me a little.
"You're a Gascon, aren't you?"
He smiled, "Very good, my sweet. Yes, I was born there. The most beautiful land on earth. Gascons are French, but we are different. As you are different, being of Martinique. Though my father wanted, above all else, to be thought a Parisian. He had no pride in what we are. He lives a respectable life in Bordeaux now, proper and profitable, making brandy. I joined the navy when war broke out with England. A gentleman midshipman in a shiny new uniform, and I loved my emperor."
When he said no more, I braved the question, "What happened?"
He still smiled, still seemingly relaxed.
"After I was made lieutenant, I was accused of stealing from a prize we took, a rich British Indiaman. Oddly enough, I was innocent. But I was broken and flogged, while the guilty went free. It taught me what happens to the innocents of this world."
"And so you became a privateer."
He laughed, deep and low. "Please, my sweet. No niceties. They are not necessary here. I am not a privateer, and I do not spill my blood for any nation or cause. I'm a republican no longer. I fight only for myself, for my own profit."
This, I was to find, was not entirely the case. He was out of Salé and Rabat, the cities on each side of the Bou Regreg River that had spawned a race of pirates unlike any other. The Salé pirates of North Africa had built for themselves a nation, with a constitution, and they were the most feared rovers on the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, not merely taking prizes, but hiring themselves out as mercenaries, kidnapping island governors for ransom, taking whole cities. Though some were French, more of them Spanish or Turks, in truth they were men of a dozen nations who had no other nation, and while both Morocco and Spain claimed possession of the cities, they were owned by none. No nation or king could hold them, no navy, including the British, subdue them.
My captain possessed quite a collection of flags, and could sail under the pretense of being of any country on earth, including the duchy of Westphalia. But when he approached for attack and raised his own standard, it was no skull and crossbones, like Edmund Teach. It was solid black with an hourglass, its message crystal clear; time has run out, so prepare to meet your Maker.
Looking back with the ancient eyes of a woman of thirty, I understand that, in his way, he loved me. He had every intention of taking me with him, back to Salé, and keeping me as his woman, where I might well have remained behind the infamous fortified gates of that enclave, had fate not intervened. I knew much of his way of life, perhaps more than he realized, for I was born in a nation founded by pirates. Men like Henry Morgan and the marquis de Maintenon were dusty fixtures of my history lessons.
And so I understood the power of a captain within his own wooden walls. I knew that he held the whip hand, for me as well as everyone else on board, and his men gave him absolute obedience, ever fearful of his wrath. The horror of that day, the killing of the man who'd defied him, was not strange in his world. He had stood up with pistol or blade against one of his own many times, earning his place as their overlord.
But with me, it was different. He was ferociously protective after that first night, like a miser guarding his gold. This was a thing I was only coming to understand, that a Master can also treasure what he dominates and freely uses, in fact may treasure it far above an ordinary husband, absorbed with his work and his club, living within the confines of a respectable life, since such feelings of possession are much more primal, and always just beneath the surface.
His strange behavior began that very first night. After he'd ravished me so completely and so ruthlessly, he helped me into one of my gowns, lacing it for me, since I was still dazed and weak in the knees. He led me over the shattered deck of my own ship and across the gangway to his,
"You're a Gascon, aren't you?"
He smiled, "Very good, my sweet. Yes, I was born there. The most beautiful land on earth. Gascons are French, but we are different. As you are different, being of Martinique. Though my father wanted, above all else, to be thought a Parisian. He had no pride in what we are. He lives a respectable life in Bordeaux now, proper and profitable, making brandy. I joined the navy when war broke out with England. A gentleman midshipman in a shiny new uniform, and I loved my emperor."
When he said no more, I braved the question, "What happened?"
He still smiled, still seemingly relaxed.
"After I was made lieutenant, I was accused of stealing from a prize we took, a rich British Indiaman. Oddly enough, I was innocent. But I was broken and flogged, while the guilty went free. It taught me what happens to the innocents of this world."
"And so you became a privateer."
He laughed, deep and low. "Please, my sweet. No niceties. They are not necessary here. I am not a privateer, and I do not spill my blood for any nation or cause. I'm a republican no longer. I fight only for myself, for my own profit."
This, I was to find, was not entirely the case. He was out of Salé and Rabat, the cities on each side of the Bou Regreg River that had spawned a race of pirates unlike any other. The Salé pirates of North Africa had built for themselves a nation, with a constitution, and they were the most feared rovers on the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, not merely taking prizes, but hiring themselves out as mercenaries, kidnapping island governors for ransom, taking whole cities. Though some were French, more of them Spanish or Turks, in truth they were men of a dozen nations who had no other nation, and while both Morocco and Spain claimed possession of the cities, they were owned by none. No nation or king could hold them, no navy, including the British, subdue them.
My captain possessed quite a collection of flags, and could sail under the pretense of being of any country on earth, including the duchy of Westphalia. But when he approached for attack and raised his own standard, it was no skull and crossbones, like Edmund Teach. It was solid black with an hourglass, its message crystal clear; time has run out, so prepare to meet your Maker.
Looking back with the ancient eyes of a woman of thirty, I understand that, in his way, he loved me. He had every intention of taking me with him, back to Salé, and keeping me as his woman, where I might well have remained behind the infamous fortified gates of that enclave, had fate not intervened. I knew much of his way of life, perhaps more than he realized, for I was born in a nation founded by pirates. Men like Henry Morgan and the marquis de Maintenon were dusty fixtures of my history lessons.
And so I understood the power of a captain within his own wooden walls. I knew that he held the whip hand, for me as well as everyone else on board, and his men gave him absolute obedience, ever fearful of his wrath. The horror of that day, the killing of the man who'd defied him, was not strange in his world. He had stood up with pistol or blade against one of his own many times, earning his place as their overlord.
But with me, it was different. He was ferociously protective after that first night, like a miser guarding his gold. This was a thing I was only coming to understand, that a Master can also treasure what he dominates and freely uses, in fact may treasure it far above an ordinary husband, absorbed with his work and his club, living within the confines of a respectable life, since such feelings of possession are much more primal, and always just beneath the surface.
His strange behavior began that very first night. After he'd ravished me so completely and so ruthlessly, he helped me into one of my gowns, lacing it for me, since I was still dazed and weak in the knees. He led me over the shattered deck of my own ship and across the gangway to his,
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