“So ho!” Jonathan laughed out loud. “One begins to wonder at all these villains and their connections! Deigle, Upcott, Lynch—what a crew of fools and backstabbers!”
“Indeed,” Edward said in a low voice.
He leaned back in his tall chair and drew deeply from his pipe. Jonathan said no more for now, knowing from experience that Edward was thinking it all through.
Had Deigle perhaps sent Lynch to kill him? Edward wondered. Or had Lydia? Who was more likely to do so? Her father had been a Jacobite, after all. Had she cozened Deigle in order to learn Edward’s Irish mission? Was she even sly and base enough for this work? Doubtless, though, the order had come from a spy in Ireland. Had Lydia simply passed it on?
And now he recalled again that Jane knew of Lydia, had pretended at first that she did not know Edward, or of him, although in fact she did.
Is Jane then the spy?
Or is it Molly? She has access and, through her betrothed, connections.
Yet he had no proof of any of this, other than opportunity and circumstance. This was all too much to comprehend at the moment, not to mention that the emergency was over, so what did it matter anyway?
Lydia, if truly a Jacobite, will lie low out of fear of being taken as a traitor and hanged; she’ll be satisfied with Deigle’s money if not always his yard. Lynch is dead. Jane, if she’s involved, will surely slip quietly into the background and do her best to preserve her son’s estate. And Molly? Sir William will do his best to protect her.
Molly’s treason bothered him most. Not that she might be a Jacobite, not that she might be involved in intrigue trying to restore James to the throne—neither of these likelihoods bothered him much. Such was to be expected. No, it was her personal betrayal, that from her hand may have come the order to kill him, if necessary, for the letters. Such betrayal was far too common ashore.
By comparison, he considered the sea to be pure, no matter the thieving, slaving, and bloodthirsty fighting that took place regularly upon its surface, no matter the winds and waves that daily drew ships and honest seamen eternally to its depths.
The sea, at least, is honest.
Yet this idea seemed somehow flawed, not matter how true on its face, and he suddenly thought that life at sea might be no more honest that life ashore, and Fortune no less fickle at sea than ashore. But no, neither did this seem quite right, either. He pondered some more, Jonathan eying him patiently as he tried to put it all together. And it came to him.
Aye, that’s the difference: the sea is a common enemy, and therefore are men more willing to help each other, and thereby seamen have a greater sense of honor and duty. But how often do we find this ashore, where our most common enemy is our friend and neighbor?
And with this reasoning he excused Molly for her likely betrayal.
But the sea, at least, would have warned me.
And then he laughed out loud, and Jonathan eyed him knowingly, as if he could read his mind.
Damn! Edward realized, Molly did warn me after all, twice she did, that I have enemies. She just didn’t tell me she was one of them. And had I not kept so much distance from Fortune and her minions, I’d have recognized this much sooner, and not been so taken with doubts.
“So, I’m not to command by virtue of my deeds sword-in-hand?” Edward asked, as he filled and lit his pipe again at the end of his reflection and revelation.
“Oh, I think it was by virtue of your deeds, but sword in something else!” Jonathan said rudely, but the jest was funny to ignore. Both men laughed, but Jonathan much more loudly.
“So, who are the investors? Sir William intended a third part, so who, then, the rest? From Bristol, I assume?” Edward asked, after both had stopped laughing. But now Jonathan’s reserve came to the fore, the smugness gone.
“Sir William could give none, other than the goldsmith’s note he gave us for expenses. I’m sorry, Edward, but Sir William is dead. His estate is in some legal entanglement; it’s fouled, and damned if any can do anything about it for some time. Again, I’m sorry, I know you were good friends.”
“How?” asked Edward, briefly stunned.
“How did he die? Apoplexy, the letter said.”
“Damn,” Edward swore quietly under his breath. Not for a moment did he think of the money Sir William intended, or of how it had been replaced, but only that the man was gone, forever. After a few moments: “What of his niece, or she he called his niece, Molly O’Meary?”
“I know nothing of her,” Jonathan said, shaking his head and making no jibe about what Edward’s relationship with her might have been.
Edward silently sipped at his coffee and puffed on his long churchwarden pipe for several minutes, remembering his promise to Sir William. With her father gone—and did she ever learn he was her father?—who would protect her? Certainly not O’Neal, an outlaw and a traitor who would not dare to return to Ireland.
“He was a good man, Sir William was. There are few enough anymore. These days, many think a good man is simply one who isn’t bad,” Edward said finally, after a long exhalation of Oroonoko.
“I’m sorry I never knew him, although I’ve done business with him. He was always true to his word.”
Edward forced himself to ask who the part owners were, although the question seemed disrespectful at the moment.
“The owners?” replied Jonathan. “Quite a variety, many taking only a thirty-second. From Bristol, a pair of Quakers, seven merchants, and one ship owner have banded together to invest their small portions conservatively. These Bristol investors account for a third.”
“Who else, then?”
“Lord Mohun, for one.”
“Damn! And how? He has no money, his estate is indebted, he lives by gambling,” Edward replied incredulously.
“Don’t worry, his investment is a pittance, literally. He wrote that his real investment is in the letter he sent to the king on your behalf.”
“Damn! And damn again!”
“A cold shoulder from the king?” Jonathan suggested. “He cares not for Mohun; he was present at his trial for murder and was furious that Mohun was acquitted. But I’m sure he’s wise enough to know that you aren’t of Mohun’s ilk.”
“He asked me about that little shit lord and gave me an odd look. One of several, actually.”
Jonathan only laughed knowingly. Upon brief reflection, Edward realized the king had probably known of the commission’s likely approval, and left its discovery to Edward. More and more he felt Fortune’s influence on his affairs, and vice versa, in spite of his philosophy revised.
“Who else?” Edward asked.
“Deigle.”
“I thought you said he has no money.”
“He’s borrowing it, I think from Lord Brennan and Sir James Allin. He wants a say in the voyage—his voyage, as I said he calls it now. He’ll tie his small share, a thirty-second, maybe a sixteenth, to his ‘influence’ that helped procure your commission, and claim that his ‘influence’ also brought the Bristol investors aboard. Indeed, he already claims to speak for them.”
“Damn him, too. Who else?”
“An anonymous investor, or group of investors, from London.”
“From London?”
“From London.”
“Anonymous?”
“Indeed. They account for but three thirty-seconds. I hear one is a woman.”
“A woman?”
“A woman.”
“I’ve never sought a shilling from a woman.”
“Why not? Everyone else does. They just marry or cozen them to get it, often both,” Jonathan said.
“I never wanted them thinking that what I was after, for I never have been.”
Jonathan laughed, still smug. “You and your damned strange sense of honor. And who says it’s a woman you know? This one is kin to someone at Court, a royal secretary I believe.”
Edward shook his head. “I think I do know her, indeed. And the rest?”
Jonathan waved his hand.
“There’s your money, of course.”
“And the rest, I said? Half of the money we need, less my small investment and prize money, when I have it, if I ever have it, for my investment will amount at most to a sixteenth part.”
“You asked about the ship, about how suddenly the owners were willing to sell?”
“Yes, come to the point, damn you!” Edward demanded, trying to look serious, but he could not restrain his smile for long, and did not.
“The owners didn’t sell, not to us. They had intended one more voyage, hoping one last time to stave off their creditors. However, one creditor, from whom the owners had borrowed and had in turn pledged the ship as security, refused them more time to pay. Instead of threatening to foreclose, she—she—offered to both take the ship from them and lend them more money to finance another. Then she proposed the ship for our venture, reserving a third interest in the voyage for herself, and offered to discuss terms if we were unable to find enough other investors.”
“She?”
“She.”
“Who?”
“You know, Edward, after all these years, you still don’t know women, do you? You, who prate of Fortune all the time—and she a woman!”
“Who, damn you, Jonathan! Tell me who before I put your feet to the coals!”
Laughing, Jonathan pointed his pipe at Edward. “A Dutch woman, a widow, supposedly once a whore in the Netherlands; she acts on behalf of her son actually; name of Jane Hardy, not her Dutch name of course, but her married one; she wrote that she knew you on the crossing to Ireland, that you visited her there as well. You didn’t board her too, did you?” Jonathan laughed harder than he had at his earlier jest. “What Fortune you have whelped, Edward—or perhaps it’s Fortune has whelped you!” Jonathan laughed even harder.
Edward shook his head, smiling at Jonathan, wondering when his friend would split his belly.
“Actually,” Edward eventually said, somewhat sheepishly, “I had thought she might be a Jacobite spy.”
“A spy?” Jonathan, laughed. “I’ve heard it said she was a spy, indeed, for King Charles and then King James. But I hear rumors of late that she now spies for King William. This matters naught to us. Why should we give a damn who the old widowed whore spied or spies for—her money has brought us a ship!”
Edward laughed quietly and ruefully, more to himself than to the world around him.
No matter the end—and here I am—the voyage is never as you expect. Nor must I forget that all ends but one are beginnings, and even the ultimate end is for others a beginning.
It still had not sunk in, his having finally succeeded in the first part of this voyage, that of the beginning, by whatever course of Fortune and her incarnations on land and sea. But for a passage to Ireland with a drunken fool of an English officer, followed by a foolish duel, a discovery of treasonous letters by accident, an plot carried by a variety of rebels, intriguers, and assassinators, all aided by the fortunes of war at sea and abetted by an Irishman bent on revenge, but especially by all the women in whose hand Fortune had played—but for all this complex web of circumstance and destiny, he would surely not now have his ship and her command.
But I have her now, I have a ship again, he thought, I have a commission and a ship; I have money to outfit her; she’s fast, and I will away to sea again!
But it still did not yet seem real to him.
“Virginia Galley, a suitable enough name, don’t you think, Edward? After all, it’s in America you’ll be seeking.”
“No, a new name. She must have a new name.”
“Isn’t that unlucky?” Jonathan asked.
“Not at all. As buccaneers, we always gave a new name to our prizes, or even to a ship that passed from captain to another; and anyway the Virginia’s been unlucky under her name and as Sirène in the past. She was never meant to be a merchantman or even a letter-of-mart ship, but a true seeker, a cruiser, a privateer—a rover, by God. Thus she must have a new name.”
“What, then?”
“As you suggested, Jonathan.”
“As I suggested?”
“Indeed. Fortune’s Whelp, we’ll christen her Fortune’s Whelp.”
“To Fortune’s Whelp, then!” Jonathan shouted, then realized he had but coffee in his hand. “Damnation, this Mohammedan gruel won’t serve! One can’t even get a dish of laced coffee here! To the Cup of Gold tavern, now, before we’re accursed for naming a ship in the absence of good spirits, not to mention being accused as Jacobites for staying late at a coffeehouse. You know how she is, Fortune—first among wenches! And no wench without wine, nor wine without wench, I always say!”
First among wenches? Edward thought. No, indeed. First among women, she is, Fortune, and I her whelp. And across the sea we’ll sail, she and I, across the sea we’ll sail.
Edward and Jonathan walked to the tavern, where, with wine and speech soon a bit slurred, Edward grudgingly regaled the company with tales of combats and riches upon sea and shore. Although inwardly he did briefly admit to enjoying some of the attention, his mind was truly only on the adventure ahead, provided, of course, that kings and princes saw fit to continue making war. He thought he had little to worry about in this regard, at least for another few years. As ever, he dared not guess what role Fortune would take, and he was content for now not to know.
He slept well that night, although he did wake once with a start, caused by a moment of absolute lucidity in a dream: of Molly O’Meary first kissing him, then trying to stab him in the back, all while Jane Hardy looked on with an inscrutable smile; Michael O’Neal sharpened his cutlass; and Lydia Upcott ranged half nude in the shadows, one hand stretched out to him, the other hidden, Deigle and the ghost of Lynch hovering over her. The image seemed incontrovertible, an absolute truth. But before long, as is often the case with passing from dream to reality, he was unsure of what he had dreamed.
He slept and dreamed again, this time finding himself once more on the shores and seas of America, sword in hand, and a dark ship on the horizon.
The End
Historical Notes
The circumstances of Ireland in 1696 are accurately described and just as complex: political and social change are never simple in the details. The attempted assassination of William III did occur as depicted, except for the fictional addition of Edward MacNaughton, Michael O’Neal, and the Irish hints of assassination that led both on their respective paths. Similarly, the guerre du course or privateering war at sea is correctly depicted. Throughout Fortune’s Whelp, original documents have been the principal resource in creating the historical setting.
There are numerous primary and secondary works available that describe the period. The best to begin with is Lord Macaulay’s classic, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. For a satirical yet largely accurate view of London circa 1700, see Edward (Ned) Ward’s The London Spy, a period work which inspired several descriptions in the story. Readers interested in period cant or slang should read Richard Head’s The Canting Academy, Or, the Devil's Cabinet Opened (1673), or one of the similar later editions—A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (“B. E.,” 1690) or A New Canting Dictionary (Anon., 1725). A surprising number of these words remain in use today.
Throughout the novel, all city streets and country highways are correctly depicted from period maps, and many still exist today, including Hanging Sword Alley. Most of the taverns and coffeehouses mentioned were real, but I did name two as homages to piracy-themed literary works. There are two similar but less obvious piratical homages to be discovered in dialogue, and a handful of subtle others here and there.
Ballydereen—the estate of Sir William Waller—did not exist, but could have outside of Kinsale where similarly-named places were found. The baths in Bath are described per period documents and illustrations.
Several of the fictional characters were inspired by real persons of the era. Jane Hardy’s existence as described is much due to the jour
nal of seventeenth century seaman Edward Coxere. As a boy at sea he really did once stuff a bell with oakum so that the woman ringing it—“a Dutch woman… called [phonetically spelled, of course] Yuffrow Doctoers… counted to be a whore to the merchants in Spain”—would not keep him awake at night. Obviously the Peregrinator’s boy, Jack, was inspired by young Coxere. Giles Cronow was inspired in part by mariner Edward Barlow, whose journal of his voyages, unpublished until 1934, is one of the most fascinating of this era, and even briefly notes the attempted assassination of William III. Almost certainly Cronow has a bit of Captain Nathanial Uring, another seafaring journalist, in him as well, not to mention of a number of old bosuns I have known.
Lydia Upcott’s physical appearance is derived in part from that of historical actress Elizabeth Barry, and to some degree by Maria Louisa, French by birth but Queen of Spain by marriage.
A number of real persons are mentioned or have brief roles. Lord Mohun was a rake as described, and worse, and eventually met a deserving end. King William III’s anger at Lord Mohun’s acquittal for murder was well known. The Earl of Portland served in a capacity as described, and poet Matthew Prior served as both as a secretary to the king and as part of the king’s intelligence network around this time, and might have interrogated Edward MacNaughton had he existed. Henry Every, or Avery, alias Bridgeman, viciously attacked and plundered one of the Moguls’ ship in the Red Sea. He and some of his crew escaped to Ireland, including Henry Adams’s wife, as described with a bit of literary license in the person of Michael O’Neal.
Of those characters mentioned only in passing, Turlough O’Carolan was a famous Irish harpist, and the lawyer Cormac was the father of Anne Bonny, the pirate. The lords Thomas and Peregrine Osborne were real, as was Captain Seager. William Kidd was commissioned to hunt pirates in the Red Sea but failed miserably. He was arrested for piracy but was hanged for manslaughter. Thomas Wharton, later Marquess of Wharton, was a charming nobleman and rake of Puritan origin who invested in Kidd’s voyage. He was also reportedly a swordsman of repute, and wrote the anti-Irish lyrics to “Lillibullero.”
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