Chapter 1

"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 in the traditional OurEcho intereface, but we invite you to check out The Heart of a Pirate homepage - The Heart of a Pirate.

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.

****

I was conceived in County Cork in the old country, and me mother was a bonny lass, waiting-maid to a wealthy lady there. Even in her later years, before she died of a fever, she had a swing to her hips and a bright twinkle to her eyes that drew men. It was no wonder my father wanted her, though he was wrong to her.

It started innocent, though it did not continue innocent, with a wink and a twitter, a whispered confidence and then later a dark room far from the household. Papa was not a man to be gainsaid, and when he left his wife's party for my mother''s arms it was inevitable that he'd continue what he started, though it was madness. They used the French letter and vinegared sponge to conceal their sins, but I was ever a stubborn lass, and besides was conceived that first time, I think, when nothing at all was used.

Papa was born a commoner. He was bright and ambitious, and attended university on a scholarship. But he chose not to clerk his way through life, as most scholarship boys would. Instead, he took a grand chance on an India trading ship, and it came back laden with spices and tea, and he made a tidy sum to add to his mother's inheritance, and his salary as a solicitor besides. His wife was a cold dry stick and not terribly pretty, or so Mama told me, but she was the youngest daughter of a baron and had no prospects other than marrying a rich man, even though he was not so much as a Mister.

Papa was raised in the common ways, though, not in the ways of the well-born, and he expected a wife to share his life and his bed, though she might be reluctant at first. This one was above that. She was a whining nag and scarcely gave in to him at all in bed.

But worse, she had long carried a desire for another young man in the area, one of the few titled gentlemen who lived near. As a nobleman, it was right and proper that he be invited to all the parties, and when Papa's wife had a party, she always drifted to this young man's side, hanging on his arm, laughing at his witticisms and seeming struck by the wisdom of his every word. Papa, poor fellow, could barely get his own wife to notice him.

One evening, by all accounts, it was worse than ever. She had drunk far too much wine, and the young lord grew very familiar with her, stooping to kiss her on the lips when they went out for air, though he thought none was watching. Papa was not used to the ways of the nobility, and though he did not dare speak up, he felt a rage rising in his belly.

Ah, Papa. I can so easily imagine it. He is a good man, but often unkind and closed to the wants of others, and he is certainly not to be told no when he's in this mood. I crossed him myself the last time I saw him outside these gaol walls, and I've no desire to cross him again. This night, though, he was rightfully enraged, and stormed out of the party into the dim hallways of the house. He thought to walk off his rage and take his wife to bed for to claim his rights, as he ever had in these situations. And after she'd been around the nobleman, his wife would not tell him no.

This night, though, was different. In the dark halls of the house, he saw lamplight on fox-red hair as my mother trimmed wicks; he saw her white lace undergarments as she stretched tall, and smelled her light fresh scent. He'd admired her before, but innocent-like, as all men do. But tonight was not a night of innocence. This night, he saw my mother in all her fey beauty, and his mind became that of a madman.

“Peg. Bonny Peg.”

Mama turned enough to bump right into him, and doubtless realized immediately her predicament. “Sir!”

“Peg, you're my maidservant. Serve me, for I need you.”

She paled, or blushed, the stories vary. “I've a young man in town, sir, and we're to marry this June. You should keep to your own marriage bed, sir!”

“Ah, Peg, my bed is cold and barren, and my wife is cold and barren, and you, Peg with your cinnamon hair, you're warm and soft.” And he took her in his arms.

Well, and what was Mama to do? It was as much as her life was worth to say no to a wealthy man, for she'd be turned out without a reference and there were no jobs in the country. He flipped up her skirt and took her there, in the darkened hallway and her with a taper still in her hand, though the flame was out. It didn't take long, and when it was done, my Mama with her tearstained face was no longer a virgin, and would be a mother in nine months.

****

Pa returned to his senses when he saw her crouching before him weeping, and as ever after his rages and madness, he felt terrible. He brushed her hair from her face and took her hand, raised her to her feet and comforted her. And then he took her into his arms and made mad promises, swearing to love and to cherish her, and to care for her no matter what, and anything that might happen from their joining he'd care for too.

Well, Peg was from a harsh family. She was the youngest of fifteen, three of whom died before she left home, and her father and her mother and several of her older siblings had cuffed and shoved her aside and away from food or love or warmth more times than you could count. Though Pa had treated her harsh, she felt her heart soften at his promises of love and comfort, and she clung to him. She married him then and there in her heart

And then they were torn apart, for a cry rose up from the party on the ground floor below. Papa's wife had fainted from heat, and was ill with a sudden fever.

She was sent off to her mam's, and Peg stayed behind to care for the household in her place. But really, she cared for her marriage bed, for Peg was the new comfort of her master. And she said that she was happy enough, though she had to tell her young man in the town that she was her master's mistress, and I understand he was quite upset about that. And then she found she was carrying a babe beneath her breast, French letters notwithstanding, and it was naught but a great relief that her master was willing to care for her.

But marry her he could not. He was wealthy, sure, but the money he'd made speculating on India trade was invested in ships that were out to sea, and to divorce his current wife would be as much as he was worth. It was her inheritance they lived on for the year or so until -- and if -- the ships returned; even then our brethren, the rogues of the sea, were hard at making their living.

His wife was sick for a good long time, and while she was not there, Peg was taken abed and gave birth down in the village. I suspect the wife didn't want to face those duties she was bound to by her own vows, and preferred mooning over her nobleman. But Peg had given her master a baby, and the child looked enough like the master that she raised brows. See, I've me mam's red hair and light skin, but my papa's green eyes grace my face, and my smile and nose are his as well.

Papa did not see it, though he knew full well I was his. His wife could see perfectly well, and she could hear the gossip that swirled about her, and she composed a plan. She could forgive a single transgression by her husband; she had, after all, been away for nearly a year. But she saw the change in Peg, the singing and cheerfulness in her face, and it seemed nothing like the actions of a woman jilted but rather those of a woman being well loved.

So she sent Peg to Cork market one day, and told her to stay the night with her parents, and she took herself to hide in Peg's bed, knowing her husband would not seek her own bed and thus would not miss her absence. This, she thought, would tell her for certain whether he was faithful. For she thought even then she might be imagining things, and that her husband was faithful to her. In Peg's warm bed, she drifted to sleep, only to be awakened by a pair of cold arms embracing her, and her husband''s own voice whispering, “Ah, Peg,” in her ear with whiskey-soaked breath!

She dared not give herself away. She was familiar with her husband's temper, and did not dare ire it when he was clearly drunk. He'd been tolerant with her until now, and she had no desire to change that. So she remained quiet, even as his hands and lips searched her body and did things to her she'd never have allowed normally. For Papa was not shy, but bawdy and adventurous, and he loved dearly to please my mama.

So Papa's wife was loved with a love she'd never known, and when he finished and withdrew, leaving her with the heat of their pleasure, she hated Peg with all the force of her cold heart. But she'd found pleasure in bed at last, and started sending Peg to Cork when she knew her husband would be back late and drunk, and she sought Peg's bed to steal his love.

Well, and what surprise should it have been that she found herself with child, though her husband had not sought out her bed since before the day she'd fallen ill?

Papa was enraged. Tiny though I was at the time, I remember him bellowing through the house, and Mama clasping me close to her in the warm and sweet-smelling kitchen. But his wife was more than equal to him. She took herself to the magistrate, one of her cousins, and then and there swore on a Bible that she'd always been faithful to her husband, and that poor Peg had stolen from her, and made love to her husband in adulterous liaison. Oh, Peg stormed when they came to arrest her, and when she made threats at her mistress, they charged her with that too, and before she knew what was happening she was on the convict ship with me and traveling to the Carolinas.

Papa was away in town at the time, but they came to arrest him as well. It caused a great scandal, especially when his wife said she'd divorce him and swear him innocent if he'd give her his investments. What could he do but agree, for the whole town knew he'd loved my mother. And they released him after his name was on the papers, with all his ships and houses and money in his wife's name.

That day he packed up, took all the money in the house, and left for Cork, and leaving his direction with his man of business there took the first ship over to the colonies. His wife was taken abed after he left, and bore twins, who are my only close blood kin other than Papa and the babe under my breast. Against all odds, I'd meet them one day, and have a bit of my revenge.

Story ID:	713
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