Constanza: 1721
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CONTEST
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“Had ye fought like a man, ye need nae ha’ been hang’d like a dog!”
Like as not, those words yet rang in his ears when the wood dropped the next morn. Jack
was a fool. A winsome, playful, marginally skilled fool, but a fool no less. My ears ache.
Corruptions of the Lupercalia in the streets far below. Sounds of desperate revelry; the Vaudun
calling me to dreadful memory. Near four months now since the jailor had allowed us a final
night together. Much to Jack’s dismay, he’d not gotten the reception he’d expected. I’d been a
Fury. His dissolution had led our crew to ruin and his cowardice had delivered us all to the
Crown’s justice. I’d no care that my life was forfeit. But my dearest Mary, imprisoned in the
cell just beyond my own, would court the Reaper for John Rackham’s dissipation.
Our bellies pled spared us to the nine-month. I smiled grim. Were I dangled at the end of the
hangman’s rope, t’would do me no harm. The only possible danger was in being discovered
alive after my death: I could ill afford to lose my head. I’d watched Rackham hang, along with
the rest of our crew. Few had known me for a woman, so most had bent to the noose, gazing
on me in consternation. I’d stood silent, watching them swing, feeling naught for any, save my
Jack. Had they fought, I’d still have a rolling deck under my boots. Instead, they’d left the two
of us and Mary’s man to defend the ship. With the entire crew’s complement cowering down
in the hold, Mary and I had attacked the boarding party from Albion, while her man had tried to
get our purloined William under sail.
Unbidden, a wolf’s grin stole my lips and bared fang. Mary’d well acquitted herself that day.
Four sailors and a gentleman. A lieutenant, if memory served. A pretty fellow with a sword
more suited to ornamentation than combat. I wondered vaguely if he still lived or if he’d died of
his wounds. I’d killed my swab on our first pass and the others had been loathe to engage me.
By sheer force of numbers, the Crown’s men had o’erwelmed Mary, held her hostage against
my surrender. I’d laid down my sword quick enough, ordered Mary’s man to relinquish the
helm, let them take me. Captain Jonathan Barnet was hardly congenial when we were bundled
aboard Albion, but he’d been honourable once we’d been revealed. Our crew were dragged to
the Navy sloop’s brig in irons, Calico Jack dead last in line, staggering under the weight of both
chains and rum. Barnet had dispassionately surveyed the damage Mary and I had wrought,
waved the wounded gentleman away with instructions to make him comfortable in his cabin.
Then he’d turned to the two of us, demanded we calm our spitting and hissing:
“While I am cognizant of the fact that the two of you have something of a reputation in these
waters, you will comport yourselves with the decorum reserved to your stations and cease
these unbecoming displays.” His face had remained impassive as he’d leaned into us but his
eyes had narrowed the smallest measure. “Otherwise, I shall have you both naked in irons and
confined separately. Alone.”
I’d have offered long odds against any man stupid enough to ‘visit’ me while I was shackled
and alone, but Mary was with child. And she loved her man more than life itself. I could nae do
harm to her or her unborn, so, I’d obeyed. And Mary, adopting my mien, jointly desisted; only
she’d bestowed upon the Captain a most demur curtsey - one among many charms she’d
acquired while in the employ of her Frenchwoman. Barnet, taken with her sudden graciousness,
had provided us with a small cabin, sans irons. A man of social propriety, his only condition
had been that we exchange our male attire for two of the fine dresses discovered below-decks
in William’s plunder. True to his honour, our only jailor was the cook, who’d, twice daily,
served us small meals and water, during the week-long voyage to the English seat and the King’
s justice at St. Jago de la Vega. I’d given Mary my portions, eschewing food for favor of small
sips at the Chalice in the dead of night.
Nigh a year before Albion, I’d adopted a man’s habit to sail with Calico Jack Rackham. But on
the very the day she’d conceded the point of my cutlass, Mary Read had known me for
kindred. She’d been the fiercest of her brethren and Rackham, believing her a man, had given
her a gentleman’s choice: be run through the heart or join his crew. We’d become fast friends
in our conspiracy against the Articles, keeping the knowledge of our sex from most. Jack kept
my secrets, but I alone kept Mary’s, who was known to all only as Read. Once, in his cups,
Jack had threatened Read o’er the court ‘he’ paid me. Rackham was fair jealous and to his
mind I held the interest and the attentions of another man. From then on, Mary and I were well
pleased to amuse ourselves by deliberately fanning the flames of his jealousy.
Until she discovered my darkest secret, surprising Jack and me celebrating the rise of Sothis in
a less than natural embrace.
***
“Show me!” she demanded, fists on hips. “I will have the truth of you, Anne!”
I knew that posture. Mary wouldn’t be dissuaded from her purpose. We’d fought back to back,
slain as many as we’d beaten down, shared the spoils of our exploits with Rackham’s crew.
She deserved the truth. But still, I hesitated. Fie! Devil take it! She’d already caught me supping
on my Jack. Delicately, I brushed the tips o’ my fingers along the edge of my lip, glanced
briefly at the red ‘pon them then placed tips to tongue. His blood was iron laced with the spice
of the rum and wine he’d drunk tonight. I gazed into Mary’s eyes, wiped wet fingers on my
breast then raised my chin, bared my fangs.
Her brow further creased but she acknowledged them with a nod, crossed her arms and waited.
“My name is Constanza Isolde. I took the name Anne for my old lover, William Cormac. When
our indiscretion was discovered by his wife, we fled County Cork for the Carolinas. He made
his fortune there and is now old enough to be my father. Bonny I took from my husband,
James,” I barely recovered the sneer from my visage, “who saw fit to accept the King’s pardon
from Rogers.” My smile broke fierce. “An offer I declined, despite his insistence.”
Mary’s lips returned my sentiment in understanding. Governor Woodes Rogers’ pardons were
legendary. No freebooter on the high seas e’er missed a chance to cross swords with one o’
Woodes’ lads; by Old Nick’s own contract, traitors all to a man. I myself had stabbed one
through the heart when I’d discovered him among our crew.
“To my ken, James Bonny has thus far escaped penalty of the Articles. I intend to remedy that
soon’s the opportunity presents itself.” Her eyes dance. She knows my heart. “And, though I’
ve abandoned my marriage vows, still I remain Bonny’s legal property. James stubbornly
refused Jack’s offer to purchase my divorce. Instead he had the Crown’s men drag me naked
into court and had the magistrate order me returned to him.” The memory alone was enough to
raise my blood. I’d long decided that my way to Jack was cleaner as a widow. “Gone home
straight from the court, I donned my husband’s clothes, appropriated his best feathered hat and
set sail with Calico Jack.
I sighed. “Jackie’d known me for what I was the moment he’d first entertained my company,
having already met another of my kind while quartermaster under Vane. A gentleman by the
name of Blackpool had the great misfortune of being aboard an English merchantman bound for
Long Island when Ranger happened ‘pon her. Jackie ran him clean through the heart with the
mate’s sword, pinning him unceremoniously to a bulkhead. But the gentleman didn’t die. He
beckoned Jack to his lips, desperately whispered of eternity and immortality, offering him fair
exchange for blood and succor. Jack met the gentleman’s terms, pulled the sword from his
heart then hid him on Ranger ‘til she made her next port. To seal his part of the bargain,
Blackpool gave John Rackham his vampire’s blood.” I paused but Mary said no’wit. “Two
years after, Calico Jack Rackham, as he’d become known, struck me the same bargain for his
silence and we’ve kept an easy alliance since.”
Jack lay back in his bed, languid and heavy-lidded, neither troubling to cover his nakedness nor
the blood trailing from throat to chest. He had no great love for the tar he knew as ‘Read’, now
standing callow in his cabin. And it was fair certain Jack believed I’d be done with it and finally
kill the man he fancied his rival. Instead, I braced myself, waiting for Mary’s ken.
“Are ye daemon, then?” she asked.
“Nie. I drink blood, nae damn it.” I held my hand out to her, closed my fingers around hers
when she took it. Jack bestirred himself at this. He rolled off the bed to his feet, quick as you
like, and had a long-knife at Read’s throat in a trice. To preserve her life, I tore both shirt and
binding rags from her, revealing her secret. He stared down at her, grunted to himself then
returned to his bed with the knife. He’d keep her secret, same as mine. Neither he nor Mary
said a word as she slowly donned my shirt and made to leave. My heart near broke at the
expression on her face. She’d no care that Rackham now knew her for a woman. That look
was reserved for her thoughts of me; of what I was and what that meant for our friendship.
I touched her arm, said gently, “Jack’s both fed me and fed from me near two years with no ill
effect to himself. I’ll do the same for you, if you’ll have me.” As she considered that, hand on
latch, her own errand forgotten, I whispered, “I’ll not be killin’ ye for the knowin’ o’ me.”
Two nights later, in silence, she availed herself of my bed and my companionship. Once sated,
she pulled aside her thick chestnut curls and presented her long, sun-burnished neck to me. No
sweeter a moment had I e’er known.
***
I listened to her restless slumber disturbed by the shouts below, unable to attend her ‘til the
guard slept. Peste! When we’d first been gaoled, several of the King’s servants had paid us
nocturnal visits to ‘ease our confinement’. Mary had greater forbearance than I – she’d bled her
suitors but at least allowed them to leave whole. I’d taken prizes and the maiming had dissuaded
them from any further pursuit of such ‘kindnesses’. It’s four nights now since I fed from her
last. If I didn’t have her blood soon, the swell in my belly would disappear. She was close upon
her time, and we had to maintain the illusion that I was only a few months behind her. My
blood kept her hale, hers kept me from the gallows. Finally, I heard the deepened breathing of
the guard. I removed my pilfered key, unlocked my cell door and opened Mary’s …
Bealtaine eve. She screamed for hours before they called the local mid-wife, Mary being
unworthy of the surgeon. She screams still. Above the commotion, I heard the crone raise the
cry:
“You, there! Get me a woman! The babe is in difficulty!”
Seconds later the guards ushered me into Mary’s cell. Kneeling beside her, taking her head in
my lap, I held her hands as she sweat, panted and moaned with the contractions. Her skirts
were pushed up around her waist, bared legs raised, ankles resting on the mid-wife’s narrow
shoulders as the old woman squatted grotesquely between them.
“Peste! C’est pas juste!” she muttered then lifted her eyes to me. “I am truely sorry, ma’mselle,
she bleeds and the child will not be moved.” I allowed my tears to fall as she turned to the
guards, said, “Tell your captain that the hangman may stay abed with his good lady wife. This
poor girl and her child are not long for this world.”
My Mary soon died in her pains, the baby unborn. I threw myself o’er her body as the mid-
wife rose shakily to her feet. She stood before the guards who stared into the cell, defiantly
holding her skirts out to shield us, giving my anguish privacy. I keened ‘til my voice broke.
When the coughing subsided, I cried, spending my grief tear by tear. Finally, I rose, intending
to return to my cell. I helped the old woman out the door, then stepped aside myself.
The guards gaped at the amount of blood soaking the straw, pooled black on the floor and
refused to enter. They turned us around, shoving us back into the cell with instructions to ‘get
her away’. The mid-wife and I struggled to carry Mary to the courtyard, where two of the old
woman’s burly sons waited. As her body was still heavy with child, the captain crossed himself
then ordered the mid-wife to remove it from the prison. I watched as her sons gently bore
Mary Read away before I let the guards escort me back to my cell.
I took my leave of the King’s hospitality just before dawn.
Bealtaine saw the birth of Mary’s son, coaxed into the world by the crone’s arcane skills. And
saw Mary Read in a shallow grave with cairn in the jungle outside the village. The mid-wife
named the boy Jean for Mary’s man, just as I’d requested. I had the news of it quietly from
another of her sons in the marketplace. He’d discerned me despite my gentleman’s attire, my
shorn hair pulled into a tail with a black silk ribbon tied in a large bow. When I remarked on it,
he simply shrugged, said, “I’ve the Morganti sight, same as Maman.” I thanked him, folded my
purse into his hand, mused as he disappeared into the crowd. My generosity had left me
without funds. As I scanned the marketplace for easy prey, I discovered a pretty gentleman
staring at me in turn. With a knowing smile, I made my way to him, took him firmly by the
elbow and greeted him warmly, “So very glad to see you survived, lieutenant.”
He blanched as I steered him toward the docks and I laughed.
Having locked my cell after me on Bealtaine eve and returned the key, the garrison, embarrassed
and confounded by my escape, quietly searched the islands for me, refusing to acknowledge
my loss. It was my pretty lieutenant, Lord George Francis Gaithewaite, who spread the rumor
that my ‘father’, William Cormac, had ransomed me. Once the rumor had caught the public’s
attention, the Governor finally had to admit that Anne Bonny was no longer in his custody. No
formal declaration of my status was e’er made and the search ended.
Three weeks later, George resigned his commission citing his injuries, and, amidst rumors that
eventually reached e’en his father’s ears in England, he and I remained close companions. He
agreed to help me provided I renounced piracy. I made him the vow easily enough and he
booked passage for me and my ‘cousin’ on a merchantman bound for French territory. He
booked his own passage on another vessel bound for Santo Domingo, to do me the service of
an errand of great import. For that, I’d sworn to marry him. I smiled. I expected it wouldn’t be
breaking my vow to abandon piracy if I attended to one small matter before my nuptials: I’d
located my husband, James Bonny …
I heard Jean’s loud and lustful cries as I rounded the bend to the mid-wife’s village. I collected
him from the old woman, giving her the purse as we’d agreed. Once out of sight, just inside the
shelter of the jungle, I cut my wrist and fed him. He quieted immediately and I set to removing
my Mary from the stone cairn. With relief, I noted that my blood had both sustained and
preserved her. I smoothed back her hair, kissed her lips and whispered endearments to her ‘til
she swum up from the depths of the Black Sleep. I smiled down at her tenderly, my heart filling
as she hardly acknowledged my presence, her eyes and arms only for her babe. I helped her
into the finery I’d brought, as she steadfastly refused to give Jean up again.
“I’ll keep ye both fed ‘til ye’re able to suckle him.”
“Thank ye, Anne.”
“Ah! Ah!” I raised my finger and grinned. “My name is Balzac St. Claire, cousin.”
She smiled, lifted her brows. “And I, cousin?”
“Marianna St. Claire, young widow to my uncle’s son and late of Bordeaux.”
“And shall we marry, then?”
I shook my head gently. “Nie, my Mary. I am promised to another.”
She nodded sadly and I took her face in my hands, held her eyes with my own. “I cannot
forsake his earnestness or his love. As I cannot forsake yours. E’en now he seeks to restore
my own son to me.”
She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “He knows, then? About you, Pierre?”
“Nie. He did it for love of me.”
Avoiding the village, we lapsed into silence as we walked to Gaithewaite’s house. Thinking ‘pon
George and Mary both, I made a silent vow: I’d see us all safely to Phillippe’s new port, where
our identities and our past indiscretions against the English Crown would be ignored.
(3000 Words: 3003 with Title, Author)