Chapter Text
In the bright and blazing hot May of 1718, Captain Oluwande Boodhari of the Revenge stood on the deck of his ship with all his crew and watched his first mate, Fang, marry his laughing navigator to his beaming deckhand. Everyone aboard seemed to feel somewhat sentimental about the proceedings, but Fang looked to be feeling it the most. When the deckhand had placed a poesy ring on the navigator’s finger and then kissed him, amid the whistles and yells of the crew — one delicately possessive hand curled about his neck — Fang buried his face in his hands and wept. Fang’s small but strident pup, Jolly Roger (rescued from a recently raided rich man’s ship) ran to whine and leap against his legs, and made him laugh. The watching captain laughed too, and shook his head. Then he caught the eye of one Jim Jimenez across the deck, and at the look they gave him blushed all the way down to his toes.
The deckhand and the navigator were bareheaded and barefooted, but dressed in shining silks, and the crew was decked in gold and velvet and lace, and anyone happening to see them might have been pardoned for thinking it was a very sophisticated party, aboard the Revenge; but amid the music and the dancing, after, the repeated toast (yelled, sung and shouted) was "To piracy!" And the matelots shouted it louder than anyone.
Later, belowdecks, amid the general cloud of sentiment and lust that had descended on the ship, the navigator and the deckhand lay tangled around each other abed, and murmured to each other. The things they said at first were not particularly poetic, but there was a poetry in the air about, a mood in the moonlight, that made everything seem magic, and their expressions suggested they'd never been near anything so beautiful as each other's brandy-soaked breath and sweaty faces.
Then the deckhand said, "Tell me something I don't know about you," and the navigator laughed, and then quieted and stared at him as though he were a wonder.
"My other name," he said, slowly, voice full of the moonlight and the strangeness of his joy, "is Kahukura. In our — in my mother's language."
"Kahukura," whispered the deckhand, and laid a hand on his face; kept it there while he talked, watching him with tender eyes.
"I'm named for the atua of war — the — the guardian, the grandfather of it. One of the old ones. My mother said I could ask him to show me the way to my future. I could ask him to guide my ship safely through the sea, the storms — I could ask him to keep me safe."
”Is that why she named you for him?”
"Well, sort of. When I was born there was a storm. It swamped the fishing boats; killed a lot of people. But when my mom walked outside with me, after, there was a double rainbow in the sky, over the harbor. She named me for that."
"Kahukura is the rainbow?"
"He and his lover are the double bows together. Kahukura-i-te-rangi, Kahukura-in-the-sky, and his Tūāwhiorangi."
"Oh, that's lovely.”
“My mother said he stands with one foot on the land and one foot in the sea. She said I had his courage. She told me I'd loved the sea since I could stand well enough to walk into it."
"I'm glad it was there." It was a murmur; the hand on the face was very gentle. "For you to run away to. I'm glad you found your way."
The stars above the Revenge shone bright on a love-soaked ship; and silently Shipman Buttons sat and communed with the world, feeling content amid the waves of joy emanating from all the rooms below him; wistful only for his inability to consummate his love with the moonlit sea.
Three weeks later, the Revenge docked outside of Nassau, and the navigator and the deckhand climbed up the rigging together to stare out over the island, taking in the lights amid the trees, the shouts from the docks, despite the lateness of the hour. The crew had gone ashore, but the two seemed content to sit somewhere above the world and watch the night grow deep.
"The trouble is," said the deckhand, "when I'm not being chased, I don't know what to do with myself. I spent my whole childhood being chased. I'm damned good at it."
"That's fucked up," said the navigator, and the deckhand laughed.
"I suppose so. But if I'm not getting chased and finding my way out of it, then what was all that for?"
"Does it have to be for anything? Can't it just be — over?"
"Hmm." They sit together in the warm wind, soaked in the shore-scent of plumeria and earth.
"What did you want to do, before you decided getting into trouble was all you were good at?"
"Well, I don't know; it started awfully young." Then, when the navigator didn't speak, "I wanted to read books. Pick flowers. Climb over hills, see what was on the other side. Live in a fairy story. That's not a man's life."
"It could be."
He scoffed, but quietened under the other's earnestness. "You know, you're not who I thought you would be."
"No?"
"No, you're sweet. It's strange. I don't understand how you've kept that up out here."
The navigator ducked his head, smiled. Pressed his shoulder against the deckhand's. "Maybe I kept it because nobody saw it."
"Nobody?"
"Nobody. You're the first. And the first to see it fucking wanted it. Isn't that a wonder?"
The deckhand wound his hand into the navigator's; held on tight. The sound of the waves far below them lapped the edges of the quiet.
"What did you want to do, before Hornigold got to you?"
"I, um. I thought about fishing. I liked being out on the water. The wildness of it — the sea has moods, y’know, does what it wants. It felt alive. I felt good being on my own in the middle of the weather. I helped on the boats sometimes — the little ones. Always wanted my own. I understood the way they moved, how to handle them. Nothing like how a big ship moves — you have to know the ropes like you know your hands. Have to convince the boat that you know what you're doing."
"You'd be wonderful at that," said the deckhand, and the navigator laughed, and then sobered.
"Thank you," he said, and the deckhand squeezed his hand.
"You could do that," he said. "If we could find the money for it."
"Oh, that won't be a problem." The navigator turned to him, and he was grinning. "We can do whatever we want, Stede. There's no boat we can't afford."
"Are you serious?" A sparkle of incredulity; an admixture of hope.
"There's rubies and pearls in the pufferfish."
“Oh," said the navigator, after an astounded pause; “Oh, you exceptional fuckerer,” following that with a kiss that went on far past propriety.
Three days later, the Revenge departed for the last time out of the bay of Nassau. It carried enough supplies for several months’ voyage, a comprehensive map of the Amazon Basin, and a full crew, minus two shipmates — one navigator, the exceptional Edward Teach, and one legally deceased deckhand, Stede Bonnet.
Ashore, Teach and Bonnet sat on their slightly terrifying stained little bed, in a boardinghouse that might or might not have been a front for an opium ring, and shared a bag of mangoes.
"The trouble is," said Bonnet, through a juicy mouthful, "it really is hard to imagine loving you anywhere else."
"What?" Teach blanched; stared at him, forgetting his handful of fruit. "You only love me as a pirate?"
"No! No, I mean — it's actually illegal. Pretty much everywhere, this side of the world. It's hard to imagine us safe."
"Oh."
"Quite."
"Do we have to be safe?"
"I'd certainly rather we were. If we mean to get old."
"Ah." Teach stared down into his sticky hands, considering this. Then, "I remember — when I was a boy, out with my mom — seeing two men in stocks in the town square. They were lovers, like you and me; and they were being punished."
"Oh, dear." Bonnet laid a hand on Teach's arm.
"My mom called it barbarous. She said she couldn’t understand it; when she was a girl, a man’s takatāpui was respected; she said the old ones had had their lovers, and why should the bailiffs think they knew better?"
"What's that — a takatāpui?"
"Like a matelot. A man who another man chooses."
"Ooh." Bonnet blinked at him, surprised. Then, "I wish I'd met your mother."
"Me too," said Teach softly.
"The trouble is, on my ship I could defend us. I could duel Izzy for you, kick Jack off when he got presumptuous, thumb my nose at the Navy and sail away."
"Yes, but all of those came back to bite us, Stede."
"The point is! The point is, you, with me, like this — I make you a target. And on land I can’t protect you."
"You don't have to protect me."
"Of course I do. I love you. I don't want to see you in stocks."
Teach, blushing, scooted a little closer and said, "But isn't it worth it?"
"Of course it is. But. What if I get you killed? You wouldn't let me be killed."
"Oh."
"You signed your life and dignity away to keep me from being killed."
"Ah. I — ah. I see."
"I know we had to give up the ship if we wanted to live, but where else can it be just the two of us? Where else could belong to only us — no one to watch how we lived? Where else would they leave us alone? — "
His voice trailed off. He was staring at the little painting propped on the windowsill, beside a skeletal pufferfish.
"Oh, fuck me. A fucking lighthouse," said Teach, and Bonnet met his wide eyes and laughed aloud.
As May turned to June, quick, blustery storms brewing up and blowing by, the dolphins and their newborn calves circling the island, a fishing crew headed out of Nassau for the Carolinas (smuggling gold in the hull, but covering it with several tons of genuine fish) with two eager green hires. The two had claimed extensive sailing experience, and one of them certainly had it; the other was a pretty quick learner, and (crucially) enjoyed a good bluff. They made the crossing to the Carolinas with a fair amount of blisters from net-hauling, and the permanent scent of fish in all their clothes, but an all-overriding relief in the realization that nobody (not the Navy, not the Queen Anne, not the rum-soaked ghost of Calico Jack) seemed to be following them at all.
Ashore in the Carolinas, two temporary fishermen sat on a dock with their boots set down beside them, dangling their feet in the cool water, and shared a pint of blackberries between them.
"I am sorry I never picked new names for us," said one.
"What, you don't like being called Steve?" said the other, and laughed at him.
"No, I don't, Ted!"
"Ugh," shuddered Ted, and grimaced with blackberry-stained lips. "Fine, let's not do that."
"But we should change our names. We can't exactly settle in the Colonies as Bonnet and Teach, notorious ex-pirates."
"Fair enough."
"D'you want to keep part of your name? I can't be Stede. He's dead. And I won't be Bonnet."
"No?"
"It’s my father’s name. I don’t want it. And anyway, it’s a little bit obvious. Not that many Baby Bonnets in the world."
"What?" said Ted, startled, and Steve shrugged delicately beneath his rough and fish-gut-stained sweater.
"Something the boys at school used to call me," he said. Ted glared; tenderly placed a blackberry into his mouth.
"Those little fuckers," he said, with feeling. Steve looked at him with utter fondness; patted Ted's cheek and tossed a blackberry into the air. Ted caught it in his mouth. Steve applauded.
"What about Teach?" said Steve, after a bit, "Do you want to keep that?"
"Hell no. That’s my father’s name. I could keep Edward for me."
"Ah. Right. Well. What do you want for a second name?"
Ted pushed himself to his feet; held his hand out for the other to take. Pulled him up, and tucked his hand close into his arm. They stood looking out over the sea together, the sky turning golden with the beginnings of a magnificent sunset, the gulls wheeling overhead. Ted's eyes were gleaming in the light. He said, "My mother’s people don’t use their fathers’ names; they get a second name when something new’s beginning."
"Yeah?"
"You add on to the baby name — you give the kid another. Something new to use, fit to who they’ll be."
"I like that."
"She never got to give me another."
"I wish she had. Can you choose for yourself?"
"I think I can."
When at last the two of them turned, they walked together down the dock with one stride.
Three days later, the itinerants briefly known as Ted and Steve sat cross-legged on the fragrant cedar-plank deck of a little fishing ketch, recently bought secondhand, but beautifully kept up, bobbing with the waves. They were watching the sun rise pink and splendid over the northern horizon. There'd been songbirds chipping in the bushes since they’d paid for their room and walked down to the dock; but now the gulls had begun to wheel and dive and a splash of an adventurous fish broke the surface of the water here and there. The two sat with their arms pressed warm together, and the one who had been Stede Bonnet in another life said, "I've picked a name."
"Yeah?" The man once called Edward Teach looked at him, sitting all rosy and smiling in the newborn light, with tender eyes.
"John Edwards Hayes."
"I like it. Why?"
"Hayes was the teacher I liked the best. He taught us composition, and art, and he let me bring him the flowers I'd picked — the boys would have spoiled them if I'd taken them to the dormitory. He kept them on his desk, and let me eat lunch beside him while the others played outside, and he stood up to the headmaster for me twice."
"I like him too, then." Ed nudged him with his shoulder; said, "Why John?"
"It's my mother's father's name. I only met him once; he died when I was small. But — he was kind to me. Took me outside to look at the gardens while the adults were arguing, and taught me the names of the plants."
"I'm glad. And Edwards?"
"Well." He laughed a little, looked at him sideways. "I'm Edward's?"
"What? — oh. Oh — " Ed's voice went strained, and John Edwards Hayes looked up, surprised, in time to see him put a hand to his eyes.
"Oh, darling. Come here."
Ed pressed up against his side; tucked himself under his arm. They sat quiet under the new light. The slim little boat bobbed on the gentle swell, and Ed turned his face into John’s shoulder, and hid his feelings in its haven. Finally he said, "I've chosen one, too."
"Tell me."
"Ihaka. Edward Kahukura Ihaka."
"What does that mean?" And then, "Are you okay?" because Ed’s brows were still signaling some strong emotion.
"Mhm, I'm just — I'm happy."
"What does it mean, Ed?"
"It means — 'He will laugh.'"
In time there began to be voices behind them on the shore; shouts, as the fishermen approached their boats, and the fishmongers set up shop on the wharf, and the town wives came out to buy their breakfasts. Ed and John shifted apart, glanced wistfully at each other.
"I'll miss you, till you get there," said John. "I wish we were traveling the same way."
"Me too."
"I’m glad you’ll still be Edward."
"Hm, you like that name."
"It’s yours. Will you mind me being John?"
"‘Course not. It’s a little odd for me, but I’ll love it for you. I’d love anything if it’s you," said Ed, and stared when John suddenly buried his face in his hands. "Are you okay?"
"Mhmm" — muffled through the hands. John's pink and smiling face reappeared above them, and John said, "Just — just happy too."
In the spring of 1718, George Worthylake drowned in a rising storm in Boston Harbor. The Boston Light stood alone on the island, waiting for a keeper.
In July of the year, John Edwards Hayes, the new lighthouse keeper (a sturdy, sun-browned, ordinary-looking man, but for the golden rings in his ears and the very fine lace on his cravat), sailed into the Bay on the ferry-boat, the wind in his hair, a smile on his face. He landed on Little Brewster, and brought up to the lighthouse a small painting, a journey-bag, and nothing more; but he tipped the ferryman handsomely.
Some days later, a fishing ketch docked in the harbor in the late afternoon sun with its first modest haul of fish. The captain sold his catch for a good price, with some competent haggling and a few well-placed curses; in the Ordinary, the regulars watched a broad-shouldered brown man walk in amid the dinner rush with a handful of coins and a curious smile. “Edward Ihaka,” he said, when they asked, and shook their hands; sat down in the corner with a single ale and listened to their stories, and watched their gambling and shouting, and smiled more. Ihaka wore woolens and leather and sturdy boots like the rest of them, and a long fishknife on his waist, and his knuckles were dark with scars; but there was gold at his neck, and gold wrapped about the long, pale stone that hung from his ear, and a little silk tied off the silvered braid that hung down his back. He talked like a stranger, and dressed like a story, but he looked entirely at home.
They grew to like Ihaka. He was reliable; showed up every Saturday and chose the same corner, the same drink. He never tried to take the women, and never joined the men’s scuffles, and they thought that was as well; he looked like he could have won any fight he chose, but he seemed content to sell his fish, then stop to watch them scrap and sing and brag, and by nine set out satisfied. After a while he began to join in the talk more; he joked and teased them, and arm-wrestled the young men, and guessed their riddles, and told stories with a gleam in his eye — stories of storms and fights, and men and monsters, that seemed too strange to be true. He listened to their songs hungrily, but never sang himself; only if shanties were being bandied about he would whistle a little, and if someone sang a love song, shameless tears stood in his eyes, and he might be heard humming the melody softly as he got up to leave. He was seen to sail his ketch back every night to Little Brewster Island.
There were roses and blackcurrant bushes and an apple tree on the island, now; John Hayes had bought slips and sprouts to root. He had a goat, and a cat, and a chicken-house; he spent little time on the mainland — he seemed content to tend the fire and garden. He appeared to be a man of few wants, for all his lace cravats and golden earrings; his purchases were simple, his only indulgences a significant amount of sweet rolls and sugar, and a single book every month from the booksellers — studying everything they had intently, till a smile would light his face and he’d murmur, “He’ll like this,” as he chose one out. And he never stopped for a gamble or a quick lay or an argument; he wasn’t seen at the taverns — friendly, but he stayed cautious of making friends.
Those who sailed past the island usually saw him kneeling amid the flowers, busy in the warm dirt with a pruning knife and a pile of weeds, or reading in the shifting shadows under the apple tree, the cat in his lap; but one old man who lived on the point swore he’d stood at the window in a storm and seen Hayes and Ihaka out on the bare rock, swept by the wind, in all-out combat. Dueling wildly, he said, with swords, up and down the island, lit by the lightning — and laughing. Gave him the shivers, he said. The others shook their heads; but one or two thought to themselves that they could imagine it; thought Ihaka had something like that burning in his smile when he told his stories, something more than the long slow work in every weather and the pleased indulgence he wore on his face when he sat with them at night.
They all at the Ordinary, farmers and fishers and laborers, knew Ihaka stayed with Hayes; plenty of them had something of the same arrangement, two in a home, or a bed, who trusted each other. But they had never seen them together until the night Ihaka sang. A new crew had come in, off a fishing schooner that had sailed up from the Keys, and there were two tall brown men among them, dark-eyed, tattooed and bare-faced, long hair bound up on the back of their heads; and Ihaka started to his feet when he saw them; stood wide-eyed and staring. The strangers saw him, too, and shouted; they opened their hands and called out to him. The others watched him start across the room, hands held out; saw him reach them, catch them wildly by the shoulders; clasp their hands, and murmur warm words in a tongue they didn’t recognize. Then, “Kahukura,” he said, and “Edward Ihaka, now,” and finally, “Come and talk.”
That night Ihaka smiled, and listened, and shouted along for hours in English and French and the other tongue; his gestures swung wider, his weariness fallen away; and when the others began, he sang with them. Song after song, his face faraway in the low light.
It was while they were singing that Hayes walked in. It was late — hours past the time Ihaka normally left them. Hayes looked almost frightened — the first time any of them had seen him flustered. But the fear fell away as he spotted Ihaka in the corner, lit by the lanterns and shining with song; and he smiled, first, and then a hand went to his mouth and for a minute he looked like he might weep. Ihaka saw him then and beamed; beckoned, and called out to him. “Ed,” Hayes called back, bright if shaky, and raised his hand.
“My takatāpui,” said Ihaka, “John Hayes,” and the others nodded; stood, and opened their hands, too. Hayes strode across the room, his sturdiness returned, and shook the offered hands emphatically.
If any of them had wondered what a man like Ihaka saw in a man who spent his time buried in books and roses, they saw it then — Hayes settled down in the noisy midst of them and looked delighted, sharing in the ale and fried fish skins from the common plate, joining in the murmurs of humor and pleasure and the scattering of French and English and something else together, roaring with laughter at a comment from one and giving back as good as he got when another slapped him heavily on the back. He was beaming. When the tavern boy began to snuff the lamps, past three, Hayes and Ihaka and the others stood slowly; lingered on the doorstep as the regulars shuffled past them; clasping hands and arms, promising to return before the year’s end.
“Do you know them?” the old man from the point stopped to ask Ihaka, slurring a little. “Were they there when you were fighting monsters?”
“No,” Ihaka said, “but they’re — whānau,” and then, “my people. They’re my people.”
He and Hayes started away together, down the road, shoulder to shoulder, toward the moonlight on the harbor.
After that Hayes stopped keeping to himself so much. He began to turn up at the fairs and market days, a little shy at first, then talkative, once he’d found the farmers’ stalls, the places men with rough hands and gentle voices would stand about chatting with him about the care of apple saplings and berry bushes and recalcitrant goats. He never joined in the dancing on fair days, but he watched Ihaka in the midst of it all (Ihaka never turned down a dance) with glad eyes. After some time, they heard that Hayes and Ihaka had begun showing up together at the reading nights at the farmers’ hall, the little one up the valley. Hayes brought big books to read aloud when he took his turn. On Ihaka’s nights he told the wildest hair-raising yarns of treasures and monsters on the high seas, stories that would be familiar to the patrons of the Ordinary; and stories, too, of gods and angels, hunters and sailors and warriors building bridges at the dawn of time. On the others’ nights, Hayes had begun writing down the farmers’ and tradesmen’s fairy stories and family legends — he said that he was turning them into a book of their own. That he thought that they should be remembered.
In 1734, when Hayes’ hair had gone white and the lighthouse cat’s granddaughters had grown sleek and strong, while Ihaka had taken on two young men from the countryside to help him with the fishing, a great ship, battered and stained (but hung with lights and echoing with music) anchored at the edge of the harbor in the sunset; and a dory was seen going out from it to the lighthouse. Men went ashore on the island; knocked at the door of the house, and were let in. Some time later Hayes ran out into the twilight and hailed a vessel approaching shore, and on landing was seen running toward the Ordinary where Ihaka went after his catch. “Ed,” he shouted, as he strode into the smokey room, and Ihaka started up to meet him. “Ed, they’ve come home.”
The next morning, it was found that the ship had weighed anchor in the night, and that Hayes and Ihaka were gone, along with the cats, three goats, and the youngest rosebush, uprooted from the shore. Singing had been heard from the deck, and laughter, before the leaving; and the old man’s daughter, who lived on the point, said Hayes and Ihaka had been perched in the rigging in the moonlight, looking out toward the open sea. The fishing ketch was left with Ihaka’s boys, who could only shrug, “He said they were going to China.”