Here in the bowels of New Providence gaol, the fresh ocean scent and the sun of the Bahamas is far from your face, and the coconut trees and flashes of yellow canaries removed so far as to be in another world beyond an iron-barred gate. My poor Mary, once and forever my constant companion, suffers the gaol fever, and her belly stretches taut over her own child as she murmurs on her cot, wasting away; she will doubtless escape into the grave ere spring gives way to summer. My lad Tommy, once our cabin boy and pet, bathes her face when she allows it. He, at least, will be spared because of youth. They will only sell him to the Virginias to pay his debt to gaol, where he'll toil as an indentured servant and, if he's lucky enough to survive the malaria and hard work, someday be set free. Me, I''ll be hung, sure. I shot the officer who boarded and arrested us at the last, and he was angry. Papa works tirelessly to have me freed and sent back to the Carolinas , but his brogue works against him even as his wealth works for him. He'll have the child, though, and I'll never see him grow, never take him to the fo'c'sle of a ship to feel the freshening breeze, not get the chance to raise him to be a better man than his father. Nor is he like to taste the freedom of the open ocean. Papa won't make that mistake twice. No, Papa will raise him sober and serious, to be the boy child and heir he never had with me, to count the money and the slaves and never for a minute think to question it all. He will never shake the chains of this world, not til he shucks them entire as I will three days after his birth. Perhaps it would be better if he were to die with me, Anne Bonny, born Anne Cormac, infamous pirate. Poor babe. Mary murmurs again in her sleep, tossing over, her hand falling to brush the straw of the filthy floor. Tommy lays it back on her tight belly, gently. Her skin is yellowing in the little light we have, and I think the babe has not moved for three days. She won't be long for this world. My Mary, the sister I never had. “Give over, lad. All we can do is make her comfortable now.” “Me mam could save her, Cap.” “Your mam is dead, lad, three years gone.” “But she could have done it.” I nodded, not wanting to argue. His face was pale and strained. Tommy was no more than ten, and Mary and I had mothered him from the day he boarded with us, a wharf rat whose whore mother had died in the arms of one of our crewmen -- not at Harry's hands, mind, but of consumption, poor thing. Harry didn't know what to do with the boy, and having been an orphan himself was reluctant to leave him behind. So we got a cabin boy. His mother had been a drunken whore, but she was a decent woman according to the men who had gone to her, and one could not blame the lad for missing her. And here he watched another mother die before him, and would see me die as well before the year was out. He needed to think of other things. I cast about, and could come up with one thing only, for it was much on my mind: Myself. “Let me tell you a tale, lad, for it will take your mind from your troubles and calm your weary heart. Would you like to know my story?” He settled against Mary's cot, stroking her senseless hand, and his blue eyes fixed on me. He looked a little feverish himself, worrying me. But he nodded, and I began. |
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