Chapter Text
“Fifteen barrels?”
“That’s right, fifteen barrels of pure salt, straight from England.”
Izzy Hands stood, looking rather conceited, in front of Spanish Jackie’s desk at the back of her tavern. He was here to sell The Revenge’s latest ill-gotten gains, taken from a ship whose original destination was Europe but was now destined to sit at the bottom of the ocean.
Spanish Jackie did not look impressed.
“What the hell am I supposed to with fifteen barrels of salt?” she asked. Izzy’s pride faltered.
“Well, you could sell some –”
“Yeah, no shit, dumbass.” She looked annoyed. “You’re trying to offload salt that was going to be sold across a whole continent, onto one tiny-ass island?”
“You could always store –”
“Doesn’t salt go bad?” she rhetorically scoffed. She turned her head to her latest husband-of-the-week who was standing nearby. “Does salt bad?” she asked as an aside.
“Uh, I don’t think so,” the man quietly replied. “But storing that much for so long would be difficult and probably attract –”
She cut in, turning sharply back to Izzy. “I can’t store that much salt! It might go bad and it’ll attract –” she turned back to the husband.
“Ants.”
She turned back again. “Ants!”
“Well…” Izzy’s facial expression changed around as he tried to think up another reason for Spanish Jackie to buy all that cargo. Jackie looked on with a cocked eyebrow.
“Tell you what,” she said finally, leaning back in her chair, “I’ll buy five barrels and Marco here will tell you who else around here might be interested.” She pointed at the husband who gave a little wave.
“Only five? But –”
“I could also buy zero.”
“Five is good.”
Izzy followed the husband back into the tavern, feeling exasperated and tired, only half-listening to the man as he listed some potential buyers. Buyers Izzy already knew about and had already been planning to hit up if they had a couple left over from Jackie. He thought he’d have to sell maybe five after, but ten? He was fucked. Blackbeard was not going to be happy. Blackbeard hated being in port. Too many annoying asshats.
“Go get five barrels from the ship,” he said to his two men waiting by the bar. Izzy might have cut-off the husband mid-sentence but he didn’t know and he didn’t care.
“Just five?” one of the men asked.
“Yeah, five.” Izzy got up in the man’s face, irritated. “You have a problem with that?”
“Well I just thought –”
“You aren’t here to think,” he spat. “You’re here to move the cargo around, and that’s what I’m telling you to do. So go back to the fucking ship and get me five barrels.”
The crewman hastily nodded and quickly left the tavern with the other following closely behind.
“I need a fucking drink,” Izzy said.
A moment passed before Izzy finally looked back at the husband who was still standing nearby.
“I said ‘I need a fucking drink.’”
“Oh! Okay.” The husband scurried to behind the bar to pour Izzy an ale. Izzy exhaled, trying to calm himself.
“What crawled up your ass and died?”
Izzy’s head turned sharply. A few yards away was a young woman sitting at the bar with a pint in front of her. She was dressed in men’s trousers but her gender was given away by the long, bright red hair that fell out from under her well-worn, wide-brimmed hat. Anne Bonny took a sip of her ale, expression indifferent.
“What’s it to you, Bonny?” he asked with a glare. She shrugged.
“You just walked in looking so god damn pleased with yourself and you come out of there looking like Spanish Jackie insulted your outfit.”
“Eh fuck off,” he said. The husband came back and handed Izzy his drink. Izzy dejectedly plopped down on the stool next to Anne, which earned him a quick look of a confused “Why?” before Anne rolled her eyes and turned back to her own pint.
“I hear you’re back with Blackbeard, even though you sold him out to the English.”
“I did not – He wasn’t –” Izzy sputtered, affronted, and glancing around to see if anyone overheard. He glared at her and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I did not sell out Blackbeard. And besides, it’s none of your god damn business.”
“Oh come on,” she said with a mild plea. “There is nothing for me to fucking do all day while I wait around for my husband to come back. Then he can tell me all about his boring-ass ‘adventures’. ‘This time we passed by Bitter Guana Cay!’” she said with mock excitement. “I’ll fucking tell you who’s bitter. Fucking idiot sailing around while I sit here,” she muttered.
“Ugh, he sounds like Stede Bonnet,” Izzy spat the name.
“Oh yeah,” Anne looked over at Izzy with the smallest bit of curiosity. “You were sailing with that ‘Gentleman Pirate’ weren’t you? Before you sold him out to the English with Blackbeard.”
“I did not –!” Izzy started to shout before cutting himself off. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I did not sell out Blackbeard. I handed Bonnet over to the English in exchange for Blackbeard’s amnesty.”
“Yeah, ‘cause nothing helps a pirate’s reputation more than an underling cutting a deal with the King’s navy,” she said sarcastically.
“Well it doesn’t matter what you’ve heard,” Izzy said primly. “Because Blackbeard is himself again. He’s back to being the most ruthless fucking captain anyone has ever fucking seen and we’re fucking over the English and the Spanish. And Stede Bonnet has fucked off to wherever, tail between his legs like the little bitch is.” Izzy grinned smugly.
Anne drew her eyebrows together like she just remembered something. “Yeah, he went back to Barbados, right?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” Izzy shrugged, unconcerned. “Don’t care. Just so long as he’s fucking gone.”
“Yeah…” Anne trailed off, considered Izzy a moment, and then turned back to her forgotten pint. He looked at her suspiciously.
“What?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing.” She didn’t look back at him. “I just met a guy here yesterday from his hometown. And if Stede Bonnet was as helpless as that poor fucker, I can’t blame you for wanting him gone.”
“Yeah,” Izzy said, reaching for his own neglected pint. “Good fucking riddance to the ‘Gentleman Pirate.’” Anne raised her glass slightly in mock salute, but there was definitely a thought still churning in her head. But Izzy didn’t give a shit. Stede Bonnet was out of his life, and Blackbeard’s, and that was all that mattered.
Later that night, back aboard the docked Revenge, Izzy was nervously telling Blackbeard his plan for offloading the rest of the salt. Spanish Jackie had taken her five barrels and he’d sold an additional barrel to a fishmonger near the beach. But that still only came out to less than half of their haul. But Izzy assured Blackbeard, who looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between ‘I don’t care’ and ‘I will kill you’, that he had a plan.
“There are a few other fishmongers on New Providence, and Jennings is expected back here soon so he might be willing to barter –”
“HEY IS BLACKBEARD THERE?” an impressively loud shout came from the shore below.
“Who the hell is that?” Blackbeard demanded, tone detached. A man near the taffrail, who had been wondering to himself how fast he could run from the ship if he jumped over onto the sand, looked.
“Uh, two guys?” Frenchie answered. “One of them has long red hair so that might actually be a woman but I can’t tell from here.”
Izzy strode over to the side to look for himself. Yep, there she was, along with a man he didn’t know.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT ANNE?” he shouted back.
“I BROUGHT A GUY I THINK YOUR CAPTAIN WOULD WANT TO MEET!”
Izzy gave a quick glance back to Blackbeard who still looked bored-slash-irritated.
“WHAT’S THE GUY’S NAME?”
Anne looked to the man next to her and spoke out-of-earshot.
“JEFFREY!”
Frenchie shot a worried glance at Blackbeard, wondering if the name “Jeff” would set him off. His facial expression slid an inch more in the direction of angry.
“WHY THE FUCK WOULD BLACKBEARD WANT TO MEET THIS GUY?”
“HE’S – I – BECAUSE – AH FUCK IZZY JUST LET ME TALK TO HIM.”
Izzy once again looked to his captain who made his way over at an unhurried pace. Blackbeard looked over the side at the stranger, said nothing for a moment with no indication of recognition, then turned to Izzy.
“They can come up. Bring ‘em to my office,” Blackbeard said without inflection before walking off in that direction.
“Alright, throw the ladder down!” Izzy commanded. Frenchie wistfully watched a crewmember drop down the ladder.
“YOU CAN CLIMB, RIGHT BONNY?” Izzy shouted down.
“GO FUCK YOURSELF, HANDS.”
Bonny made her companion go first while she stayed standing in the sand. It took way longer than it should have and the sad bastard was huffing and puffing after he finally got hauled up over the rail with the help of two crewmen. When there was no longer a risk of a large man falling on her, Anne started up the ladder herself and made it in about a quarter of the time. Multiple crewmen offered up their hands to help the lady over the rail, but she gave them an unimpressed look and climbed over it on her own.
Izzy led the pair of guests back to the Blackbeard’s office and shut the door behind when they all went inside. The newcomer got one look at Blackbeard and immediately straightened his spine, almost a pathetic imitation of a soldier standing at attention. Anne put a hand on the man’s back and pushed him closer to the captain, herself looking a bit annoyed.
Blackbeard gave them a once-over. He looked to Izzy.
“You know her?”
“In passing, sir. She’s the wife of James Bonny.” There was no recognition on Blackbeard’s face. “He sailed with us once.” Still nothing.
“To be fair, he’s not very impressive,” Anne said.
“And who’s this guy?” He nodded to the man beside her.
“Jeffrey Fettering, sir. I mean, Mr. Blackbeard sir,” the man said. He was still standing at attention.
“And why did you bring him onto my ship?” Blackbeard asked Anne with no inflection.
“Well I met Jeffrey the other day and he told me his story, a very interesting story,” she said, the last bit said to Jeffrey in a talking-down-to voice, “And there’s a detail to it that I thought you might want to hear. And I figured it was better if he told you this detail himself.”
“And what’s this detail?” Jeffrey nervously glanced at Anne.
“Which detail are you talking about?” he whispered. Anne gave a belabored sigh.
“See Jeffrey here,” she began, “is brand new to pirating. Just came to Nassau this week –”
“Are you mocking me?”
Blackbeard’s question hit like a stone on the ground. His dark glare was on Anne and he looked ready to chop off a finger or two. For the first time that night, Anne’s laid-back attitude faltered.
“No, no,” she said hurriedly, “I think you’d be interested in why he became a pirate.”
Blackbeard scrutinized her for one, two, three seconds more before levelling his gaze at Jeffrey. Jeffrey looked like he was about to piss his pants.
“Well?”
“Uh, I, well I mean, I’ve never been much of an adventurous kind of guy, but –”
“You don’t need to start from the beginning,” Anne cut in, her voice nervous and a hint irritated. “What event spurred you to become a pirate?”
“Oh, well my friend Stede Bonnet, he became a pirate, I think you met him?” Jeffrey asked, hopefully looking to Blackbeard. The hope died quickly.
“So you are mocking me.” Blackbeard reached for one of the knives on his belt.
“No no no no,” Anne said, begging Blackbeard to wait. He paused but his glare didn’t lessen.
“Jeffrey,” Anne said, only sparing the man a glance, “Where is Stede Bonnet now?”
“Oh, well I actually don’t know what Mary –”
“JEFFREY,” Anne cut in once more, her nerves frayed. “Where is Stede Bonnet living?”
“Oh!” Jeffrey said, finally understanding her prompt. “Oh you meant like that.
“He’s not.”
Blackbeard’s expression subtly shifted to have a hint of confusion.
“Right,” Anne said, calmer, seeing that the immediate danger had passed. “Because Stede Bonnet…?”
“Died.”
“Atta boy,” Anne said with only a surprisingly small bit of condescension. She nervously looked back to Blackbeard.
All anger fell immediately from Blackbeard’s face. The only thing left there was shock. For a moment it looked like he wasn’t breathing.
Izzy, who had been watching all this unfold from behind, at first matched his captain’s expression. But then Izzy’s started to slide towards glee.
“Stede Bonnet is dead?” He sounded almost giddy. The other three glanced back at him as he started to walk over to Blackbeard’s side.
“Yeah,” Jeffrey said, looking between Izzy and Blackbeard. “It was horrible, honestly. Happened in the middle of town.”
“How did he die?” The question was only a whisper when it came out of Blackbeard’s lips.
“It was quite gruesome. First there was a jaguar, and Stede led it away so no one else got hurt. And he managed to survive it, but he did look horribly mauled, and so that’s probably why he didn’t see the carriage coming. But even after he got run over, I thought ‘Hey, maybe there’s a chance he survived’, but then a piano fell on him.”
The room was silent.
Izzy was over the moon. He looked to Blackbeard to make a snide remark but halted when he saw the look on his captain’s face. Shock, pure shock, giving way to desolation with grief slowly, subtly creeping in.
Izzy looked at Anne and Jeffrey with a wordless plea of ‘Oh God someone break the silence.’
“I heard you two sailed together,” Anne said. Blackbeard looked at her. “I don’t know how that went, or how things ended, but I figured that regardless, you’d probably want to know he died.” She sounded consolatory and genuine about it, too.
Another lapse of silence.
Slowly, the shock bled away from Blackbeard’s face and he just looked slightly confused. As if his mind was just filled with the question ‘Now what?’
“Where did you say you were from?” he eventually asked, looking back to Jeffrey.
“Uh, I don’t think I did, but Barbados.”
“Barbados,” Blackbeard muttered to himself, absently nodding his head. The three others watched him, waiting. The man was in a daze but then a look of resolution came to his face and he stood.
“Izzy,” he said, not looking at the man but instead towards his things. His voice had a slight edge of anger.
“Yes, captain?”
“Get the sloop ready. I’m taking it to Barbados.”
“What?” Izzy floundered. “Captain, why? What, what, what purpose does that serve?” His voice was turning desperate, fearing he was about to lose his captain in the same manner as before. Blackbeard swung his head to look at him.
“Because I will see his grave, and then it will be done” he said, resolute with a small pang of bitter. “I will see his grave and then we will never need to think of Stede Bonnet ever again.”