye, that’s good then,” Harper said as they reached the center of the mast, “Now we loose the sail. Untie the reef points.”

  Archie watched a full second as Harper grabbed hold of one of the leather ties that bound the sail around the mast. He was quick, and within a second, the first was untied and he moved on to the next one. Archie’s fingers found the tie in front of him and untwisted the leather. With the quick work of the pirates on either side of him, it took merely a moment until the canvas sail came free and caught in the wind.

  “Hold fast.” Harper instructed, motioning to the thick, wooden yard as Archie felt the lurch of the ship as the wind hit her sails and they began their pursuit of the white speck on the sea.

  “Hoist the colors,” came another order from below.

  Archie looked down at the quarterdeck to the frightening sight of the captain of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, dressed in his finest. Archie watched as he turned, looking every inch a pirate king, from his fine-feathered hat to his boots. The sound of the flag being raised registered dimly in his mind as the captain turned his black gaze up to the mast.

  Seconds later, Archie’s view was blocked by a black flag depicting a skeleton spearing a heart with one hand while toasting the devil with the other. But in those few seconds before, he spotted the fuses lit in the black beard that sent wisps of smoke about the captain’s head, and saw no traces of mercy in the dark eyes that met his.

  Archie wondered if maybe the flag’s bones weren’t toasting the captain himself.

  3

  We Shall Have Tea

  ARCHIBALD WAS MOST impressed with the Queen Anne’s Revenge. Within moments of climbing back down the rigging, the Dutch fluyt came into sight, bobbing along close enough that he could see the panicked faces of her crew scurrying about on her deck in vain efforts to flee.

  And very well troubled they should be, Archie reasoned. It was quite sensible of them to be so. The Dutch ship was by no means small, but the Anne made her look like a small, inadequate dinghy in comparison. With three giant masts whose sails were taut in the wind, she was swooping in on the smaller ship at an impressive speed. Then, of course, there were forty guns on board, add in three times the hands on deck (and ferocious hands they were, to boot), and a captain who looked as if he had just surfaced from the depths of hell on a mission to consume the soul of the merchant ship. Yes, if those Dutchmen were in their right minds, they were terrified.

  Archie stood out of the way, and tried to look as unassuming as possible as a variety of menacing pirates whipped around him. If he was lucky, they would ignore his presence and he wouldn’t be pressed into another task that would leave him weak-kneed and bereft of any more odd articles of clothing. Namely, his shoes that he still hadn’t been able to find. He hoped that he wouldn’t need them anytime soon. But if he were going to be forced to engage the enemy in combat, he preferred to have them on. It wasn’t that he minded standing on the smooth wood of the deck in his bare toes. The truth of the matter was that he felt if fate should decide he would meet his end this day, he wished to have all that he had come onto this ship with, however little it would be.

  That included his shoes.

  He craned his neck, trying to spot them between the various bodies that ran about. At least it didn’t appear anyone had stolen them. Nearly all the feet he saw were bare, save the captain in his booted splendor.

  He spotted one shoe near the quarterdeck, and so he eased himself along until he reached it and snatched it up, feeling somewhat better. As to its mate, he gave up hope of ever finding it, and resumed his task of looking as inconspicuous as possible since he gained the attention of a couple of swarthy-looking lads while on his quest to recover that one shoe.

  “Fire a warning shot off her bow, if ye please, Mr. Moreau,” the captain folded his hands behind his back, looking every part the crazed gentlemen with fuses lit in his beard as he addressed someone on deck.

  “Aye, Capitan,” the man spoke with a definite French accent. His black, curl-covered head was bent over an enormous cannon as he peered across the sea, carefully gauging the distance so as not to accidentally blow a hole in the other ship.

  After all, what kind of warning would they be sending if they sunk yon ship with the first blast? Archie smiled to himself as he wondered if that particular scenario ever happened.

  But he didn’t get to see it occur this time, because seconds later, after he gauged his distance, the curly-headed man jum
ped back, yelling his order, “Fire!”

  The hot linstock touched the cannon and the cannon fired, recoiling several feet back to be caught by several ropes so as to keep it from rolling across the ship and squashing those so unfortunate to be in its path. The most unfortunate of all, being Archie, who seemed to be in adventure’s way once again as in that instant he happened to spot his other shoe through the cloud of grey smoke, a few feet away near the cannon.

  Forgetting his previous goal of looking invisible, he was close to his shoe, when a whip cracked the air and a deep voice bellowed, “Ye had a warning.”

  Archie looked up to see Caesar, arm raised to lower the whip on him when the man who ordered the cannon’s blast stepped in Caesar’s path, catching his arm with not a second to spare.

  “The man has not signed the book,” he said in a tone that dared Caesar to contradict him. “So until the capitan says otherwise, he does not get treated as part of the crew. Strike him and you shall break the code. Then you’ll face me.”

  Caesar never uttered a word as he lowered his whip. He glared at the man for a moment, then turned, taking his fury to the other end of the ship where several other pirates felt his wrath.

  “Here you are, mon ami.” The man smiled at him, handing him the shoe. “I am Philip Moreau, at your service.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Archie said, “I am Archibald Jameson.” This man, he decided, was worthy to know his full name.

  “Well, Mr. Jameson, might I suggest that you take greater care once you have joined us that you do not attract the end of Caesar’s whip. It carries a most terrible sting.”

  Archie nodded. He had no intention of being Black Caesar’s whipping boy.

  “Mr. Moreau.” The captain’s black eyes found his first mate. “If you are finished distributing pleasantries and footwear, would you be so kind as to join me on the quarterdeck?” He turned to look at the fluyt, which offered surrender upon the cannon’s blast; a white flag now flapped amongst her sails. “Company, we’ll be havin’ soon.”