Six

Jack

"May the best man win," Bonn grumbled, pacing back and forth around their room later that night. She raked a hand through her hair, sending red curls flying. "Why do they always have to say it in such a way? May the best man win. Ugh."

"Yes, I know," Jack sympathized. "So damned unfair."

"A woman could be the Pirate King!" she ranted. "It doesn't say anywhere in the rules that women can't enter the contest."

"The rules?" Jack inquired politely.

She fished a wrinkled piece of parchment out of her pocket and handed it to him.

Jack scanned down the curly pirate writing with its random capitalized words. It did, indeed, appear to be a set of rules for the Pirate King contest. "Interesting. The AARP is really taking this seriously, it seems. Rule number one: No accidental Murdering of another Contestant. That's a wonderful rule. I'd hate for anyone to be accidentally murdered."

"Go on, read the rest," Bonn urged quietly.

"Rule number two," Jack read. " No Deliberate murdering of another contestant. "

"So, no murder, period," said Bonn. "To keep the contestants from simply eliminating one another as the competition."

"Sounds reasonable." Jack continued to read. "Rule number three: Sabotage, be it of Ship or Person, is allowed, so long as it does not result in the breaking of rules one or two. "

"Get to the part about the violence!" Bonn ordered.

Jack glanced down. "Oh. Yes. Here it is. Rule four: Violence is Encouraged, but please continue to refer to rules One and Two ."

Bonn rubbed her hands together. "I love me some good mayhem. Really gets the blood pumping. Nothing more exciting than getting into a proper tiff with a bloke."

"You're amazing," Jack said softly. He cleared his throat. "Rule number five. All contestants must be Captains with a Crew of at Least twenty. " He frowned. "Is that all?" Jack turned the paper over, but there was nothing written on the back side. "No murder, but it's okay to sabotage and fight one another, and you have to be a captain?"

"That's all," Bonn said. "Nothing about being a woman. So we could have a Pirate Queen! Like Grace O'Malley, the great Irish pirate queen from a hundred years ago!"

Jack set the paper down in his lap and settled back in the bed, watching her stomp from one end of the room to the other. Great Waters, but she was beautiful when she was plotting something nefarious. He wished fleetingly that it would be possible to introduce Bonn to his mother. The two of them would get on nicely, he thought.

Bonn was still going on about Grace O'Malley. "Why, she used to sail right past my hometown of Kinsale! She was a clan chieftain! That's like a queen, you know!"

Jack did know. He'd heard Bonn talk about Grace O'Malley so many times that he almost felt like he knew the woman personally. He always imagined her with red hair and an attitude. Which was just his type.

"And there's Sayyida al-Hurra," Bonn continued hotly. "She basically ruled the entire Mediterranean Sea, some two hundred years ago. And she was an actual queen. The name Sayyida al-Hurra is her title, not her name. Al-Hurra means ‘a woman sovereign who bows to no superior authority.' So she was literally a pirate queen."

Bonn sure knew a lot about pirates. She had even crafted her own personal set of hand-painted cards upon which she'd recorded the information of all the famous pirates throughout history. How she came by this information was a mystery, as he'd never seen Bonn read much or have any conversation with scholars. But somehow she knew. As evidenced by what she said next:

"And what about Artemisia of Halicarnassus? Elyssa of Tyre? Queen Teuta? The Vikings: Sela, Rossa, and Lagertha? Alfhild the Beautiful? Joanna of Flanders? Jeanne de Clisson? Gunpowder Gertie? Sister Ping? Sadie the Goat?"

"Those were all women pirates?" Jack was amazed.

"Aye," said Bonn. "And I mean to be like them, Jack. If they could do it, so can I."

"Indeed you can, darling," he said. "So are you planning on entering the contest?"

She scowled prettily. "I was when I first heard of it. I thought to meself, Self, you could go straight to the top! But then the rules say you must be a captain. So no, I can't enter the contest. But I still mean to become a pirate, just you watch me. I'll get there."

"There's not a doubt in my mind that you will, my love," Jack said. "I can't wait to see how you're going to make that happen. You'll be an ideal pirate. And I'll be your best mate."

He was trying for a joke there, but her expression faltered. "Gawl!" she cried. "Why did Blackbeard have to die?"

"His death does put a damper on your initial plan," he agreed, but then, because he was Jack and therefore inclined to see the bright side, he said, "But perhaps that's for the best?"

She stopped pacing and looked at him, outraged. "What. Did you not like my plan?"

"It was a solid plan," he said quickly, "but perhaps there's a less dangerous path to becoming a pirate than you fighting your way to the top."

"Oh yes?" She crossed her arms. "What would you suggest?"

"My cousin is the quartermaster of the Ranger ," he pointed out. "So perhaps—"

"You think she can talk our way onto that ship?" Bonn gave him a skeptical look.

"I think she can be very persuasive when she sets her mind to a course of action. She—" He paused. "Wait. You know Mary's a woman?"

Bonn rolled her eyes. "It's plain enough to anyone who really cares to look. Why do you think I was so steamed when you went off alone with her the other night?"

"But she's my cousin!" he protested.

"So you say." Bonn gazed at him assessingly. "There's something you're not telling me. I smell something fishy there. You're not kissing cousins, are ye?"

He shuddered. "Ew, no! Never!" Then he guiltily remembered, well, not never. Once when they were kids he and Mary had seen a picture in a book of two humans kissing (which was not really a thing among the Mer except in the most dire of emergencies), and of course they'd had to try it out on each other. But it hadn't been a good kind of kiss. It had been like kissing his... cousin.

"Uh-huh," Bonn sniffed. "Then what was all the hugging and standing there gazing rapturously into her eyes?"

She must have been watching the entire time.

He smiled, delighted at her obvious jealousy. "Darling, you seriously can't believe that I would have eyes for any other woman but you."

"No, perhaps not," she admitted. "And I suppose Mary—that's her name, is it?—doesn't fancy you, either. Seeing as she's so clearly flying a flag for Blackbeard's son."

"Right?" Jack said. "They are so obviously more than just friends."

"But anyway, it doesn't matter," Bonn said, shaking her head. "We can't get aboard the Ranger . It makes no difference that your cousin's the quartermaster, because the captain—Captain Vane—is a notorious woman hater. Ask anyone in Nassau. Ask Bess, the madam of the Saucy Siren. She'll tell you, well enough."

"Hmm." Jack stroked his chin. "That does present a problem. If only my cousin was the captain of the Ranger , instead of this Vane fellow."

Bonn stared at him for a moment. Then she started putting on her boots. "Get dressed!" she ordered.

He reached for his shirt, which was dangling on the bedpost. "Where are we going?"

"To find your cousin," she said. "I've got me an idea."

Finding Mary turned out to be a difficult task, on account of the fact that neither Jack nor Bonn, even with her encyclopedic pirate know-how, knew where Mary lived when she wasn't aboard the Ranger . So Jack suggested they go to the Scurvy Dog, the last place they'd encountered Mary outside the funeral, and ask around.

So that's just what they did.

Most of the pirates in the Scurvy Dog knew of Mark Read, sure enough, but nobody knew exactly where the illustrious Mr. Read resided. They did say that many crew members on the Ranger lived on a street in the northern part of town called Okra Hill.

"We should start there," Bonn said. "But I want a drink before we go. I never did manage to get a rum last night, and it's supposed to be the best in all Nassau. Let's sit at the bar for a bit."

There wasn't a line this time, and they were able to find two spots at the bar together.

"Good evening. What can I get ya?" the barmaid asked cheerily.

"Two rums, if you please," Bonn answered, and the woman smiled and set two mugs of rum before them.

"You're Anne Bonny, aren't you?" she asked Bonn.

"Who's asking?" Bonn said, but Jack could tell she was pleased that she was becoming so well known in town.

"I'm Maggie O'Brien, from Cork," said the barmaid.

"I'm from Kinsale meself," said Bonn.

"Pleased to meet a fellow Irishwoman. And what about you?" Maggie's gaze slid over Jack curiously. "No, wait, don't tell me. You're Calico Jack."

He tipped his hat at her, because women seemed to like that. "At your service, miss."

She smiled, revealing dimples. "And where are you from, good sir?"

His heart immediately began to beat faster. "Not from anywhere you've ever heard of."

"Oh, so Liverpool, I'm guessing," she said.

He laughed a bit nervously. "No. Not Liverpool." Although he didn't exactly know where Liverpool was. He hadn't had time yet to learn much about the geography of the human world.

Thankfully just then the bell over the door rang, and a large man entered and lumbered up to the bar.

"Ahoy there, lass!" the man said loudly.

"Good evening to ya," Maggie said. "What will it be?"

"Two," said the man.

She nodded and poured two cups of rum.

He grinned at her with blackened teeth. "Not rum."

"That's all we've got," she replied matter-of-factly. "Oh, did you want rum with lime in a coconut shell? You put the lime in the coconut and drink them both up."

The man burped. He'd obviously already had some rum. "No. I want dairy."

She put a hand to her hip. "We don't serve milk here. Just rum."

The man smirked at her. "I think you do." His gaze fastened on a part of the barmaid's body that was absolutely off-limits. Two parts of her body, in fact.

Maggie sighed. "I think you need to mind your manners, sir, or I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I want dairy," the man slurred again, and then he leaned across the bar and tried to grab her.

That's when Bonn leapt to her feet and punched him.

Hard. In the nose.

The man howled. Bonn stepped lightly around her barstool, took the offending man by the ear, and tossed him out into the street before he could get his wits about him.

"Have a nice day," she said sweetly as she slammed the door.

Jack pressed a hand to his chest. What a human!

"Thanks," said Maggie. "Your drink's on the house."

Bonn slid back onto her stool. Jack was afraid she'd pick up the conversation about where they were all from, but happily a new topic was now being loudly discussed all over the bar, and Bonn's attention was diverted once more.

The topic was, of course, the Pirate King contest. Who could enter said contest. Who should enter. And who was the most likely to win.

"It's a dangerous business, that," one man said gleefully. "Did you hear? The Squirrel was scuttled tonight. And Captain Pipp went down with her."

"But that's murder and therefore against the rules!" said another incredulously.

"And the contest hasn't even officially started yet," cried still a third man. "Who did it?"

"Captain Stocking," the first man said. "The AARP disqualified him immediately, and then they put him in a gibbet, to show how serious they are about the no-murder rule."

A gibbet, dear reader, was a big iron cage like a birdcage, only you could put a live man (or sometimes a dead man) inside and then hoist the cage up somewhere as a warning for everyone to see, as the man inside slowly wasted/rotted away. In other words, the AARP was murdering Captain Stocking to make a statement about not murdering people.

It was a confusing time.

"I think the new Pirate King should be Tobias Teach," said another pirate stoutly. "To carry on the legacy of his pa."

"But he's not even a captain. He's a navigator. So, according to the rules, he can't enter the contest."

"But mayhap he could be a captain."

"Babybeard? No way. He can't even grow a beard now, can he?"

"He might, once he's older. I bet he'll be just as hairy, in the end. He could shape up into a fine captain, given time."

"ARRR!" said another pirate, scowling, and Jack took this to mean that he didn't approve of Tobias as a choice, either.

"But he hasn't got time, has he? The contest is happening now. So it can't be Teach."

"But if not Teach, then who should we root for?" the first pirate asked.

That seemed to be the question of the hour.

"Me," came a raspy voice. "You root for me."

Everyone in the pub swiveled to look at the man sitting farther down the bar. He was a rough-looking fellow, true enough, and he certainly did have a beard, albeit a short one.

Jack shivered. "Who is that ?" he whispered to Bonn. "His voice sounds familiar."

Bonn scoffed. "Probably because you just heard him in a shouting match with Bess, at Blackbeard's funeral. That's Vane."

"Yes, I'm Charles Vane," said the man, again with the smoky voice. ( Maybe he has a cold , Jack thought.) "And I said it today, and I'll say it until the day I die and go down to Davy Jones's locker, pirates do not retire!"

Who was Davy Jones? Jack wondered. And what was in his locker? And how was that relevant?

"But what about the AARP?" someone asked.

Vane suddenly grabbed his pistol and fired it, obscuring the room with a puff of smoke. Then the smoke cleared, and the framed portrait of the shaggy white dog that was mounted over the bar fell heavily to the floor.

The pirates in the room gave a collective gasp. "He shot the dog!"

Vane kicked the portrait aside. (Thereby kicking the dog—we know, he's a monster. Thankfully no real dogs were hurt in the making of this book.) "I'm the captain of the Ranger !" he yelled.

"Okay, okay, we've got it," a pirate said. "We all already knew that you were ‘very scary Captain Vane, captain of the Ranger .' You're badass. We're aware. What do you want?"

"I'm the captain of the Ranger for now," Vane said, "but soon—mark my words—I'm going to be the Pirate King." He took a long drink from his mug of rum, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and scowled. "And I'm going to be a better Pirate King than Blackbeard ever was. He was too soft, Blackbeard. Too willing to negotiate and ingratiate himself with the various authorities who would see our way of life come to an end. He was mad, too—everyone knows it. But I'm sharp enough, and strong enough, and bold enough to lead us into a new era of piracy. And so I will. I swear it. I'll be the king."

A murmur rose among the collected pirates in the bar.

"And the first order of business," Vane continued, "will be to take care of this damn woman problem we're having." He sneered. "Women, thinking they can rise above their natural place in the world. Talking back. Embarrassing you in front of your coworkers. Disguising themselves and hiding among us." He took another drink. "When I'm the Pirate King, I'll root them out, one by one, and they'll get what's coming to them."

Jack met Bonn's eyes, which were blazing with fury. He half expected her to leap up the way she had with that bloke only moments ago, punch Vane in the nose, and throw him out. She wanted to; he could see that by the stiff set of her shoulders, the tightness of her jaw. But she did not move from her place at the bar this time.

"Do you see?" she said quietly. "A woman hater."

Jack did see. If this man had his way, if he "rooted out" all the women, he'd surely discover that Mary was a woman. (Vane already knew quite well that Mary was a woman, dear reader, but Jack didn't know that he knew, or he would have been even more worried about her.) "What can we do?" he whispered.

Bonn finished off her rum in one long gulp and tossed a coin to Maggie. "We go to Okra Hill to find your cousin." She jumped to her feet. "Let's go."

She didn't spare a second look at Vane as she strode from the bar. Jack had to run to catch up.

They walked north toward the harbor, ARRRing at the various pirates they encountered along the way, stepping over drunks and around puddles of dubious liquid that was pooled here and there in the street. On any other evening, Jack would have stopped to admire the sights—like the red petticoat hanging on a clothesline between two brothels, the color so bright and perfect—but tonight he just silently followed along behind Bonn as she strode toward Okra Hill, lost in his own thoughts.

He'd felt a bit hurt, he could admit to himself, when he and Mary had been reunited. He'd thought he was her best friend and closest confidant, and yet she'd been content to let him think her dead for all this time. (He couldn't wait to tell his mother, who would also be shocked at this revelation.) And now Mary had a new best friend, so she didn't need Jack anymore. She'd seemed happy enough to see him again, but then she hadn't sought him out since learning of Blackbeard's death. They hadn't truly had a chance to talk or catch up about things. She was so focused on Tobias now.

Jack didn't consider himself to be the jealous type, but the situation niggled at him. He didn't like it. And he didn't like that he didn't like it.

But he liked the thought of Mary outed and humiliated, maybe even hurt or killed, even less. Vane clearly had to be stopped.

They came around a corner, and the street started to incline up a steep hill, topped by the overlooking fort. Okra Hill.

"What do you think," Bonn said, "should we start knocking on doors?"

But Jack had a better plan.

"Mary!" he called out in Merish, turning in a wide circle. "Oh, Mary!"

"Mary, oh Mary," he used to call out to her when they were both minnows and he'd wanted to play. And then she would inevitably appear out of a side door of her father's palace, a slip of a Mer with her long blondish hair and bright eyes, and they would take hands and swim off together. To explore a sunken ship, perhaps. Or to work in her garden, chatting all the while about humans and questions they had about their world. Or to curl around a book together, devouring and deciphering it, before the sea disintegrated the fragile pages.

But this time there was no answer to his call.

Perhaps he wasn't being loud enough. He took a deep breath. Concentrated his Mer voice.

"MARY! COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!"

"Gah, Jack! What the fish?" A door farther up the street banged open, and Mary rushed out, holding her hands over her ears, even though her ears had nothing to do with the noise Jack had made in her head. She spotted him. "WHAT?!"

"We need to talk to you. It's important."

He became aware that Bonn was gazing at him strangely. "Oh look, there's Mary right over there!" he cried, pointing at his irate cousin standing in the doorway of a charming little sea shack. "Hooray! We've come to the right place. Mary! Hello, cousin! How lucky that we were able to find you. May we have a word?"

She stared at him, too, for a moment, deciding. Then she sighed. "It's been a long day, but... of course. Come in."

She led them both inside the shack, where Jack's eyes cut straight to Tobias Teach, who was lying on a bed in one corner of the room, reading a book.

"So you live together," Jack surmised.

Tobias swung his legs around and got up. "Hello again." He looked better than he had at the funeral, but still a bit peaked.

"What are you reading?" Jack inquired.

" Robinson Crusoe ," Tobias answered.

"And what's that about?"

"A man stranded on an island," Tobias said.

"Ah!" Jack said approvingly. "Is he saved by a mermaid?"

Tobias's brow crinkled. "A mermaid? No."

"He doesn't know about the Mer," Mary informed him tensely.

"So you can't be that close," Jack replied. "If he doesn't know who you truly are."

"He knows who I am, just not who I was." Mary glanced briefly at Bonn. "Does she know?"

Jack's face heated. "She does not. Yes. I see that I am being a tad hypocritical. What the humans call a pot and kettle situation. My bad."

During this silent conversation, Tobias had been explaining the plot of Robinson Crusoe . "So I'm not going to finish it. It turns out I hate the title character. I'm not into the whole ‘white man's burden' thing."

"Same," said Mary.

"Amen," said Bonn.

"I agree, one hundred percent," said Jack. (He had no idea what they were talking about.)

An awkward silence fell.

"I didn't get a chance to say this earlier," Jack said after a moment, "but I'm terribly sorry about the untimely death of your father. We both are. Aren't we, Bonn?"

"Sorrier than you know," she muttered.

"Uh, thank you," Tobias said.

Mary gestured to the rickety table in the center of the room, and Jack and Bonn sat. Tobias joined them.

There was another awkward silence.

"So," said Mary, "why are you here?"

"Couldn't I just be here to visit you?" Jack said.

Bonn gave him a sharp look. "We're here because something has to be done about Captain Vane."

He loved that about Bonn. She just came out with it.

Mary and Tobias exchanged a look Jack couldn't interpret. "I'm not sure what you mean," Mary said. "Vane hasn't been performing his duties lately, but—"

"He means to become the Pirate King." Bonn leaned forward urgently. "And once he gains that title, he will seek out and remove all the women pirates, even the ones hiding themselves. So you're in danger, lass."

Mary looked at Jack, betrayal in her blue eyes. "You told her," she said softly.

Bonn scoffed. "I figured it out meself. It weren't hard to do, really."

"And you know this about Vane, how?" Mary asked.

"We heard him say so."

"He talks big," Mary said, almost like she wanted to argue.

"He seemed to mean it," Jack said.

"Vane cannot become the Pirate King," Bonn said. "I think we can agree that such a thing would be disastrous for us all."

"But how could we stop him?" Tobias asked. "He's stubborn. If he takes it into his head to—"

"He must be removed," Bonn said. "Someone else must become the captain of the Ranger ."

This sounded like an excellent idea to Jack. Why hadn't he thought of it? Oh, wait. "How does one become the captain of a pirate ship? Some kind of duel to the death, I assume?" Gulp.

Tobias shook his head. "The captaincy is decided by an election, and every member of the crew, from the quartermaster to the lowliest cabin boy, no matter their color or creed or social standing, gets to vote. At least in that regard there's equality among us. Which is why this notion of a Pirate King is so backward," he added.

Mary was gazing hard at Bonn. "And who, pray tell, do you have in mind?"

Bonn stole a glance at Tobias. Then they were all looking at him.

"No," he said fiercely. "I won't do it, and you can't make me. Find yourself another bloke."

"A bloke?" Jack's eyes widened as he realized he was the only other bloke present. "What, me ? I just got here."

The corner of Bonn's mouth turned up into a smile. "You'd do fine. You're bonny as blazes and everyone likes you. But no, you're not qualified to be a captain, given that you've never even been a pirate before."

"It should be Mary," Tobias said suddenly.

"It should be me," Mary repeated, sitting up straight. "I'll become captain."

There was a glint in Bonn's eyes now that suggested to Jack that this was what she'd been intending all along. And he had a feeling that this was only the beginning of her nefarious plan.

"Now that's an idea I could get behind," she said.