“Come here little brother.” he said in French. Lothar couldn’t move. His body felt like it was forged out of rusted iron.
“Now, before the flies realize we have given them a banquet,” the giant said, his voice rumbling out of his chest like distant thunder.
Lothar rose and walked toward the man on legs that felt as unsteady as a newborn calf’s.
Blood ran across the deck in little mindless streams that were diverted here and there by gaps in the planking.
There is blood on my feet. Lothar thought.
The man peered down at Lothar. His black eyes were two pieces of coal on a field of white. He placed a paw of a hand on Lothar’s shoulder.
“You are the one who speaks the many languages yes?” the man said.
Lothar nodded his head.
The tall man smiled. He pointed at the captain.
Captain March’s lip quivered.
Captain March looked at the giant black savage with a mix of disgust and awe. His mind reeled with the enormity of what just happened to him and his crew. Lothar stands next to the bastard, nodding his head as the creature speaks his monstrous gibberish, the captain thought. How could a group of savages best strong white men with English blood in their veins?
“He wants to know how many times you have carried slaves as your cargo?” Lothar said.
Captain March spit a globule of blood and phlegm onto the deck. He licked his lips. “This is preposterous! I am a duly empowered Captain and representative of the Royal Crown!”
The giant held up his huge hand. He spoke to Lothar once more.
“He says who you are doesn’t matter,” Lothar said. “This will be your last trip. He says you have a choice – sail this ship back to the homeland of the people his men are now freeing in the lower decks or he will slit your back open and throw you overboard as chum.”
Captain March’s face turned a particularly bright shade of red. “You tell this darkie; this savage; this…monster that I will do no such thing and that if he releases me right now, I will ensure that the Crown only hangs him and doesn’t draw and quarter him!”
Lothar glanced at the giant with eyes wide with fear.
“What did he say little brother?” the tall man asked.
Lothar hesitated.
“Come now, I am sure I’ve heard worse,” the tall man said.
Lothar let out a deep breath and told him.
The tall man leaned his head back and laughed and laughed.
He walked up to Captain March and spoke.
Lothar instinctively translated what the tall man said: “You don’t understand. You are no longer in a position to bargain or threaten or intimidate. You are a mouse and I am a lion. You live or die at my discretion. So, again, I offer you a choice – sail these people back home or see what it feels like to kiss a shark.”
Captain Marsh bit the inside of his cheek so hard blood squirted into his mouth. “Yes. Tell the bastard I said yes.”
Lothar translated the captain’s acquiescence.
“Yes what?” Lothar translated.
Captain Marsh hung his head. “Yes, Bandit King,” he said weakly.
####
The Bandit King and his crew took half of the Lancers supplies and then applied leg irons to Captain Marsh and the three surviving crewmen.
The Bandit King had Lothar ask the freed men if any of them were chiefs in their homelands. One held up a withered brown hand.
“I would keep a man up through the night and make sure that the good captain is not doubling back on the previous day’s progress. ” The Bandit King said. He jumped up onto the railing and grabbed a rope to swing back over to the Black Angel.
“Sir. May I come with you?” Lothar asked. The words were out of his mouth before he knew he was going to say them. The Bandit King stared at him for a long time.
“Little brother we don’t spend most of our days freeing slaves, the Bandit King said. “Our’s is a dangerous life and the grains of sand are always pouring through the hourglass. There are no old pirates.”
Lothar looked around the deck of the Lancer.
“Anything is better than being a pet, Lothar said. “I can’t go back to the homeland as you call it. I am a man without a country.”
The Bandit King laughed.
“You are not a man at all. “ he said.
Lothar took a step toward him. “I am more man than most of the men I have sailed with. I can be of use to you, sir. Please. I have nowhere else to go.” He tried to keep his voice from cracking but he failed miserably.
The Bandit King ran a hand through his braids. At last he spoke. “Alright come on. But you have to earn your keep or you will be the one kissing a shark.”
####
Port Royal was Heaven for devils.
Lothar had attended many fine dinner parties on the plantation. Well, attended was not the correct word. He had served and been put on display at many fine dinner parties in his seventeen years of life. In all that time, he had never seen such raucous revelry and unbridled debauchery like he witnessed his first night in Port Royal.
He was even more shocked by the sense of equality he experienced. Men of color fought, laughed and drank with white men. Black men ran taverns and were merchants throughout the port city. To his amazement, there were no chains in sight.
The crew of the Black Angel held court in the back corner of a bustling tavern called New Babylon. Lothar sat next to the Bandit King’s First Mate, Black Tom Cracken. Tom’s name was meant to be sarcastic. The man was whiter than any white man Lothar had ever seen. His hair was kinky, like Lothar’s, but yellow, like corn meal. His strange pinkish eyes seemed to stare at things best left unseen.
A lusty woman, with as many teeth as Lothar had years, sat on Tom’s lap, playing with the gold earring in his ear.
Lothar sipped a mug of something that stung his throat but strangely made him feel more jovial with every swallow.
Tom shoved his hand inside the woman’s bodice and roared with laughter. “Eh, little brother, I do believe ‘tis milk has soured! What say you?”
He pulled one of the woman’s pendulous breasts from her garment.
Lothar swallowed more of the liquid in his cup and stared at the woman’s soft, brown flesh. He was about to speak when the room started to spin and the contents of his belly emptied onto the wooden floor.
“Ho, now! No wasting of good, honest, stolen rum, little brother!” Black Tom said. He clapped Lothar on his back and nearly cracked his spine.
Lothar raised his head and looked up at the ceiling of the tavern. There was a cloud of female garments hanging from the rafters.
“Where did he come from?” Lothar blurted out.
Black Tom eyed him quizzically.
“The giant,” Lothar said. “The Bandit King; where did he come from?” His head spun.
Black Tom shrugged, but the woman on his lap spoke. “He came from Hispaniola,” she said. “He was taken from his home when he was twelve. At twenty, he killed his master and his master’s family and escaped. He never accepted his slave name and he started calling himself ‘Masterless.’
“No, no, you drunken trollop, you got it all wrong,” A member of the Bandit King’s crew said. “He was born in the Colonies. His father was an Apache and his mother was from the Khufu tribe. The Apache trained him to fight and he killed the bounty hunters who came looking for his mother since she was a runaway.” The man fell out of his chair and straight into a drunken slumber under the table.
Black Tom laughed and slapped the woman in his lap on the rump.
“There are as many stories about his origin as there are drops of water in the sea,” Black Tom said. “All I know is this: he is the bravest, toughest, wiliest man I have ever encountered. Make no mistake, he is a loyal friend but a pitiless enemy.”
The crew member on the floor awakened suddenly, as if smelling salts had been waved under his nose. He spoke from beneath the table. “And he keeps us flush with rum,
food, gold and loose women. Not always in that order.”
Black Tom laughed again. He raised his glass and saluted the Bandit King.
The Bandit King raised his own cup and saluted his pale friend.
Lothar shuddered at the thought of having the Bandit King for an enemy. The Bandit King had his massive arm around two women. One was brown and one was pale as the sand on the beach just outside the window of the tavern.
Lothar raised his own cup and choked down some more of the rum.
“Which one of you is the Bandit King?” a voice demanded. Every member of the Black Angel’s crew turned their heads and stared at a man standing at the end of the table.
Lothar had to squint to see him properly. His head was still swimming.
The man was of average size and build. His white face was dotted with a strange design that extended over his bald head. While he was not a man of enormous stature his hands were huge, with gnarled knuckles and thick serpentine veins.
Black Tom pushed the woman out of his lap and began to rise with his hand on his flintlock. The Bandit King raised his hand and motioned for Tom to sit.
“I am the man you seek,” the Bandit King said. “If this is about business then we can take it outside. If this is about your woman, then I apologize.”
The crew laughed.
The man standing at the end of the table laughed as well.
“This is about me cutting off your black head and taking it to the Governor,” the man said.
Everyone stopped laughing.
The Bandit King stood. The women he was embracing quickly moved away from the table.
“Well that’s a mighty bold statement,” the Bandit King said. “Here is my retort.”
He grabbed his mug and with more nimbleness than his large fingers would have suggested, he hurled the cup at his aggressor’s head.
The heavy tin cup caught the man off guard. He was in the middle of reaching for his own weapon, a small pocket-sized version of a flintlock, when the cup careened into his forehead. A gash opened in his forehead like a child’s smile. Blood poured down his face.
The Bandit King hopped onto the table and ran the length of it before his attacker could recover. Whistling, he kicked the man in the face.
The man nearly flipped over backward before landing on the floor in a heap.
“Now, can I finish my damn rum?” the Bandit King said with his arms wide.
The entire tavern erupted in gales of laughter. Lothar laughed too. The woman who had been sitting on Black Tom’s lap kissed him on the mouth.
“Impressive,” a soft feminine voice said.
The Bandit King whirled around. Standing next to the fallen attacker was a lovely woman. Her long black hair spilled down her back like a river made of midnight. Almond shaped eyes gave her a bemused look, as if she was giggling about the punch line of a jest she would never share. Her light, honey-brown eyes seemed to glisten in the light of the oil lamps in the tavern. She wore a modest white smock with loose fitting sleeves and a high sever collar.
“I certainly hope it was,” the Bandit King said. “I aim to please.” He dropped down to his haunches so he could look the woman in the eye. She smiled.
“He came highly recommended,” she said quietly .
The Bandit King cocked his head and gazed at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “Oh, did he now? And what was he recommended for?”
“He was recommended as one of the most vicious hired men in Port Royal,” the woman replied. “He is a man renowned for his fortitude and ferociousness – the sort of man who would test a man like you. Apparently, his skills were exaggerated.”
“Test me for what purpose, my lady?” the Bandit King asked.
“It’s sister, actually,” the woman answered. “Sister Abigail Hernandez and I wanted to test your skills because I want to hire you and your crew to rescue my sister…my blood sister…from a brothel.”
The Bandit King, Black Tom, Lothar and Sister Abigail retired to a small room in the back of the tavern. A few candles that had seen better days offered a weak illumination against the inky darkness. Lothar found himself staring at Sister Abigail. He didn’t need to search his memories to know she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life. Because of his skill with languages the Bandit King had insisted Lothar join them to alleviate any misunderstandings that might arise. Sister Abigail had spoken to the King in French but her native language was Spanish.
Lothar heard things scuttling in the dark that he did not wish to see in the light. He could hear the sea lapping against the shore through a window cut in the side of the stone and mud building.
The Bandit King sat on a half-barrel turned upside down. His great hands hung between his knees and his black eyes roamed up and down Sister Abigail’s body. Not lasciviously, but with a genuine curiosity. Sister Abigail started to sit on a crate but Lothar offered her his seat, which was the only chair in the room.
“Thank you, young sir.” she said primly.
Lothar just nodded.
“Well, Sister, let’s get to it,” the Bandit King said. “I have a lot of drinking and whoring to do. I hope you do not take offense to my choice of vices, but I have learned life is too short not to engage in activities that bring you pleasure.”
Sister Abigail nodded.
“Yes ,well I am under no illusions as to what you and your men are,” she said.
Black Tom cleared his throat. “And just what are we Sister?”
“Brigands; corsairs; men for hire,” Sister Abigail said. “But the situation I find myself in is dire and I do not have the luxury or the time to find men of good character and charity to achieve the ends I seek.”
The Bandit King sat up straight and stared at her. “Yours must be a most vexing dilemma to have driven you down into this den of iniquity.” He grasped one huge hand in the other and cracked his knuckles. The sound echoed throughout the room.
“When one battles demons, sometimes it is best to have a devil on your side,” Sister Abigail replied. “The men who have my sister are demons, of that I have no doubt. My sister, Mia, was a servant girl at one of the establishments here in your city. She was kidnapped and taken by a man who calls himself Verpa. He is the master of an island off the coast of the Land of the Holy Cross in Brazil. It is a place that rivals Port Royal for debauchery and degradation. It is a place only the most vile of sailors and merchants seek out to satisfy their most perverted desires. Verpa and his family are abominations before our God. He lays with his own sisters and their abhorrent offspring are his loyal soldiers, enforcing his rule. My sister was able to get word to me through a vile merchant who used her for his own repugnant purpose. She is a prisoner there and is being forced to perform acts that even you may find atrocious.”
The Bandit King placed his hands on his knees and, after a moment, he leaned forward. “Sister, I will not lie and say your story has not moved me, but in all frankness, your sister is not the first girl to stray too close to the flame and get burned. I am not so inclined to take my men into battle against the misshapen offspring of a mad procurer just because you say your sister is his prisoner.”
Sister Abigail put her hands together as if to pray. “I have left my nunnery with a month’s worth of alms and offerings. It includes one hundred gold coins, seventy silver coins, thirty pounds of myrrh and twenty pounds of salt. In addition, I have it under good authority that Verpa has a huge repository of gold and silver and dried goods taken in barter from the miscreants that frequent his island. The merchant that gave me my sister’s message also gave me the coordinates of the island. If I cannot appeal to your Christian charity I will appeal to your worldly greed.”
Sister Abigail’s face was tight almost to the point of breaking.
The Bandit King stood and in two quick strides, was standing in front of the beautiful nun. He took her chin in and tilted her head up toward his. It looked, for a moment, as if he was going to kiss her.
; “Sister, I know men, women and children who have been whipped and lashed under the name of Christian charity,” The Bandit King said. “From where I sit, Christian charity is greed in black robes and fancy shoes. At least I’m honest about mine. I’ll put this to the vote with my crew. You get some sleep. We will find you in the morning with our answer. Now I must bid you adieu for there are two young ladies who have promised me we will sin repeatedly and in new and fascinating ways. Au revoir.”
The Bandit King let go of Sister Abigail’s chin and grabbed her hand. He kissed her pliable skin with an exaggerated flourish and then he walked past her and left the room.
Black Tom and Lothar followed him.
As Lothar passed Sister Abigail, she reached out and touched his arm. “Please young sir,” she said. “I need…my sister needs your help.” Her voice was low and urgent. Lothar felt an ache stir in his loins. She smelled like lilacs and pine. Lothar touched her hand.
“Come on, little brother!” Black Tom yelled.
Lothar nodded again and ran after his crew mate.
####
Lothar awoke with a sour taste in his mouth. He heard someone snoring to his right. He cracked open his right eye and saw the woman who had been sitting on Black Tom’s lap lying next to him on the rickety cot he barely remembered falling into. To his left was a half-full mug of ale. Lothar didn’t know if the sour taste in his mouth was from the woman or the drink.
The woman moaned and turned her face away from the sunlight pouring through the window cut out of the wall.
Lothar winced as the light hit his face. He realized he was in a room above the tavern. The revelry had gone on long after they had left Sister Abigail standing in that dark room.
“Come on little brother. The crew has voted,” a voice said from the doorway. Lothar looked up and saw Black Tom standing there with a curious smile on his face.
“Did I vote? “ Lothar asked.
Black Tom chuckled. “No, you’re not a member of the crew, yet. Come now, I know you are enamored of Lily Ann’s charms but we have to prepare to shove off. We are taking the Sister to get her sister.”
Lothar noticed that Black Tom was wearing his flintlocks, two short swords and leather wrist gauntlets. His strange yellowed hair was hidden under a black scarf.
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