A Pirate's Life For Us

Chapter 15 - Broken Faith

The neighbourhood of Little Dungeon in Mare-Rouge on the island of Tortuga was very easy to overlook if you didn't know it was there. Tortuga's settlements were full of little twisty alleys as the pirate colony grew and expanded out of need rather than any sort of plan.

Izzy Hands knew it well. He had been born there, in fact - the son of a washer-woman and a pirate, left to fend for himself. He had learned from the lesson early and well that only tough, brutal men survived.

He once had walked through those streets as a victim - a cowering child, a pickpocket teenager, until he'd ended up with his first berth on a ship.

Izzy moved through a crowd of children who were much like he used to be. He deftly moved his coin purse to the inside fold of his jacket, but made sure to leave a few pieces of silver accessible, but not that easy to reach.

After he passed through the children, he touched his pocket and grinned a little to find them missing. He hadn't felt that. 

Good. Whichever child had been bold enough to lift a few coin from a man like him had a better chance of surviving than most.

He looked down the street towards the cluster of children, trying to sort which of them had stolen from him.

A skinny boy with warm skin and dark eyes met his gaze. The child looked so much like the Edward Teach he had met as a boy that it gave him a chill.

The boy held his eyes for a moment, made a rude gesture, bit his coin, then disappeared into the snaking alleyways of the pirate settlement.

A boy like that had once saved Izzy's life. And from that moment on, he'd been pledged to his service. He had been many years older than Edward at the time, which made his show of strength all the more remarkable.

Izzy had always been more of a follower than a leader, but he now found himself rudderless, and with a score to settle.

He shouldered into a small bar at the end of a dead end alleyway, and was immediately met with a cutlass blade to his throat.

Izzy bared his throat and rasped, "I'm here to see the man. He knows who I am."

There was movement from the shadows. The blade-hand withdrew when the figure made a gesture.

Izzy stepped up and pulled out a chair, seating himself across a desk made of old ship planks.

"Hands. The balls on you to walk through my door," he rasped, a cloud of pipe smoke coming from the shadowed corner.

"I come with a proposal. Your hated enemy is now mine."

The figure scoffed. "I find it hard to believe that Blackbeard's dog has turned against his master."

Izzy twitched. "He's the one who broke faith with me."

The shadowed figure chuckled and shifted, and there was the sound of a creaking wooden chair. "I seem to recall he's done that a few times before, and you always came crawling back. What makes this time different?"

Izzy had to think about that. Edward had always been mercurial and unpredictable - subject to moods and ennui. But he'd always come around. But this time, it felt different.

This time, there was Stede fucking Bonnet.

"My reasons are my own. But be assured - my loyalty is fully broken."

The other man was silent for a long while. Smoke rings filtered across and hit Izzy in the face.

Then, finally, "What's your proposal?"

"I need a ship. And a crew. If you give me that, I'll bring you the man who chopped off your fingers one at a time and fed them to you, until the wounds were so infected, they had to take your hand."

There was a sudden wicked thump as a large metal hook dug into the heavy wooden planks and dragged across with the deeply unpleasant sound of metal slowly splintering wood. The man shifted into a sliver of light, revealing a massive beard, and an eye white and dead, bisected by a scar.

"What else?" he rasped.

Izzy tilted his head slowly, then smiled a toothy smile. "The Gentleman Pirate sails with him."

"I heard he was dead."

"You heard wrong. The ponce giving all of us a bad name is still out there. I'm sure you could have some fun with him," Izzy paused, "...especially if you do it in front of Blackbeard. The two of them have become quite close."

The man with a hook for a hand chuckled hoarsely. "You are a fuckin' piece o'work aren't you, Hands? All right." He grunted, "The Adventure is without a captain. Her previous captain and I had a difference of opinion," he gestured to the left. There was a still-wet puddle of blood and an empty chair with rope that was likewise caked in blood. "She's yours. And if you bring me Bonnet and Blackbeard, the command will be yours to keep. Under my banner, o'course."

"Much obliged," said Izzy, as he began to stand.

"Hands..." croaked the man, who likewise stood to his impressive height. He was so tall in fact, that his head nearly brushed the low rafters of the bar. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you what will happen to you if you fail, or if you crawl back into Blackbeard's lap."

"No. You certainly don't."

"Congratulations, Captain Hands. You've got yourself a ship."