Eleven

Tobias

Tobias had been thinking about treasure—THE treasure—since his father's funeral. When Hornigold had announced that the winner of the Pirate King contest would be the person who could come up with the most treasure, Tobias had thought, Well, that's easy enough . They needed treasure. He knew where to find it. Bam. Contest won.

But Tobias also knew Mary (or thought he did, anyway) and he knew what wouldn't be as easy would be convincing her to take the particular treasure he had in mind. She wouldn't like to simply have a treasure handed to her. She would want to earn her place as Pirate King. She would want to win fair and square.

"Our goal is to come up with the most treasure we can in the next three weeks," she was saying to the crew now. "And how do we do that?" It was a rhetorical question, but the guy with the chicken raised his chicken. "Uh, yeah, you?"

"We rob a bank."

Mary blinked a few times. "I like the creativity, but considering we're on a ship, we should think about focusing on other, more water-based methods of acquiring treasure. Such as..."

"Flipping ships!" Gaines shouted.

"Say what now?"

"We can capture a ship, fix it up, make it pretty—maybe add some shiplap—and then sell it for an insane amount of profit."

"No. We take the ships, and we keep the treasure." Mary rubbed her temples. "Or, if we had enough ships, crew, and firepower, we could siege a port town. But I don't think this is a viable option, given our limited amount of time."

"We could take treasure off other pirate ships," Anne Bonny suggested, leaning back against the rail and flipping a dagger over in her hand. The woman had impressive knife skills. "We could simply wait for the other captains to collect their treasure, and then we could take it." Flip, went the dagger. Flip. "That might be fun."

Tobias smiled faintly. Mary was going to hate that idea.

"Fun, yes, but I don't wish to become the Pirate King by doing harm to other pirates," she said. "So ships it will have to be. Merchant ships, preferably."

"What if they just have bananas on them again?" Mr. Child asked. "There's only so much I can do with bananas."

Ah. Tobias could help with this. He pulled the banana recipe book from his pocket. "We have several options," he said, holding out the book, "if you'd like to borrow this."

Mr. Child climbed onto the quarterdeck, took the book, and eagerly flipped through the pages. "Banana soufflé. Interesting..." He wandered back down to the rest of the crew.

"You kept that on you?" Mary asked Tobias.

He shrugged. "I liked to imagine that I was eating anything but raw bananas." He cleared his throat, addressing the crew. "I have another idea, regarding our acquisition of treasure."

Mary turned to him, blue eyes curious. "Yes, Mr. Teach?"

"We take Blackbeard's treasure," he said.

A sizzle of excitement went through the crew, and the men all began murmuring at once.

"Blackbeard's treasure! Is that real?" Quint asked.

"Blackbeard prolly didn't even have a treasure," DuPaul added doubtfully. "You know how pirate captains love to claim they have this huge stash of booty, but few actually have more than a chest or two saved up."

"Blackbeard's treasure is real. I've seen it," Tobias assured them. His heart was beating fast now, but he kept talking. "He used to joke it was enough loot to satisfy a dragon. A treasure fit for a king. Or, in this case"—he nodded at Mary—"a Pirate Queen."

"Three cheers for our Pirate Queen!" Anne Bonny whooped, and many of the others joined her.

"So what are we talking here?" the guy with the chicken asked. "Gold? Jewels?"

"Chest upon chest of gold coins," Tobias reported. "Gold bars. Golden jewelry and crowns. Solid gold statues. Sacks of gold dust. Silver ingots. Trunks full of jewels. Ivory. Indigo. Bolts of silk and other expensive fabrics. And I know exactly where it is. All we have to do is go get it."

Now the crew was becoming really darned excited.

Jack raised his hand. "What about pieces of eight? Are there any of those in this treasure? Say, a thousand of them?"

"Uh, yes," Tobias said. "Thousands and thousands of pieces of eight."

"Excellent," Jack said. "I say we procure this treasure at once!"

But Mary was biting her lip, brow rumpled. She pulled him aside slightly, lowering her voice to whisper, "That treasure should be yours, Toby. We can't take your inheritance."

"I'm happy to share it," he said.

Her eyes lifted to his, and he wondered if she heard what he wasn't saying. With you .

It had seemed impossible before, to think they might have any kind of relationship other than being best mates. But her secret was out now. She'd stood on that stage and declared herself a woman. He still couldn't believe she'd done that.

The gall of her.

The guts.

The indomitable pluck she had.

His gaze dropped to her mouth for just an instant.

Mary pulled back and shook her head. "No. I have to do this myself. I have to earn it."

Which, again, was exactly what he'd expected her to say.

But the crew was already worked up. The idea of so much treasure had put a glint into the eyes of every member of the Ranger .

"Everything has changed!" exclaimed Mr. Swift. "When do we leave?"

"Yeah," said Effie Ham. "What are we waiting for?"

"This won't be an easy task. We'll have to work for it," Tobias said to Mary quietly. "It's not like we can just show up and take this treasure."

"It's not?"

Tobias raised his voice again. "First, we'll have to take some more ships, because the amount of treasure we're after would be heavy enough to sink the Ranger straight to the bottom!"

"All right, then!" yelled Quint. "Let's get to taking more ships!"

"Then we'll have to sail like the devil is chasing us and hope the wind is in our favor enough that we'll reach the treasure in time," Tobias added.

"Is it very far?" Mary asked.

"We'll make it if we push ourselves," he promised. It was about a week to sail there, depending on the wind, and a week back. Which should give them plenty of time.

"Trea-sure! Trea-sure!" chanted the crew.

"And then, once we arrive, there are booby traps," he said.

"Booby traps? Those don't sound so bad," Jack said, and Anne smacked him in the chest.

"Booby traps?" Mary repeated.

"A few," Tobias lied. There was one booby trap. And he wouldn't really call it a trap so much as poor engineering on his pa's part. But the more arduous he could make this task sound for her, the better.

"Let's go! Let's go!" shouted the crew, and Tobias turned to Mary and arched an eyebrow.

"Come on," he said. "This is more treasure than a single man could spend in a lifetime. I want it to go to a good cause. Equality for all pirates, men and women alike."

The corner of her mouth tilted up, and he knew he had her.

"Oh, all right, if you insist," she said, then turned to the crew with her usual grin. "What do you say, lads—and, er, Anne? And Effie? Shall we get after Blackbeard's treasure?"

"Aye!" they answered in one voice.

"Very well," she said. "You heard the man. If we're going to transport all this booty, we're going to need a bigger ship. So let's get one. And you..." She stepped close to Tobias again, her mouth near his ear. "Chart us a course, Mr. Teach."

"Aye, aye, Captain," Tobias said.

It didn't take them long, cruising the nearest shipping route, before they came upon a ship. A large one, just like they needed.

As they drew closer, this ship was identified as the Jester , a rather odd name for a merchant vessel. Please , Tobias prayed, don't let this one be full of something ridiculous. He didn't think the crew could stand to eat any more bananas.

The crew—half of them leaning over the rail to peer across the water—looked as though they were thinking the same thing.

"Shall we do this, then?" Mary asked, and the men cried, "Yea!"

"Raise the black, lads!" she shouted. "Ready your guns!"

But the Jester ran up the white flag of surrender just as soon as the Ranger flew the black one. An easy take, then. They were alongside her within minutes, and the captain of the Jester waved at them almost merrily from the rail.

"I'll come aboard as your hostage," he called over. "So our men can avoid any fighting and we can come to friendly terms."

Mary assented. A plank was laid down between the two ships, and the captain stepped carefully across onto the Ranger . Then Mary cordially invited him into the captain's cabin with her for the negotiation of his surrender. Tobias found an excuse to be the one to escort the man there. He needed to update a chart, he said, so he lingered by his worktable as Mary and Captain Gregory—that's what the man said his name was—discussed what would be done now that the Jester was captured by pirates.

"So you're an honest-to-goodness pirate ship," Mr. Gregory said jovially. He was a portly man with a sharp, almost orange colored goatee, dressed in what looked to be the long black robes of a priest, which was confusing. "And captained by a woman, to boot!" he added. "How progressive is that?"

Tobias glanced at Mary. Was this man trying to flatter her? And how had he discerned she was a woman so quickly? To Tobias she didn't appear much different from the way she always had. She wore a captain's hat now, the one with the red feather in it, and the same damask waistcoat she'd worn at GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. Her hair did inexplicably seem slightly longer than it had yesterday, but perhaps that was because she was wearing it loose today, in tawny tousled waves about her face, instead of drawn back in its usual tail or hidden under a cap. Her voice was a bit changed, higher, maybe, but still hers.

But then he realized: she'd clearly forgone whatever she'd been doing previously to flatten her chest.

She had bosoms now. Well, she'd always had. But now Tobias could see them. Well, not see them , see them, as they were well covered by both her shirt and waistcoat, but he could discern them. The shape anyway.

Good Lord, what was he doing?

Tobias averted his eyes. His face was very hot. He must get ahold of himself. He bit the inside of his cheek and forced himself to concentrate on what this Captain Gregory was saying.

"We're but a company of traveling players," said the man, "on a mission to entertain the masses. We're based out of Charles Town, but we like to sail a circuit around the Caribbean this time of year—Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas."

Mary's posture straightened, as Tobias knew it would, at the mention of Charles Town. Whatever had happened to Mary at Charles Town had been significant.

He wished, for the thousandth time, that she would tell him what it was.

If only she would.

"It's miraculous, when you think about it," Captain Gregory was saying, "that we've never encountered any pirates before now."

Mary did not look impressed. She looked annoyed, in fact, her brows pinching together in almost a glower. Tobias understood why. A merchant vessel, loaded with valuable goods, would have been so much better than a boatful of professional actors. The men would probably think this worse than the bananas. At least the bananas had come with a helpful manual about what useful things might be made from them.

"And what provisions are you carrying, sir?" she asked lightly.

Captain Gregory wiped his brow—the only sign he showed of being frightened at the prospect of a watery grave, or worse. He was clearly an actor himself, Tobias decided. "Not much to speak of, booty-wise. We have a few casks of a good wine. Some decent food stores. Several canisters of pancake stage makeup—I won't expect you to know what that is if you're not in the entertainment business. We also possess many fine articles of clothing, which we wear when we do a show involving nobility or royalty. Some costume jewelry. And an amusing dog."

Mary frowned. "You're right. That isn't enough. Not nearly."

Tobias cleared his throat. "We don't really need their cargo, remember?"

"Oh dear." Captain Gregory held out his hand. "Please. If you will consider not outright murdering us, we will perform a show for you tonight," he promised. "And our chef will whip you up a five-course meal of the likes that your men have never experienced." He suddenly grasped at Mary's arm, his voice turned pleading. "We'll give you dinner and a show, and then you can... you can let us go."

It was a weak offer. Captain Vane might have keelhauled the lot of this company of players, to suggest such scant booty as "dinner and a show."

But Mary was not Captain Vane.

"Don't worry yourself, sir," she said, clearing her throat. "We will accept what you are proposing. The men will find your show most diverting, I'm sure, and they never say no to a well-cooked meal. But I cannot let the Jester go."

Captain Gregory's face paled. "You cannot?"

She shook her head gravely. "I need your ship, I'm afraid. You see, my crew and I are engaged in a pirate competition of sorts. I—"

"Of course! The Pirate King contest!" interrupted Captain Gregory. "The entire Caribbean is talking about it! So you're going to make a go of it? A woman! How marvelous is that?"

Her chin lifted, and Tobias's chest swelled with pride for all that she'd done and all that she was. "Indeed. And now I'm competing for the benefit of all women who want to become pirates. Our task is to return to Nassau with the most treasure."

"I see." Gregory stroked his pointed goatee. "Well, since we do not have much in the way of treasure to offer you, what will become of my men? They're good chaps, all of them, but not many of them are decent sailors, and none that I'm aware of have any ambition to become pirates."

"Ah," Mary said. She looked like she was trying to decide how to let them go without compromising her reputation as a fierce pirate, someone everyone should respect and fear. "In that case..."

"However," Captain Gregory said, "I have been thinking of writing a play of my own. An original. Something the world has never seen before. And now that I see you and your quest to bring women into piracy, perhaps that is the story I am meant to tell. Your story. If you would permit me to observe you for the duration of the contest, I would be most honored to tell the tale of the great Captain Read and her crew."

Mary's eyebrows lifted. "Indeed? How would you portray me? As a woman playing pirate?"

Captain Gregory shook his head urgently. "Oh, your character would be formidable—terrifying to this simple play actor, who found himself captured. I will tell people that I was allowed to return to my regularly scheduled programming only as a warning to others."

Mary tapped her chin. "I would need to read this play first, of course. And if there's anything I find objectionable..."

"I will make the requested revisions or walk the plank. Whichever you prefer."

"And royalties," Mary said. "The story is about me, after all. I'm a pirate. I require gold."

"A flat fee, perhaps," Gregory said. "Let's say one hundred pieces of eight, to be paid at a time when I have any money at all. It's easier to keep track of, and if for some reason the play doesn't take off, you still get compensated."

"Very well," Mary said. "I accept those terms. Now, when it comes to the crew, no harm will come to your men, as long as you do as I tell you. You may remain captain of your ship, in spirit, if not in an official capacity. Hopefully you and your ship will not be worse for wear when we part ways, although I cannot make you any promises in that regard, seeing as how we're pirates and that does involve some element of risk."

Then, in spite of all his confident negotiating, Captain Gregory began to literally cry with gratitude. It was a quite dramatic weeping session.

Perhaps, Tobias thought, the previous exchange had all been an act. Or perhaps he was acting here, with the weeping. Tobias couldn't tell.

Man, this guy was good.

"That's very kind of you, ma'am," Gregory sniffled at last. "Thank you." He bowed. "Thank you. Thank you very much." He kissed her hand. "Thank you, gentle lady."

"You overstep, sir." Mary whipped her hand away. "I am no gentle lady. I am a captain, like any other."

"I beg your pardon, Captain," sputtered Gregory. "I didn't mean you any offense."

"Mr. Teach will see you back to your ship, Captain," she said, effectively dismissing them both. "Oh, and what shall I tell my men about your show tonight?" she added when they reached the door to the cabin. "When will it take place, and what kind of performance should they expect?"

Captain Gregory's eyes brightened. "Ah! We'll serve dinner at six, and the show shall begin at eight. It's Shakespeare, which your men should find most engaging."

Tobias rather doubted that, but okay.

"This season," continued Gregory in a voice like he was formally announcing the lineup to a large crowd, "the production is all about star-crossed lovers. It's called Romeo and Juliet ."

" Romeo and Juliet , you say?" Jack clapped his hands together. "That's our favorite story, isn't it, Mary? Oh, what good luck!"

It was evening now, the sky a deep blue with stars just beginning to poke out, and dinner was about to be served. Tobias was feeling oddly nervous about dinner, like this was somehow more than just a dinner. It was the first dinner that he and Mary would share in which they got to be themselves, a man and a woman, going out in public together.

In other words, it felt like a date.

Tobias had ironed his shirt and shined his boots. He'd washed. He'd tried to do something different with his hair that hadn't worked out, so he'd washed again and rubbed some old spices into his armpits until he smelled less, well, pirate-y. (Old Spice was a thing even back then, dear reader, but Axe was considered too dangerous.)

Mary seemed to have gussied herself up a bit, too. She was wearing a clean white blouse and a dark blue skirt, which she must have borrowed from somebody because Tobias knew she didn't have her own. Her hair gleamed in the lantern light, and it seemed even longer now than it had this morning. She looked good. Beautiful is the word Tobias would have used, if he was allowed to use such a word.

"Look at us, so clean and sweet smelling," Jack said. "We're adorable."

It was actually like a double date, Tobias realized.

Jack turned to Anne with a smile. "Do you enjoy Shakespeare, my love?"

"Can't say I've ever seen him before," Anne said. "Is he good?"

"He's very good," said Jack dreamily. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if remembering, then said, " But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair than she ." He frowned. "Hmm, and I'm forgetting a few lines, but then he says, It is my lady; O! it is my love: O! that she knew she were . I love that bit."

"That is good," admitted Anne, looking Jack up and down, and even Tobias felt a bit flustered by Jack's passionate delivery of the lines.

"But the two of them don't even know each other at that point, to say such things about love," Mary said softly. "And what are they, like fifteen years old? Anyway, enough, Jack. You're spoiling it. Let them hear it themselves and make up their own minds about the play."

Jack's mouth opened in shock. "But Mary! You used to love this story. You said—"

"I didn't understand it then," she said, and there was the look in her eyes—the one she got when she was remembering the guy from Charles Town.

Tobias hated that guy.

But maybe this was his chance to make her forget that guy. Maybe this was his chance, period.

Above them, the bell rang for six o'clock. "It's dinnertime!" Mary said, and went to locate Mr. Child, who had been busy all afternoon working with the Jester 's cook, Mr. Ramsay.

Dinner was a thing of beauty. The starter was a spicy banana-zucchini ball in a red pepper curry sauce, followed by the main dish: casserole de jambon au fromage et de bananes. (Reader, this was a ham and cheese casserole with bananas in it.) For dessert, banana cream pie and a ginger banana cake. The men were markedly less cranky about the banana situation after that. They ate and ate and ate so much they forgot to drink as much rum as they usually did.

So they were remarkably sober when it came time to view the play.

The actors from the Jester were all men, even those playing the female roles. Captain Gregory played the priest, which explained his outfit earlier. Romeo was a talented actor named Oscar. The boy playing Juliet was pretty, Tobias could admit, but obviously a boy. He found that his gaze kept drifting from Juliet to Mary, who was seated next to Tobias in the front row. On her other side sat Jack, gazing rapturously up at the quarterdeck, which they'd established as a kind of stage. And at his other side was Anne.

" Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night, give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night ," the boy Juliet was saying sweetly, and he was good, too, better than Jack, even, and as he/she spoke about love, Tobias could see something wavering in Mary's steadfast expression, an aching vulnerability in her face. Then she caught Tobias looking at her, met his eyes for a long moment, and gave him a sad smile that made something twist in his heart.

She was beautiful. And strong. And brave. And he loved her, he realized. Not just like. Love.

Like Romeo loved Juliet.

And she was right that Romeo and Juliet hardly knew each other, and they were so young, but he and Mary knew each other well. They were best mates. They'd been roommates for a year. They were partners in so many ways. And while nineteen wasn't that much older than Romeo, it was enough for Tobias to know his mind, and what he knew was this: he loved Mary.

He had to tell her.

But instead he settled back to watch the play, and as the moments passed between the lovers, Tobias came to slowly understand why Captain Gregory had dubbed them "star-crossed" earlier. Because nothing was going right for them suddenly.

"Wait," Jack piped up after Juliet took a potion that made her appear dead, so that she might be stolen away by Romeo for their happy ending later. "This is going to turn out all right, isn't it? True love will conquer all?" (Jack clearly didn't understand that you were not supposed to ask your questions out loud at a play.)

"Shh!" said a pirate next to them.

Tobias swallowed. He had a bad feeling about where the play was going.

"Wait, wait, WAIT," Jack exclaimed near the end, as the two lovers lay dead in each other's arms. "This isn't right. This story is supposed to have a happy ending. You're telling it wrong! The messenger does get to Juliet in time, and then Romeo wakes her with a kiss, sweeps her off her feet, and carries her away to their happily ever after. That's what's supposed to happen."

"I'd hoped there was going to be more fighting," grumbled Anne.

Jack huffed. "Well, it has a happy ending where I come from!"

Tobias couldn't stand it any longer. "Where in the hell do you come from?" he asked.

"Shh!" said the pirate's parrot from the shoulder of the pirate next to him. "Be quiet, you two."

"The ending was washed away in our copy of the book," Jack whispered urgently. "But they loved each other. They deserved to be together. We thought it must end well for them."

Mary had said nothing this entire time, but now, as she looked up, there were tears sparkling in her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand. "Sometimes love ends in tragedy," she murmured. "That's why Vane had a heart on his flag. Love is dangerous."

Then she got up abruptly and walked off just as Captain Gregory stepped forward to perform the last little bit of the play.

"I still think their story is beautiful," whispered Jack. "I don't know what her problem is. She never used to be so jaded."

"Some bloke did her a bad turn, is all," mused Anne. "She probably doesn't mean it."

But Tobias thought she did mean it.

"Love is dangerous," he repeated dully. Was that what Mary really thought?

Captain Gregory cleared his throat loudly to deliver his final line. " For never was a story of more woe ," he said mournfully, " than this of Juliet and her Romeo ."

"Well, crap," said Tobias.

Their date—which Mary didn't seem to even realize they were on—had not gone well.

"I liked our version better," Jack said, "even if we made it up."

To which we, your narrators, have this to say:

Same, Jack. Same.