The Pirate King

by J. P. Sheen

  “But why did she leave me? Where did she go?”

  “She didn’t go anywhere,” said Jaimes harshly, “She died, giving birth to you. Father was going to let you die too, squalling on the bed beside her—”

  He stopped short, noticing Blake’s eyes, which were wide and wild. His eyebrows drew in. Adjusting his spectacles, he continued in a much gentler voice, “Mother pleaded with him on your behalf. She got Father’s permission to care for you. I remember…”

  Jaimes paused, looking dazed with pain.

  “I remember standing outside, listening to it all. Then Mother called me inside. Father laughed and told me to come greet my baby brother. I was so angry…”

  Jaimes shook his head at the polished floorboards.

  “I replied, as nastily as I could, that I didn’t want to. You can imagine how angry that made him. But Mother called me over and, whether I wanted her to or not, laid you in my arms. She went to find someone who could help take care of you. That left me alone with you, and I was not pleased. But then…then I looked down at you. You had a tiny nose, and a whole bushel of black hair.”

  Jaimes smiled a little. Blake did not smile, but his face lost much of its venom.

  “You were sleeping, but you’d been crying, and there were tears on your face. I kept staring at you, and I couldn’t stop because I think…I think that was the first time in my life I had ever encountered innocence.”

  Jaimes’s countenance softened. Blake looked away, his face beet-red.

  “And I remember whispering to you, right before Mother came back, that I would not let anything bad ever happen to you…”

  Jaimes’s voice broke off abruptly, leaving an awkward, sorrowful silence in its wake.

  Innocence…

  The mere echo of the word gouged itself deep into Blake’s brain, until he wanted to pull his hair and scream. Swallowing a hard lump, he looked up. Jaimes wanted to soften him up with that sentimental little speech, but it wouldn’t work.

  “That’s sweet, Jaimes,” he sneered, “Sorry I lost my innocence so soon, seeing as you found it so enchanting.”

  Jaimes glanced at his furious face. Quietly, he observed, “I don’t think it’s lost.”

  “It is! It’s gone, gone forever!” Blake screamed, stamping his foot. Jaimes stepped back, looking shocked. “Gone forever, and who gives a shit? We can’t all be saints, like you! Wasn’t I a lucky whelp to have the royal family stooping down from on high to save me? Then again…I guess I am your subject, aren’t I?”

  “My mother saved your life!” roared Jaimes, “Do you have any idea how much your presence made her suffer, day in and day out?”

  “Of course not, she only showed it every damn day!”

  “Well, I’m sure she’s sorry now that she didn’t shower you with kisses! You know, I might just be wrong about Cribbshire Abbey! What I think you really need is a good whipping!”

  “Then do it!” Blake screamed, stamping his foot, “Whip me! Then I can hate you even more!”

  “Is violence the only language you understand, Blake?” Jaimes yelled, his spectacles slipping down his nose.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Blake shouted.

  Jaimes’ nostrils flared. He shoved his spectacles back up his nose, demanding, “What precisely was I supposed to say, Blake?”

  All the resentment and fury Jaimes had kept hidden all his life poured out of him in a poisonous flood and threatened to sweep them both away. He sang out, “Good news, Blake, I’m the rightful heir to the throne! Oh, and by the way! I’m bringing you along, my father’s bastard son, because he dumped you on me before sailing off to pillage and plunder and produce more bastard children! You’d be an urchin begging on the streets if it weren’t for me! I made the decision to take responsibility for you! I didn’t have to do it! But if I didn’t, nobody else was going to! Nobody else wanted you—”

  Jaimes quickly pressed his lips together, but it was too late. He pressed a shaking hand to his forehead.

  “It all makes sense now,” Blake murmured, his head bent. His tone was subdued, even reasonable.

  Jaimes lowered his hand.

  “What makes sense?” he asked uneasily.

  “Why you’re so keen on getting married. Didn’t waste any time getting engaged to that foreign wench, did you? Now I know why. You need an heir! A legitimate heir. I don’t qualify.”

  Jaimes winced, but his reply was firm. “No. You do not have royal blood.”

  “I see.” Blake’s face was a stony mask, but his eyes betrayed him. “Well, good luck with that.”

  Then his fury got the better of him. “Damn, I hope that Nordan bitch winds up barren!”

  Jaimes turned white.

  “You take that back, Blake Percimillus Ransom,” he whispered.

  “Why? I don’t have to obey you, Your Majesty…though I be but a pirate’s bastard.”

  “Don’t look so proud, Blake! You may have been the first, but you were hardly the last!”

  Blake’s face morphed in the blink of an eye.

  “Shut up!” he shouted.

  “No, Blake,” Jaimes countered, folding his arms, “I wanted to treat you like an equal, but you’ve made that impossible. I can’t even let you go your own way! You’ve shown me what you’d do with such freedom. I never wanted it to be this way, Blake, but you’ve given me no choice. And you will obey me, and do as I say.”

  “Like hell I will,” Blake said nastily.

  Jaimes stormed forward and struck him across the face.

  Blake stumbled back. Jaimes froze, looking horrified at what he had done. Then Blake regained his balance and looked up.

  “Someday, you’ll pay for that,” he said softly, a horrible smile twisting his lips. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out Jaimes’s “lucky shell”, dropped it, and crushed it with one vicious stomp. Jaimes flinched.

  “Oh, did I mention I hate you?” Blake breathed, “That I’d do anything to get away from you?”

  Jaimes looked like Blake had thrashed him as their father had done once long ago.

  “But…why?” he asked helplessly.

  Blake’s bottom lip briefly quivered. Then he spat, “Do I have to have a reason?”

  Jaimes didn’t look angry anymore. He glanced at Blake and, for a brief moment, allowed him to see all his pain.

  That glance awoke something deep inside of Blake. A glimmer of light, and a faint whisper like the ocean tide. A thought came to his mind, one that seemed to come from a different person, or another life. It hurt so much that it penetrated the hate clouding his mind.

  If you love me, you won’t let me go. If you truly love me, you will not let me go.

  Blake’s eyes went wide and desperate, begging Jaimes for a reason to reject the shadows and turn back. But Jaimes never saw the look. He walked to the window and folded his arms.

  “Guards!” he shouted, his voice stern and kingly again.

  Two redcoats entered the room. Blake’s trunk had already been whisked away earlier that evening. In the courtyard, a carriage awaited the King’s bastard brother, to ferry him away to Cribbshire Abbey.

  “My brother is ready to leave,” said Jaimes coldly with his back turned, “Actually, he’s made it clear that he’s been ready to leave for quite some time.”

  Blake’s transformation was frightening. His eyes darkened until they were filled with nothing but shadows. The soldiers approached him from behind. Then they grabbed his arms, and Blake let out a strangled scream. Jaimes spun around, looking frightened.

  “I’ll get back at you someday!” Blake shrieked as the guards hauled him away, “Just wait and see, Jaimes! I’ll escape, and when I do, I’ll follow in Father’s footsteps! I’ll become a pirate just to spite you! I hate you, Jaimes! I hate you!”

  It was two against one, but the teenager put up a horrible fight. Jaimes winced, watching his brother thrash and snarl like a baited bear. The Court would have a new scandal to gossip about.

  “You will
never see me again!” Blake screamed, his eyes spitting flames and his face twisted up like a demon’s. The redcoats dragged him through the door, but his screams echoed down the gilded hallway.

  “Did you hear me? You will never see me again!”

  A guard slammed the door, muffling Blake’s cries.

  For a long time, Jaimes stared at the door. Then he turned back to the window. Rain pounded on the windowpanes, and purple lightning flashed.

  A quarter hour later, King Jaimes watched as the carriage bound for Cribbshire Abbey rolled through the gates and was lost to the night. Yet long after it had departed, he remained standing there, silent and alone in Blake’s bedchambers.

  The room now seemed frighteningly empty, inhabited only by shadows.

  A fish barrel was a miserable place to spend a night and the better part of a day, especially when one’s muscles were already sore from lugging the Crown Prince around. Until now, Blake had thought that a ship’s hold in the middle of the Palean Sea was the most stifling place on earth. He was wrong. A barrel in a ship’s hold in the middle of the Palean Sea was far, far worse.

  By morning, his arms and legs were screaming in pain, demanding to be stretched out and used. He had fought hard all night not to fall asleep, since apparently he snored (or so he’d been told). As a result, his eyelids were so heavy he could barely keep them open, and his mind felt like sunbaked clay: dry, fevered, and cracking. He spent the last hours aboard the Sandpiper with his head between his knees, his whip marks throbbing, his legs aching like the dickens, and his stomach threatening to upchuck its contents (the fishy stench was horrendous). Naturally, Blake blamed Eselder for everything.

  It was a mercy when the crew’s muffled voices over dinner distracted him from his sufferings. By pressing his ear against the barrel’s side, Blake managed to catch snatches of their conversation. It seemed that, after getting her provisions looted by the upstanding Eliothan Royal Navy, the Sandpiper had headed straight for the nearest anchorage and was even now sailing into port.

  One by one, the fishermen finished eating and tramped above deck to help dock the Sandpiper. Blake waited until he thought the coast was clear. Then he slid his barrel’s lid to the side and tentatively poked his head out of the barrel. The hold was abandoned. Blake grinned. They’d made it!

  He clambered out of his barrel and in one swift bound was next to Eselder’s. He pried off its lid, hissing jubilantly, “Eselder! Come on, lad; move your sorry arse, it’s time to—”

  Blake went dumb.

  Eselder was fast asleep, curled up at the bottom of the barrel like a sardine in its can. A bolt of fear struck Blake out of nowhere.

  Staring at Eselder, he thought, I can’t do this.

  His eyes darted toward the open hatchway. Afternoon sunlight spilled in, staining the ladder a deep, warm yellow. It beckoned him invitingly, promising that freedom was but a leap and a bound away. As Blake knew from experience, the world was so conveniently big…such an easy place to get lost in.

  He looked down at Eselder, and saw Jaimes.

  “You should have come after me!” he whispered furiously, pain blistering his chest, “You shouldn’t have let me go! Maybe then I wouldn’t have turned out this way. If only…”

  For years, Blake had refused to think about the “if only’s” because they were too tormenting. But now regret bombarded him with iron fists, and each blow was so painful Blake could hardly breathe. If only things hadn’t turned out this way…if only Jaimes hadn’t sent him away…if only Blake had said something that night…if only it wasn’t too late…if only…if only…

  If only you knew…

  A shiver ran down Blake’s spine. Unbidden, unwanted, tears sprang to his eyes.

  He still remembered the last time he’d seen Jaimes’s face, as clearly as though it was yesterday. How it had hardened, grown cold…and how it had turned away, right when Blake had finally been ready…ready to turn back from the dark road he was headed down. Ready to ask for help, come what may.

  It was too late for that now. That’s what Jaimes had told him anyway, on the seafloor. But a small, tentative voice within him wondered: Was it really too late?

  Blake set down the barrel’s lid, his heart cartwheeling. A feeble but very real hope stirred inside him. Maybe…just maybe…it wasn’t too late.

  You’ll never make it back to Kingston without hurting the boy, whispered a familiar voice.

  Blake winced and cringed back, grabbing his ears like he meant to rip them off. Then he froze. His eyes crackled like twin storm clouds.

  “No,” he growled, lowering his hands, “No more of this.”

  He glanced at Eselder and then at the hatchway.

  It was time to leave.

  “Ayyy!”

  At the surprised hiss, Eselder shifted in his sleep. His eyelids flickered drowsily open. Then they went round as ship’s wheels. Somebody was leaning over his barrel.

  The sailor’s face was weatherworn and deeply tanned. His black mustache curled, revealing a row of pearly teeth. The smile was friendly enough, but after all he’d been through, Eselder didn’t trust it. It could mean anything from “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance” to “I can’t wait to sell the Crown Heir for a thousand gold pieces!”

  Gibberish began pouring from the fisherman’s mouth. Shaking his head helplessly, Eselder struggled to his feet and said as aggressively as he could, “Where’s my shipmate?”

  The fisherman looked confused. Then he spoke.

  “We go through every barrel, amigo,” he answered in broken Eliothan, “No one else here.”

  Noticing Eselder’s shattered expression, he added quite kindly, “Why do you not come out of the barrel?”

  On the verge of tears, Eselder complied. His legs were stiff from spending the night squashed into a ball. Climbing clumsily over the barrel’s lip, he stumbled onto the deck and looked desperately around. Every barrel in the hold had its lid off. Eselder’s heart sank down to his toes.

  The mustached sailor took off his cap to scratch his head.

  “I guess I should take you to the capitán,” he conceded, “Oye! I hope he is in a good mood.”

  Eselder didn’t know what to do. He stood limply, feeling like a discarded catch of fish. Blake wouldn’t leave him behind! He wouldn’t…would he?

  Then Eselder noticed the open hatchway. If he could dodge around the fisherman, he might be able to—

  “Run, boy, run like the wind!”

  A fierce push sent Eselder staggering forward. Then a steely hand locked about his forearm, towing him along. It was Blake! Eselder tripped over his feet with a cry of relief. He hadn’t been abandoned after all!

  “Ay! Who’s this?” demanded the startled fisherman as Blake and Eselder shot past him. “Oye, come back…stowaways!”

  His cry followed the pair on deck. Seeing them, a crew of motley fishermen froze. So did Blake and Eselder. Then Blake roared, “Run, Eselder!” and shoved him forward.

  The crew simultaneously leapt into action, but before they could seize them, Blake and Eselder were across the deck and down the gangplank. Sprinting across the harbor front, they were quickly swallowed up in the commotion. After months aboard the Swift, the cacophony of foreign sights, sounds, and smells befuddled Eselder’s senses. Struggling to keep up with Blake, he darted past burly, barrel-toting seamen; crates piled high with green bananas; a trio of well-dressed gentlemen bickering over a purser’s list; a rumbling wagon filled with purple, bamboo-like stalks; and a sleepy-eyed mule that hee-hawed in fright and nearly overturned its cart. An angry shout sounded, and Eselder glanced fearfully over his shoulder. A stout man was climbing down from the cart’s seat, shaking a fist after them, while round green fruits rolled off the cart’s end and down the street.

  “Sir Willie’s wig, watch it, lad!”

  Eselder turned and gasped, as did the bewigged merchant who had hollered the warning. He jumped out of the way before they collided and crashed into a stack o
f chicken coops. The merchant’s papers went flying and the caged hens squawked in terror, flapping their wings in his face. Blinded by feathers, his hands scraped and bleeding, Eselder scrambled to his feet, just as the shrill blasts of a harbormaster’s whistle sounded behind him. His heart somersaulted. He was on the run from the law! But he didn’t know how to run from the law! Everything was a dirty, feathery blur; he’d lost sight of Blake; he was going to get caught!

  As Eselder started to panic, Blake appeared out of nowhere. Growling something impolite, he seized the back of Eselder’s neck and pushed him forward. They bolted across the harbor front, past two redcoats lounging sleepily at their post.

  “Hey! Those are stowaways! Stowaways!”

  The redcoats started. Seizing their pikes, they sprang guiltily to their feet, pushing back their tricornes. Their heads swiveled to and fro, but the ragged pair had already vanished down one of the seaport’s sandy streets.

  Panting furiously, Eselder fought to stay close to Blake. The seaman streaked like a bullet through the port-town, darting around random corners and ignoring the men and women shouting indignantly after them. By the time he deemed it safe to stop running, Eselder’s lungs were ready to burst. They rounded a corner and staggered to a halt along an empty street, sucking down air like it was ambrosia. Then Blake straightened and looked around, frowning in bewilderment.

  “Where the hell are we?”

  That triggered Eselder’s curiosity, and he also examined their surroundings. The late afternoon sun beat down on the narrow alley. Small houses made of gray stone and sunbaked wood lined the street, shaded over by woebegone palm trees. The white sand was littered with clamshells and tufty green weeds. To their right was a small homestead: a two-storied house, derelict horse shed, and front yard with a sun-scorched garden. Chickens pecked at the sand around the house’s front porch, where the week’s laundry had been left unfinished: an overflowing hamper was sitting there abandoned, while a row of feminine shifts (Eselder looked hastily away) had already been strung up to dry.

  Eselder looked up, past the clay-tiled roofs to the emerald mountains in the distance. Despite the danger they were in, his heart skipped with excitement. This must be a colonial establishment, one of those tropical port towns he had always dreamed of visiting! What luck!