Chapter 26: The Shipyard

We took with us, as passengers, a guide to where we were going as well as a two-man bodyguard or security team for him. I considered him a port pilot who couldn’t give me orders but he could give me strong suggestions about where to go in his port and how to get there safely.

When we got back to our three prizes we tied up to one and gathered everyone together to have a big crew’s meeting. I had two of our sailors climb up to the crow’s nest on Flying Arrow, as that ship had the highest mast and gave us the best view. They would keep a lookout for trouble, and as long as only one person spoke at a time they could still hear the speaker. Everyone else was supposed to be present for the meeting. Once Filo reported that all aboard were present or on duty, I started in.

“Men, ladies and gentlemen, I have a lot to cover so please just listen for now. You’ll have questions, but I may answer them before you ask and if you all start asking questions we’ll never finish and we’ll all just die out here of old age.”

“To start with, we left Widemouth thirteen days ago. Sailing and rowing is hard work, and there’s a chance you’ll get injured or killed. So, I offered the seamen two Pinches a day for this voyage. Further, I wasn’t planning on getting in trouble but we brought with us part of the town’s Guard and some toys in case we ran into trouble. I promised that, if we had to fight, I would double your pay.”

“That means, if we tied up to the pier at Widemouth today and said “We’re home!” I’d owe each man fifty-two Pinches. That’s your pay to date, fifty-two Pinches. Or, if you prefer, thirteen Quads. More than enough to start your own farm, if you had a wife and some friends to help you run it.”

“You want your pay. However, we aren’t home yet. I don’t want to lose my crew until we’re home. So, what I want to do, if these people let us get off the ship to stretch our legs, is give you half of your pay to date. That would be twenty-six Pinches. If you want, you can spend it all on ale and women. It’s none of my business what you do with your money. But, I want you to come back onboard before we sail, so I’m holding back the other half of your pay until we get home.”

“Now, is there anyone here in the crew who is so ugly that it would take him twenty-six Pinches to get laid?” There was some laughter and a few suggestions at that. “No, not even Cookie is that ugly. So, I suggest that you not take it all with you when you go ashore. If you take that all into an alehouse, you’ll wake up in the morning feeling sick, and all your money will be gone. Is there anyone here who can DRINK twenty-six Pinches worth of ale?”

There were quite a few men who claimed that they could. “No, I don’t believe you. And I don’t want you to show me. So, please think about how much you want to take with you. There are people ashore who will kill you for that much money. Even in Widemouth, there are people who would invite you in for a drink if they heard you had that much on you. When you woke up in the morning it would be gone.”

“Here, no one knows you. None of your friends will look out for you. It would be far better if you go ashore with three or four of your shipmates and the locals heard you all complaining about what a bastard I was.” I changed my voice. “Thirteen days, mates! Thirteen hard days of hauling lines and rowing! For four Pinches!” I changed my voice again. “Aye. He’s a right bastard, Lord Jason is. How’m I gonna marry the Queen with only four Pinches in me pocket? Answer me that!”

Back to my own voice. “So. I owe you fifty-two Pinches. It’ll be far more by the time we get home again. Still, I’m only going to give you four Pinches at a time here. If they let us go ashore this evening, I’ll give each man in the crew four Pinches to go get drunk and get laid with. Although, if you have any sense at all you’ll have a drink, then go get laid first before you get drunk.”

I waited until the laughter ended. “If we are here for several days, and I think we will be, every time you go ashore for the evening I’ll give you another four Pinches if you want, up to half of your pay. I’m not going to give you the other half until we get home.”

“Next, when we set out from Widemouth I wanted to come here to Bridgetown just because I wanted to see it. This town here is where King Tom lives when he’s home, and Widemouth needs to decide if they want King Tom as their lord over them. I thought I’d look at the town here and see how these people felt about him. If they hate the King and wish him dead, then I’ll advise Widemouth to not accept him. If they love him though, and think he’s the greatest thing ever since they brewed the first keg of ale, well then maybe Widemouth should accept him as King.”

“Then, we ran into Sea Fortune and captured her. Since then I’ve been trying to get to Bridgetown so that we could sell her. Now we’ve got three ships to sell. There’s no way Widemouth can pay for that, no one there has that kind of money. And what would they do with three ships anyway? Widemouth doesn’t have that many seamen.”

“When we tied up at the pier this morning, we made enough of a fuss that Queen Eleanor, King Tom’s wife, came down to see what was the matter. I am so handsome that the Queen invited me and my officers to lunch with her. We talked some, and we have offers from the Queen herself as well as a wealthy merchant to buy all three of our prizes. If that really happens, we are going to have more money than we’ll know what to do with.”

“Anyway, we have permission to bring all four ships up to their shipyard on the river. We will unload any cargo and sell it if we can, then all three prizes will be pulled out of the water for inspection and repairs. I have no idea how long that will take, but it has to be at least several days. During that time we will surely be allowed to sample the ale at the local houses. Yes, we’ll probably get a chance to sample some of the women, too.”

I had to wait until the cheering and yelling subsided some. “Remember that we are NOT pirates. We are NOT going door to door raping, killing, and plundering. Any of you try that and you will be taken care of by the local guard. Frankly, I’m just going to pocket the rest of your pay, because after you’re dead I’ll have to hire someone else to do your job, right? So we are sailors in port to have a good time, but remember to do your drinking in the alehouses and only spend the night with women who want you there.”

I turned to Jono. “I’ve already forgotten what else we needed to talk about. What else was there?”

“Are we going to the shipyard today, or should we stay here until morning?”

Filo asked “What about the pirates and their captives?”

Right! “Okay, not everyone here is part of my crew. Many of you are captured pirates. It was my intention to sell you lot into slavery, since that’s what you did with everyone you captured. Well, these people here have outlawed slavery. I can’t sell you here. What they do here is make you what they call indentured servants. It’s halfway between being an apprentice and being a slave. If you mind your manners they will free you after ten years. Any of you who want that can do that. I understand that any of you with special skills like blacksmithing can go work at a forge as an apprentice. For all I know, even if you don’t know anything about it you could probably do that if a local blacksmith needed an apprentice. Don’t know, we’ll have to ask.”

“They only take volunteers, though. You can go work on a farm, or you can go do other labor. But you have to agree to it. If you don’t agree, we’re back to killing you, or taking you somewhere we can sell you as slaves. I’d advise agreeing to the ten years here.”

“You people who were captured by the pirates, you are free men, women, and children. You can sign onto my crew if you want, you can walk ashore here at Bridgetown if you want, you can stay onboard until we get to Small Cove if you want. I suppose you can stay aboard until we get back to Widemouth if you want. We’ll feed you, and make you do something to help the ship, but if you don’t swear oath as my crew you aren’t getting paid. Okay, now I think I’ve said my piece, and I’ll try to answer questions.”

We could have pulled into the shipyard, the pilot felt comfortable with the time left before dark, but the questions and discussions took too long. It was well dark before everyone was satisfied that they knew the score. I bitched loudly that the only reason for all these questions was that the crew just wanted another day’s pay to waste on the fine ladies of Bridgetown.

Someone asked from the dark how many of the town’s women I was going to see. I just called Ceecee and Donna up to stand with me. None. No one in Bridgetown could possibly be prettier than those two. Most of the crew thought I was splitting my time between the two women, and I’d heard arguments about did I do one all night and the other the next night, or did I do one in the evening and the other in the morning? Neither was correct, of course. I had Ceecee in my bed every night and Donna tried to sleep through the noise.

The next morning we split up and raised our anchors. Wrong Place had to lead, since we had the pilot.

We couldn’t help but notice that three of our pirates were missing. No boats were gone so they had to have swum to shore. Or, drowned trying. I instructed the pilot to tell his people to be on the lookout for three people who looked like drowned rats. I was going to pass the word myself, but if I forgot I wanted him to make sure the word got out.

A couple days later we got told that two of the pirates had been caught at a farm. They had taken the family prisoner and were killed by locals who simply saw no point in trying to re-capture them. I was thinking of posting a reward for bringing them back, but there was no point. I did pay the group who caught them a Quad each. They were just doing their jobs but it was good public relations. If nothing else, that would make the locals a lot more enthusiastic about searching for the next group of runaways.

We never heard from the third pirate. He may have drowned swimming to shore. And the other two were killed before we could question them.

Yes, they had called up their militia. The town’s defenses were all fully manned and there were soldiers on the piers as we passed by them. It was a good thing we weren’t pirates! All they needed was a few small galleys with rams on them, and they could stop a fleet. Did I want to bring that idea up? Maybe to King Tom and Sir Tony.

The shipyard also had soldiers, several hundred of them, all drawn up in neat formations. They weren’t all equipped the same, though, so they were probably half-trained militia. Didn’t matter, there were far too many for us to fight.