A Spot of Blackmail

Anna had finally, after a day’s debate with herself, taken the snake home with her. Ships generally had rat problems, and the rats were opportunists. They tended to go where the best food and shelter was, and Tortuga provided both of those (and had the advantage of not being inclined to sink, besides). In short, the rat problem was universal, and Anna didn’t want them in her house any more than she wanted them in her tavern. As it turned out, though, Sophie was as much against snakes as Peter was, so the tavern’s rats had won out by default, and the snake had come home with Anna.

“I wonder if Jack wants a pet?” Anna grinned. She knew that she couldn’t keep the snake in her own house; it wouldn’t stay there. It had only been in the tavern’s chimney by chance. She had stashed it, still in the bag she’d caught it in, beside her fireplace where it was more or less warm. “Come to that, I wonder if Jack even likes snakes?” If one of the incoming ships was the Pearl, she’d be able to find out exactly what Jack thought about snakes. On the other hand, if the Pearl was coming in, Anna probably didn’t have enough rum. The rumors usually mentioned the Pearl by name, though. “Ah, hell, I’m too tired to think about it tonight.”

In the morning, Anna let the snake out. He wound his way into the bedroom, reared up half his height and made his way out the window. “Too bad; I would’ve liked to spring him on Jack…oh well.”

As it turned out, the Pearl wasn’t one of the incoming ships; in fact, nobody had heard anything of her in months. Anna wondered if the fact that the new Pearl didn’t look like the old one had something to do with it. Maybe nobody knew what to look for yet. That would be a hard lesson for some galleon sooner or later, and the Pearl would be back in the rumor mill again. Until then, though, nobody knew where she was or how she fared. And in the meantime, Anna was up to her neck in other business. Her tavern had developed a reputation for good drink, good singing and passable food. (To be fair, the food could have been better than what the governor of Jamaica ate, but nobody would notice. A tavern in Tortuga existed for drinking and singing and plotting adventures.) The fact that the Pearl’s crew came to Anna first and a lot of them would go drinking nowhere else didn’t hurt either.

That was all to the good, because it seemed to Anna that when the snake left her, he took most of her good luck with him. The hurricane season that year started early, and the worst of the three hurricanes that hit Tortuga hit the tavern so hard that it peeled the roof off and dropped it in the harbor. Fortunately it floated, and when it finally washed ashore, Anna had it taken apart and hauled back up to the tavern, where it was repaired and put back where it belonged. That took about two weeks, and in the meantime Anna ran an open-air establishment. People kept coming in, regardless of whether the tavern had a roof on it or not. Even when it rained, they just wrung out their beards and their skirts on the floor and kept a hand over their tankards so the rain didn’t get in. Anna put up an awning to stand under while she sang, and stopped wearing her silk skirts until she could keep them out of the weather, but those were the only concessions she made to the situation.

A week or so into the roof replacement, the Pearl came in. Anna was mildly amused at the look on Jack’s face when he came up to the tavern and found it decapitated. He looked rather as if one of his nightmares had come to life. Anna was too preoccupied to take much advantage of the situation, though.

“Miss me, Jack?”

“Anna, luv! What happened?” He was worried, and not just about the tavern. The woman standing there looked wilted and sounded like she had been swallowing carpet tacks.

“Last hurricane that came through took the roof off. Fortunately it was thatched, so it floated in the harbor and washed up eventually. I decided to have it repaired here and replaced.”

“How long before you get it done?”

“Relax, man, I haven’t closed the place. You’ll just get wet if it rains. You’ve been rained on before, I assume?”

“I’ve been through hurricanes, luv. In fact, I think I met the one that did for your roof. I know all about being rained on.”

“How’s the Pearl?”

“Just fine, luv.” Jack’s eyes took on the faraway look most people got when they were talking about their absent true love. “I won’t say she likes hurricanes, but she can certainly hold her own against one.”

“If she met the one we had, she deserves a rest.”

“So do you, luv. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Oh, I have. I’ve been sleeping here, though. Keeps the crew here from getting ideas about stealing anything. They’re good with the roof, but they’re not what I’d call upstanding citizens. Until I hired them, I was sleeping here so nobody’d think the place was abandoned and loot it. I go home for an hour or so every night after I’m done singing, just to make sure the place is still standing.” Anna sighed. “Which, so far, it is. Wish I still had that snake, though. I might be able to keep food there if he’d stuck around.”

“Come again?”

“Oh. I had a snake fall into the chimney here, and I wanted to keep him in the storeroom for the rats, but Sophie wouldn’t stand for it so I took him home. He wouldn’t stay there, though.”

“Doesn’t know when he’s well off, then.”

“Neither did I. I swear he took my luck with him when he left. About once a day I wish I’d left the roof in the harbor and left Tortuga to its own devices. I can sing anywhere.”

Jack tried to keep from looking aghast. If Anna left Tortuga, he would have to hunt up his crew from three or four separate taverns every time he wanted to set sail. Besides which, he liked Anna, and if she went to a more respectable island, he’d have to sneak in and out if he wanted to visit her. “We’ll help with the roof if you’ll stay.”

“Who’s ‘we’, and what’s ‘help’?”

“Anyone you like. They’ll stay here and keep an eye on this mob for you, so you can go home and sleep.”

Anna found that idea so funny that she couldn’t stop laughing for about five minutes. “I’m supposed to trust pirates to get the place back together? That’s completely against the laws of nature, y’know.”

“There’s pirates and pirates, luv. You know that.”

“True. Which kind aou pou proposing to saddle me with?”

“Gibbs, and whoever else he hauls along.”

“Oh, well, if it’s him, I admit it’s a good idea.” It occurred to her that she must be tired if she was telling Jack that anything he came up with was a good idea. Then it occurred to her that that was a highly sarcastic, not to mention ungrateful, thought. “Thanks, Jack. How fast can get get Gibbs up here?”

“Half an hour or so.” And so it was. Jack brought Gibbs and the rest of the Pearl’s deck watch back with him when he reappeared, and Anna explained things and wiped the horrified looks off another installment of pirates.

“No, it’s not closed. You’re here to keep an eye on the roof crew. If you catch them stealing anything, including drinks, make them stop, but don’t kill anybody. I need them working on the roof, not bleeding all over the ground. I’ll be back to open the place later.” Having explained that, Anna headed off for home.

Once she got home, she stayed upright for exactly long enough to get her bodice off, and that was why she didn’t hear Jack come in five minutes later. He had been shocked at how tired she looked, and a tiny voice in the back of his head whispered that she might have a point about leaving Tortuga. It was a hard place to make a living, and even though she was doing it, it wasn’t the sort of thing she could do forever. She needed a change, and Jack was sorely tempted to knock her on the head, take her to the Pearl and sail off with her. Except for the fact that she’d said several times that she wasn’t a sailor, and the fact that she could swim, so it was conceivable that she’d jump overboard and try to swim back to Tortuga, and drown. He wondered if the Pearl could stop her from doing that, or if the ship would even agree with him that a spot of kidnapping was what was required in this case.

If Jack had a flaw he’d admit to, it was that he had a hard time imagining that anyone else’s life was as suitable to them as his was to him. He liked being a pirate, damn it, and he didn’t see why anyone else wouldn’t like a sailor’s life too. Aside from whatsisname Anamaria had married once, that is. It was truly amazing how many shades of green somebody who was that seasick could turn…but that wasn’t the point. The point was, he wanted to see Anna smile again, and it was rather painfully obvious that she’d have to stop thinking about the tavern if she was going to do that. And the best way for that to happen was for her to leave Tortuga entirely for a while. Right?

Well, what was wrong with sailing, anyway? She had to have done it before if she’d gotten here from Jamaica. It was about the only way to get anywhere between islands. She’d dealt with enough land-based difficulties that anything aboard ship should be easy. And besides, if she was on the Pearl, she wouldn’t have to worry about running things. That was Jack’s privilege, and he certainly considered it a privilege. Although even at that, he could get Gibbs or Anamaria to take the helm for a while if he needed to. She didn’t trust anyone else to run the place, was what the problem was. Having had no control over most of her life, she was keeping a tight leash on things now, and having the roof torn off the place was probably like having the Pearl dismasted. Except the Pearl had a soul of her own, and the tavern didn’t. In fact, it seemed determined to appropriate Anna’s. And damned if he’d let it!