a bit more about pirates on leave
Nov. 3rd, 2013 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieMaggie resisted the urge to laugh. Doren just shook her head. Bernade shrugged again. "Never say I did not try to be generous when I had the money." She stuffed the bill in a pocket and sauntered out of the whorehouse. Doren and Maggie followed. Doren went with Bernade, and Maggie walked off to find a tailor.
She didn't realize until she got there that she had forgotten to tell Bernade that she wished to discuss the restocking of the Black Lightning. But in retrospect, as Maggie turned it over in her mind, there was perhaps nothing to discuss. Bernade had been quartermaster nearly ten months and knew what she was doing. She knew what the ship needed, where to find it, and what it should cost. Maggie had come to trust her, and so she should let the woman do her job.
At the tailor's, she ordered a new coat (red), two shirts (white), and two pairs of breeches (black). The tailor did not seem to know what to do with a woman who asked to be dressed like a man, but he showed her fabrics and took her measurements and promised to deliver her clothes before she set sail. She could not imagine that she was the first female captain or the first female pirate he had ever had as a customer, but Port Doras was home to pirates and buccaneers and corsairs from many places, and she knew that not every country had the same progressive attitude towards women on ships that she had grown up with.
But she could still fill the Black Lightning with women.
After the tailor, Maggie went to a gunsmith to see about a new pair of pistols, and a milliner to have the crown of her hat reshaped, and a jeweler to ask about resetting some jewelry she had acquired on the last ship that she had captured. She bought new stockings and boot polish and a bottle of perfume. She went places and made bargains and spent money all day, until the sun had set and she was hungry. She went back to the inn where she liked to stay when her ship was docked at Port Doras, so she could drop off all her purchases and meet some of her crew in the dining room. ("Dining room" was perhaps too grand a name for what would have been a simple tavern had it not been attached to the inn.)
Maggie resisted the urge to ask Bernade about restocking the ship, or whether or not she had paid the carpentry crew working on the repairs. They were on leave. She should enjoy it. So she and her girls ate and drank and took advantage of the innkeeper's hospitality, but after an hour or so most of them left to find taverns with music and company and full tankards of ale or bottles of wine. Maggie knew that every single one of these girls would likely spend every single coin she had, so in a week and a half they would be more than ready to set sail in search of rich merchant ships and valuable plunder. But they would enjoy themselves immensely on their way to poverty. They always did.
She stumbled back to the inn late that night, an equally drunken boy on her arm - a pirate boy from some other ship, a boy who spoke four languages and none of them well, a boy with strong calloused hands and an eager mouth. He had asked her to dance in a tavern, and he hadn't seemed to know who she was. Back in her room he sang to her in one broken language until she took him in hand, and then his songs turned to curses in another language as she brought him off. He more than repaid the favor, and by daybreak they were both asleep, tangled in dirty sheets and each other, sated and exhausted.
Maggie woke up with a headache, woke up the boy, and kicked him out. He went like she hoped they always would - quickly and with no more expectations of her. She wasn't even sure either of them knew the other's name. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
The rest of her time in port was spent doing a great deal of nothing interspersed with a few errands and a few discussions, and a few hours when she had to pay bail to get the Black Lightning's master gunner out of prison, where she had ended up along with several other people after a fight broke out in a tavern. Port Doras was a pirate town and fights happened with astonishing frequency, but if one had friends - or, in this case, a captain who wished to make further use of one's skills - to pay one's fine, one could be released from a damp, overcrowded cell in fairly short order.
Maggie found Bernade later that day to tell her to make a note to take the cost of the fine from the master gunner's next share of booty.
"What did she do?" Bernade asked.
"Does it matter?" Maggie said.
"Yes." Bernade grinned.
"You may ask her yourself if you are that curious."
So Bernade did. She was admittedly very nosy, but it was also part of the quartermaster's job to administer minor punishments on board the ship, and she wanted to know what the master gunner had done in order to determine whether or not her punishment had been appropriate.
After the week and a half was over and the Black Lightning had been repaired and restocked and most of its crew returned - and the gaps filled by willing pirates after Bernade put the word out that Red Maggie was looking for crew members - the ship set sail for the open sea under a clear blue sky. The wind was strong and as Maggie stood on deck behind the wheel, smelling the salt air and listening to the snapping of sails and the shouts of her crew and the creaking of the ship as it moved out of the harbor and towards the sea.
Maggie had plans for her ship, and they involved fat merchant vessels with tiny crews, fresh provisions, gold and silver and precious jewels, perhaps a surgeon and more sailors. Her plans involved bringing treasure to the king-in-exile in Essanay, so that he could fill his coffers in preparation for making another attempt at the throne.
She did not think any of these plans were extravagant. After all, seeking out merchant ships to rob was what pirates did. And she was not the only exiled, landless aristocrat who still supported the king-in-exile and still tried to raise funds to help him. She was not even the only one who acquired those funds through criminal means.
The one plan she did not have was an idea of where to go. The sailing master, a skinny man named Severein, was in charge of charting their course, but while he might know a route or two used by a trading company's ships, he could not always steer the Black Lightning in the right direction. Maggie knew a bit about navigation, but he was supposed to be the master and she had to rely on his expertise whether she wanted to or not. He had a few charts and well-polished brass instruments - of all the things on the ship, these were perhaps the best cared-for - and he was the only one who really knew how to use them. Maggie would have to learn to trust him, as she had learned to trust Bernade and Doren and the rest of her crew, although it was ultimately not her decision to keep or replace anyone, even herself. Pirates voted the captain on and off the ship as they desired, and the sailing master and quartermaster and all the rest of the officers were elected to their roles the same way. It was one of the hardest adjustments for Maggie to make, her first months on a pirate ship - she was too used to the way the Royal Navy had done things, with the captain receiving a commission from the Admiralty and all the subordinate officers acquiring their positions through the captain or other officers. The common sailor generally had little power when it came to a ship's hierarchy. A pirate, however, held as much power as a person's equal vote could contain.
Pirate captains held their offices through their skill in battle, their seamanship, and their ability to control a ship's worth of criminals. As long as Maggie kept finding, chasing, and capturing other vessels, and as long as her crew kept acquiring treasure, she would remain captain of the Black Lightning. It was her ship. She did not plan to ever give her up. Maggie had lost her once when the Usurper had taken her, but never again. And for now, it was not an issue. Maggie's years in the navy had taught her how to captain a ship, and she could rely on her charisma to get sailors to follow her, and so far she and her crew had successfully captured and plundered every merchant ship they had come across. She did not feel in danger of losing her position. She did not feel in danger of losing her ship. And as the Black Lightning sailed into open waters in search of fat and easy targets, she did not feel in danger of losing time.
words: 1534
total words: 3682
She didn't realize until she got there that she had forgotten to tell Bernade that she wished to discuss the restocking of the Black Lightning. But in retrospect, as Maggie turned it over in her mind, there was perhaps nothing to discuss. Bernade had been quartermaster nearly ten months and knew what she was doing. She knew what the ship needed, where to find it, and what it should cost. Maggie had come to trust her, and so she should let the woman do her job.
At the tailor's, she ordered a new coat (red), two shirts (white), and two pairs of breeches (black). The tailor did not seem to know what to do with a woman who asked to be dressed like a man, but he showed her fabrics and took her measurements and promised to deliver her clothes before she set sail. She could not imagine that she was the first female captain or the first female pirate he had ever had as a customer, but Port Doras was home to pirates and buccaneers and corsairs from many places, and she knew that not every country had the same progressive attitude towards women on ships that she had grown up with.
But she could still fill the Black Lightning with women.
After the tailor, Maggie went to a gunsmith to see about a new pair of pistols, and a milliner to have the crown of her hat reshaped, and a jeweler to ask about resetting some jewelry she had acquired on the last ship that she had captured. She bought new stockings and boot polish and a bottle of perfume. She went places and made bargains and spent money all day, until the sun had set and she was hungry. She went back to the inn where she liked to stay when her ship was docked at Port Doras, so she could drop off all her purchases and meet some of her crew in the dining room. ("Dining room" was perhaps too grand a name for what would have been a simple tavern had it not been attached to the inn.)
Maggie resisted the urge to ask Bernade about restocking the ship, or whether or not she had paid the carpentry crew working on the repairs. They were on leave. She should enjoy it. So she and her girls ate and drank and took advantage of the innkeeper's hospitality, but after an hour or so most of them left to find taverns with music and company and full tankards of ale or bottles of wine. Maggie knew that every single one of these girls would likely spend every single coin she had, so in a week and a half they would be more than ready to set sail in search of rich merchant ships and valuable plunder. But they would enjoy themselves immensely on their way to poverty. They always did.
She stumbled back to the inn late that night, an equally drunken boy on her arm - a pirate boy from some other ship, a boy who spoke four languages and none of them well, a boy with strong calloused hands and an eager mouth. He had asked her to dance in a tavern, and he hadn't seemed to know who she was. Back in her room he sang to her in one broken language until she took him in hand, and then his songs turned to curses in another language as she brought him off. He more than repaid the favor, and by daybreak they were both asleep, tangled in dirty sheets and each other, sated and exhausted.
Maggie woke up with a headache, woke up the boy, and kicked him out. He went like she hoped they always would - quickly and with no more expectations of her. She wasn't even sure either of them knew the other's name. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
The rest of her time in port was spent doing a great deal of nothing interspersed with a few errands and a few discussions, and a few hours when she had to pay bail to get the Black Lightning's master gunner out of prison, where she had ended up along with several other people after a fight broke out in a tavern. Port Doras was a pirate town and fights happened with astonishing frequency, but if one had friends - or, in this case, a captain who wished to make further use of one's skills - to pay one's fine, one could be released from a damp, overcrowded cell in fairly short order.
Maggie found Bernade later that day to tell her to make a note to take the cost of the fine from the master gunner's next share of booty.
"What did she do?" Bernade asked.
"Does it matter?" Maggie said.
"Yes." Bernade grinned.
"You may ask her yourself if you are that curious."
So Bernade did. She was admittedly very nosy, but it was also part of the quartermaster's job to administer minor punishments on board the ship, and she wanted to know what the master gunner had done in order to determine whether or not her punishment had been appropriate.
After the week and a half was over and the Black Lightning had been repaired and restocked and most of its crew returned - and the gaps filled by willing pirates after Bernade put the word out that Red Maggie was looking for crew members - the ship set sail for the open sea under a clear blue sky. The wind was strong and as Maggie stood on deck behind the wheel, smelling the salt air and listening to the snapping of sails and the shouts of her crew and the creaking of the ship as it moved out of the harbor and towards the sea.
Maggie had plans for her ship, and they involved fat merchant vessels with tiny crews, fresh provisions, gold and silver and precious jewels, perhaps a surgeon and more sailors. Her plans involved bringing treasure to the king-in-exile in Essanay, so that he could fill his coffers in preparation for making another attempt at the throne.
She did not think any of these plans were extravagant. After all, seeking out merchant ships to rob was what pirates did. And she was not the only exiled, landless aristocrat who still supported the king-in-exile and still tried to raise funds to help him. She was not even the only one who acquired those funds through criminal means.
The one plan she did not have was an idea of where to go. The sailing master, a skinny man named Severein, was in charge of charting their course, but while he might know a route or two used by a trading company's ships, he could not always steer the Black Lightning in the right direction. Maggie knew a bit about navigation, but he was supposed to be the master and she had to rely on his expertise whether she wanted to or not. He had a few charts and well-polished brass instruments - of all the things on the ship, these were perhaps the best cared-for - and he was the only one who really knew how to use them. Maggie would have to learn to trust him, as she had learned to trust Bernade and Doren and the rest of her crew, although it was ultimately not her decision to keep or replace anyone, even herself. Pirates voted the captain on and off the ship as they desired, and the sailing master and quartermaster and all the rest of the officers were elected to their roles the same way. It was one of the hardest adjustments for Maggie to make, her first months on a pirate ship - she was too used to the way the Royal Navy had done things, with the captain receiving a commission from the Admiralty and all the subordinate officers acquiring their positions through the captain or other officers. The common sailor generally had little power when it came to a ship's hierarchy. A pirate, however, held as much power as a person's equal vote could contain.
Pirate captains held their offices through their skill in battle, their seamanship, and their ability to control a ship's worth of criminals. As long as Maggie kept finding, chasing, and capturing other vessels, and as long as her crew kept acquiring treasure, she would remain captain of the Black Lightning. It was her ship. She did not plan to ever give her up. Maggie had lost her once when the Usurper had taken her, but never again. And for now, it was not an issue. Maggie's years in the navy had taught her how to captain a ship, and she could rely on her charisma to get sailors to follow her, and so far she and her crew had successfully captured and plundered every merchant ship they had come across. She did not feel in danger of losing her position. She did not feel in danger of losing her ship. And as the Black Lightning sailed into open waters in search of fat and easy targets, she did not feel in danger of losing time.
words: 1534
total words: 3682
