Where Loyalties Lie

Chapter 1 - The Phoenix

“She doesn’t look like much,” Keelin Stillwater said, peering through the monoscope. It was the only artefact of his old life he still kept; all the rest had been lost to either fire, the sea, or the debt collectors.

Next to Keelin, his first mate, Yanic Bo’larn, peered out across the open ocean. “She looks to be riding low.”

“How could you possibly tell from here?” Keelin said. Without the use of the monoscope the ship on the horizon was barely more than a speck.

“Good eyes,” Yanic said, with a nod that made his hangdog expression seem utterly serious. “My ma always fed me plenty o’ greens. Gave me the eyes of a hawk.”

Keelin lowered the monoscope from his eye and glared at his first mate with such severity that any other member of the crew would likely have fled; Yanic, however, just smiled. “Last week you told me you were orphaned at the age of four and never knew your parents.”

“Boggles the mind some, don’t it,” Yanic said seriously.

Keelin laughed and returned his attention to the ship in question. “You’re not wrong though. She is sailing low.”

“Full hold, I reckons.”

“Full of what though?” Keelin mused. “She doesn’t look like a slaver.”

“Could be gold.”

“Could be stone.”

“Stone sells.”

“Not for much.”

“We’d get more for stone than we will for nothin’. Hold’s looking a little empty, Cap’n.”

“And who would we sell this stone to?”

“Stonemason?”

“You know any?”

“No,” Yanic admitted solemnly before his face broke into a grin. “But I reckon Quartermain does.”

Keelin considered the situation carefully for a few more minutes. He’d already made the decision, but it did his crew good to wait on the captain’s pleasure. Yanic looked just about on the verge of mutiny when Keelin finally gave voice to his decision.

“Aye, let’s do it. Pile on sail and change course to intercept. Wake all hands and chase Lumpy into my cabin. We don’t want the mangy cur attempting to jump ship again. Oh, and fly the colours…”

“So soon, Cap’n?” Yanic sounded sceptical.

“Might as well make some sport out of it.” Keelin grinned wide, showing plenty of teeth, and Yanic returned the grin for just a moment before turning and bellowing the captain’s orders to the rest of the crew.

The Phoenix couldn’t claim to be the fastest ship on the seas, but she flew through the water with even the barest breath of wind, and they had more than that as they chased down the heavily laden fluyt. Keelin watched through his monoscope with a smile as their quarry attempted to increase its speed by piling on more sail. They bought themselves a little longer, though nothing more. Before long The Phoenix was alongside the other vessel, and Keelin could see its small complement of crew spread out along the railing with all manner of weaponry, from swords to axes, to crude knives clearly fashioned out of whatever happened to be lying around.

“Ho there,” Keelin shouted to the other ship, pitching his voice to carry across the water between them. “Quite a force you have arrayed against us, mate.”

Some foolish soul on the fluyt loosed an arrow in Keelin’s direction. The shaft flew high and wide and completed its flight somewhere in the depths of the ocean. Some of the crew of The Phoenix bristled, but most just laughed away the impotent attempt at defence.

“Now now,” Keelin shouted. “No need to get all violent. You boys start shooting arrows, then my boys start shooting arrows, and before long we’ll have plenty of folk hurt or dead, and out here the one’s often very much the same as the other. So how’s about you lot do the clever thing and settle down, drop those nasty sharp objects into the blue, and let me and mine come aboard. We’ll see what you got worth taking and let you be on your way in just a spell. No violence, no blood, no dying. Good?”

One of the crew aboard the fluyt pushed his way past another man and raised his voice. “You promise you won’t kill any of us?”

Keelin let out a loud laugh and many of his crew joined in. “No,” he said with a wide grin. “But it may be you’re missing the point behind pirating. We’re looking to take what ain’t ours and what can be sold for a profit. Ain’t no profit in taking lives, far as I can see. They don’t tend to be worth much after the taking.”

The captain of the fluyt looked on the verge of resisting; his crew did not.

In Keelin’s experience most pirating could be accomplished with minimal to no bloodshed. Most sailors wanted no part in a fight and knew full well they couldn’t win against a determined pirate force. They were, after all, there to sail and get paid, not to fight. Captains were often a different matter; losing a cargo could ruin them, and many were willing to fight, even to the death, to avoid that. Of course, not all pirates agreed with Keelin over the matter; there were many who relished the fight and would board a ship and slaughter the crew even after the ship’s surrender.

The captain of the fluyt drew an old sabre from his belt and dropped it over the side of his ship, and within moments his crew were following suit. “OK,” the captain shouted. “Come aboard then.”

It took only a couple of hours to loot the surrendered vessel. They took a selection of the cargo that Morley, the quartermaster, determined could be sold for a profit, but Keelin was wary not to laden The Phoenix too much in case another opportunity for piracy presented itself. They also took a good portion of the fluyt’s remaining food and all the remaining rum. If Keelin had learned one thing in his decade of pirating, it was to keep the crew happy with the occasional, but generous, portion of rum.

“Good doing business with you,” Keelin shouted as the fluyt got under way, significantly lighter for her brief stop. “Do stop by again.”

The other captain shot Keelin a baleful glare over the widening stretch of water. Keelin smiled back.

“Where to, Cap’n?” Yanic asked from Keelin’s side.

“Port Sev’relain is closest.”

Yanic sucked at his teeth and spat over the side of the boat.

“Out with it, mate.”

“Quartermain will give us a better price on the spices.”

“I’d really rather not run into Tanner,” Keelin said with a heavy sigh.

“You and me both, Cap’n. Reckon the entire crew is behind ya on that one. Still, better price.”

Keelin was silent for a while, weighing up the risk of running into Tanner Black versus the reward of cold hard coin. Greed won out. “Set course for Fango.”