Chapter 8

"The Heart of a Pirate: The Tale of Anne Bonny" is part of a 25 chapter serial fiction work co-sponsored by The Writing Salon and OurEcho. The work is being written by Jamie Wilson and edited by Allegra Huston.

As part of this of this project, we have developed a homepage specifically for the project to enhance the mood and allow you to lose yourself in the story. All chapters will be posted into the traditional OurEcho intereface, but we invite you to check out The Heart of a Pirate homepage - The Heart of a Pirate.

Chapter 8

That day in the bar marked the beginning of our love, Jack and me. The next morning, I woke to the sound of the door closing, a slow creak on wooden hinges, though James was still abed with me, shoved up as far as he could go against the wall. It was not yet dawn, though pale trickles of light leaked through the cracks in my shutters. I wrapped a blanket round my naked body and padded over to the door.

Leaning up against the frame just on the inside was a long scabbard, with a blood red rose tucked in the top next the sword. I ignored the flower and drew the blade. A pirate's cutlass, it was, bone handled and lean, short to be easy to handle amid spars and rope. The edge was so sharp it sparked in the weak dawn light. I touched it gingerly, scraping my thumb gently against the blade. It would go through a man, I thought, and he'd not even feel it til the blood started to flow. I stood and took the first fencing stance. I had never handled a cutlass, but it was not so different from a heavy rapier. It had beautiful balance, and I swished it through an invisible opponent's guard. It wasn't a sword. It was an instrument of art.

Bound to the cutlass with twine was a long dagger, almost a dirk, and a note: "For the next one who molests you."

I heard a sound behind me; it was James, of course, scowling as usual as he rubbed his eyes. "A fine toy for a woman."

"I'd lay odds to you that I could beat any man approached me."

"You've had training?"

"I bested my master last year. Only fenced to stay in practice after that."

His lip curled and he turned to the fireplace, busying himself with coffee. How had he afforded that, I wondered. "No wonder you're so mannish. Women should be kept to womanly things."

I ignored him. He could hardly spoil my pleasure in such a fine blade.

I asked Pierre for the finest hat he owned. Clapping his hands in delight, he sat me down and topped my head with a dizzying array of hats and caps and bonnets, most of them unsuitable to me. We settled on a masculine flat-topped, wide-brimmed beaver decorated with long plumes from peacocks and ostriches. "Tres enchante, darling."

I straightened my hair beneath it, admiring my reflection. Beneath the soft blue velvet lining, my red curls were banked coals, shadows with sudden sharp sparks gleaming through. "You're undercharging me for this."

He winked. "Consider it advertising. And good business. Calico Jack has spent many a penny in my shop, and it pleases me to please him. He left you a message."

I suspected he'd also left a purse with Pierre. The milliner was a dear man, but a sharp businessman, and would hardly sell me a hat worth five guineas for only one. "Did he, then?"

"To meet him at the Cork today at noon."

"Ah." I was young, but I was no fool. Meeting Jack today would be the same as agreeing to start an affaire de coeur. I would be breaking my marriage vows just as Papa had before me.

Yet Papa found joy in his second wife, not his first. I suppose I am not so unlike my father. He, like I, was a fool the first time. The second time was his true love. And my second would be mine.

Jack was as good as his word. I had to tilt my head a bit to fit the silly hat through the door of the Cork. My eyes took a moment to adjust, and I realized quite suddenly that Jack was staring at me from the back. He raised a bottle to me, eyes sparkling as he stared, stopping at my waist where I'd buckled the sword over my skirt. That, doubtless, drew more stares than the hat. I smiled back at him.

"I hear you had a successful voyage last time out."

He poured me a cup -- a French burgundy, hard to come by here. "I had a very successful voyage. My men are in town wasting their takings on the doxies."

"While you waste yours on a married woman?"

He grinned. "Try the wine. I took it from the captain's cabin."

"Didn't you take the pledge?"

"I never meant to keep it."

"Scoundrel."

"Does this mean you're returning the sword?"

"No."

"Good."

The wine was just as I remembered it, dark and rich, and I closed my eyes as it coated my throat. "Very nice. The captain had good taste."

"I wonder, Anne, if I could coax you to give me a gift?"

There was no reason to act coy; I knew what he meant. Looking into his dark eyes, the way he appreciated me -- so unlike my husband -- his strong hands on the table, I could not say no. I leaned forward and kissed him, holding the silly hat on with one hand. He tasted of the wine we were both drinking, and I felt my breath grow shallow. When I moved back, I saw his eyes were closed as well. He opened them with some difficulty.

I leaned back into his dazed arms, uncaring of who saw. But I did no more that day, only an innocent kiss and cuddle. I was still a faithful wife.

While I was kissing Jack, my husband was off to his new job, the worm. Governor Woodes Rogers had hired him to seek out and report pirates who refused the oath, or those who took the oath and then refused to keep it. I cannot blame the governor, for he did his duty, and he did it well. James Bonny, on the other hand, was a weasel.

He gathered information thusly: he would head to a tavern and start drinking, feigning to be more drunk than he truly was. Looking about, he'd find a seaman who looked fresh off a boat -- they were easy enough to spot by the briny residue in their hair. He'd buy the man a drink, and start chatting. James is a charmer, and it was simple to get the sailor to talk. He'd tell about some of his run-ins with pirates, and if the man found it funny, he'd talk about being a pirate. That and the drink got them to talk every time.

The next morning, he'd repeat to the governor's men all the tales he'd heard the night before, and he'd get a fair fee for his treachery. Even so, Pierre was lucky to get the rent out of him, and my wages paid for everything else, for he always stopped at the taverns first.

This night in particular, James came in stinking of rum, and crept beneath the sheets. I shoved him over, for he didn't even bother to remove his boots first.

"Give over, Annie. You know you love me."

"I know no such thing, you stinking drunk."

He got me by surprise then, whipping over with the deliberate speed of one who'd planned it. "Is it that damned pirate?" His breath stank.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I have spies in the King's Head, Annie, just as I have spies all over New Providence. And they told me what they saw."

I could not suppress a tremor of guilt. "And what of it? It was a harmless kiss, nothing more."

"You're my wife," he said with a low growl. "I will allow many things, but you will not cuckold me."

"How dare you!" I shouted, and with a shove tossed him onto the floor. "I adhere to my oaths, unlike many, and I've heard you frequent the docks more than you ought."

"In the course of my work!"

"A more despicable employment I have never heard of."

"But about Rackham, dear wife. Perhaps I should have a word with the governor about him as well."

"You're a bastard, James Bonny."

"Likewise, Mrs. Bonny. You should share my bed this night, and think on it in the morrow. Or I could deliver you up to your loving Papa, so he can give you over to that corpse of a man he's chosen for you."

"I shall tell the governor you are a liar." I rose and pulled the sheets about my body, stopping to snatch up the sword and the clothes it lay on top of . "Enjoy lying in your own filth. I'll not stay in it with you."

Pierre found me asleep on the floor of his shop when he came in the next day. He said not a word, only ordered one of his mulatto servants to fill a bath and freshen and press my dress, and then wrote a note to Jack, though I didn't know it. I was glad of the fresh clothes when I looked up to see Jack's affectionate grin. He touched my cheek.

"Annie, darlin'. Here I am for you."

I sniffed and turned away from him. "Much good you've done me so far, Jack Rackham."

"But I have come to take you away from this. How long since you've been out sailing?"

Twice in a row, Jack had hit upon my greatest weaknesses, all by observing my hands. Besides the calluses I bore from swordplay, I had rough palms and fingers from playing rope on my ship back in Charleston, that other lifetime ago. I missed it, the sway and rock of the sea, the challenge of battling the wind to aim myself where I wanted to go.

He knew he had me, too. "Ah, the seas here are so blue and warm, and you can see coral down twenty fathom. A hundred islands or more were scattered here by God, and all with the most perfect beaches and cays you ever saw. Oysters next the beach can be had for wading, and they're full of pearls." He paused and looked thoughtful. "But you don't have to join me if you don't wish."

"Jack Rackham, you had better not lead me on to think of sailing and then not take me."

"Have you anything suitable to wear? That dress won't do."

I looked at the faded blue skirt. "You're right. Pierre?"

He sighed and made a face. "Not my clothes. Jim, is there anything in the ragbag suitable for this hoyden to go sailing in?"

His mulatto servant returned a few moments later with a muslin shirt and tattered red-striped pants. "From that seaman last month."

"They hanged him. Piracy. He looked marvelous in the satin breeches I made him."

I looked at the clothes and smiled. "They'll do me fine."

It was a beautiful day, and the little Jamaican sloop was bobbing in slightly-choppy water where she stood at dock, both sails furled yet. Jack handed me in, tossing in a few fishing lines before he slipped in after me, and then cast off the rope to shove out into the harbor. We hardly had to row at all, the breeze was so fresh, and in only a few minutes we were sailing from the low-draft harbor that Nassau was blessed with. Jack handled the sails while he shouted directions to me at the wooden tiller. I was rusty at first, but all the handling of it came back to me fast, the simple 30-foot boat skimming over the waves before the wind.

It was amazing, the wind in my teeth and the brilliant sun on my back and in my eyes. I hadn't realized that the waters around Nassau were so blue and green, the coral reefs dancing with bright-colored fish so close to the surface. We sailed north, and then east around the island toward the other bits of land that made up Bermuda, with Jack joking the whole time when he wasn't trimming and adjusting sail.

"Saw a mermaid out there once on that rock, sunning herself."

"You never."

"You don't believe in mermaids? Oh, my dear lady! The tales I could tell you -- the time a sea serpent almost shivered the ship apart, the seaweed in some areas that traps and chokes a boat, the squid I once saw swallow down a whale. There was a little sailor I once knew who fell overboard. When we realized and went back, he was surrounded by dolphins who were fending off the sharks."

That I believed, for I'd seen dolphins attack sharks before, with a vicious hate almost unmatched by humans. "I don't believe in sea monsters or mystical beasts. It's nonsense. Storms and waves are more than enough to remove most any ship -- not to mention pirates."

Jack grinned at that. "Pirates like me, you mean?"

"I never meant --"

"Enough. I am a pirate. I don't mean to stop. It's a pleasant way of life for me."

"You like killing and murdering people?" I was appalled.

"I've never killed man nor woman. Never even laid hand on a woman to do her harm."

"That can't be true."

"Pirates are wise to not do battle. You show your colors, you run out your guns, and you wait for your prey to surrender. Remember, my little fighter, never do battle unless you must."

That gave me something to think about. I knew, of course, that pirates were villainous liars. But I also knew they were proud of their violent reputation -- why would Jack lie about it? Unless he thought it would impress me, that it made him more a gentleman than an outlaw. "So you never --"

"Hold." Jack held his arm up, sniffing the air, then scurried to the sails. "See that?" he shouted back at me.

I looked toward the east. Boiling up on the horizon, black clouds shaded the brilliance of the sea in the distance. I felt my stomach flutter. We were a good two hours out from Nassau, straight into what I figured was open sea. "We'll need to run before it!"

"No, no, we'll beach her." I shook my head as Jack adjusted sail and told me to steer ten degrees starboard, but I saw no real choice. There could be but one captain on any ship. As we started turning, the ship lurched to port, the wind catching it hard, and my hair began to whip about my head, pulling loose from the braids I'd tied up that morning. "Just a few minutes, just a few."

I gritted my teeth as we ran into the face of the wind, the water growing choppy and dull, but Jack was right. Only a minute or two later I could see the white line of sand beach before us. Jack started dropping sail right off, then tossed out weights to drag us so we wouldn't be carried too far with the current. It was useless, I saw myself, as the storm neared us.

"Steer just to the north of what you see. The current'll take us directly to Crescent Island."

I could barely hear him, but I nodded. Crescent Island -- I'd never heard of it. He took over the helm, tossing me an oilcloth to huddle under as the winds started carrying a cold rain, and we tacked into the storm on light sail, at last careening the boat over on a white beach at the top of a generous little bay. I helped Jack pull her as far up the sand as we could, keeping her safe from the rising water, and by the time we were done I was soaked. "Who lives here on the island? Will they have a fire?"

Jack had to shout back to be heard over the rising winds. "I have a place further in."

He had a place? But I followed him, slipping over rocks and trees to a little rock cabin tucked under a ledge and with sand heaped on all sides. Jack noticed my glance and nodded. "Windproofs it. Rocks won't fall with sand all about. Though I have to shovel it out every month or so."

I slipped inside after him, and let my eyes adjust while he went for a lantern. The cabin was larger than I'd figured on, with three tiny rooms half underground, and there was a full complement of pots and pans over the fireplace. I knelt to light the fire, but Jack stopped me, holding his lantern up. "It's not a good chimney during a storm. Besides, we don't need a fire." He tossed a blanket down at my feet. "D'you trust my honor? I won't lay a hand on you, Anne Bonny. You're another man's wife."

I looked him straight in the eye. "At the moment, it's not your honor I'm worried about, but my own weakness."

That raised his eyebrows. But it was true. In the time we'd been married, what had James Bonny done for me? Been a millstone. He would not support me, he carried me away from my loving -- though misguided -- father, and he would have abused me if given the chance.

On the other hand, Jack was giving me the wooing I desired and certainly deserved. Where Bonny gave me hateful words, those from Jack were sweet and kind. When Bonny would turn away from me, Jack protected. And hadn't he given me the finest sword in the world?

Women can be foolish. I'm no different from any other. But I was also more honorable than the men I knew, and I would not break a vow. We huddled together in our wet undergarments, laughing and talking and kissing just a little, and it was two hours later when we realized that the storm had blown over and the sun was back out. There was scarcely time to dry our clothes a little before we had to leave to beat the sunset.

Had I known what I'd find back in New Providence, I would have stayed longer, I think. It was the last time I would be so free in my life.

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Story ID:	1755
Written by:	Jamie Kai Wilson (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	The Heart of a Pirate
Location:	New Providence Bahamas
Year:	1720
Person:	Anne Bonny