Free Pirate Talk or Mermalade by Terese Svoboda Page A

tries them and hangs them.
    For a bounty, of course.

    The wise-legged one! He at least knows the cost of saving the souls of pirates for our Savior who both giveth and taketh away the way. Do not worry, we are not so far from land, a day’s journey, no more, and you too will soon be taketh away.
    Smith!
    The storm pulls hard when you have the Lord Almighty coming for you. Belowdecks, now.
    We too be saved and sorry, and will be full of joy to abide in the searching for souls with you. Let us enter Boston in triumph, for the judgment of pirates other than ourselves!
    It’s the eye patch no one will believe. You shan’t pass for naught but pirate.
    I’ll pluck it off and offer my eye-hole.
    It’s the patch and Boston harbor only a tide away, and the number of pirates we find who are scarce as you hereabouts, except after storms. And, of course, there’s the bounty. Stand just here on your pegleg—another point of the pirate.
    I’m a watchmaker, not a pirate.
    Reverend, they go not willingly to God.
    No—not the irons again—
    We hoist sail and wash the decks better than most. Our last captain—a Frenchman he was—thought well of our handling of the line. This hook I have be the best ballast for a sturdy knot.
    To blows then!
    Good for you, Smith—in one strike. But methinks you should have found a better set of shackles in port. What do
we go out for if we have only this soft tin—to rescue crippled sailors from their watery grave? Fetch the bit and the cord from the chest.
    Not so tight.
    Smith’s a blackguard, Reverend. I tell you in our sainted mother’s name.
    Yes, perhaps he seems reformed at hand, but he’ll tow you to hell and back for your ship. Whilst ourselves, we are just poor boys afloat, rescued and homeless from the terrible storm.
    Quiet, the two of you, or I’ll belay you both again with the “hand o’ God.”
    Have pity. We are your sons indeed, sent by and by. Our very mother tells us Baltrick’s the one, aye, Baltrick, and we set sail to find him, no reason other than for the recovery of our father.
    Prithee?
    Oh, father!

24
    Boston Harbor
    Why did they have to hang Smith in such a dead wind? Row faster and the stench will lighten. I’ll watch the course.
    I see nothing but the blasted moon of your back.
    Just row and we’re bound to hit something.
    Baltrick.
    Sea wolves and jackanapes! No wonder Ma didn’t hold to him. I’m sure the heat of hate has already set his sail, if not the stink of Smith, Baltrick’s bonus.
    Smith always did stink.
    He stank up the whole of the colony. The gaoler told me the surgeons were wanting a try at him, to have a peek at his heart and suchlike but the gibbet was too soon fouled by crows dissecting on their own, having a look at the black heart themselves.
    You are a one for disappointing that gaoler. He didn’t like Smith.
    I sang when the noose came up.
    And what be the tune? I may need it yet.
    The song is on my tongue tip, it is there but I can’t tell you, it is gone the way they say it goes. But you can be sure I didn’t stand around trying to catch it again—I ran. Pray, how did you stall your gaoler’s fancy?

    With the figures I put into the gaol wall using the spoon butt—“St. Peter Choosing the Keys.” My years of practice for the bone repaid me well. For every prisoner the gaoler said he would always get the cleverer, and I was the cleverest of all.
    Aye. The burying you told him was.
    Oh, but those eight buried silver bars, I say like I have laid eyes on them, even hauled them halfway around the world. Like pirates float to the beach on bars of gold or silver!
    That would be a shipwreck.
    I made mention to the gaoler of that fresh water running in the glen just outside the town. A right marshy place, I say. Then he tells the hangman I need time to repent and brings me double rations and forgets to close the door quite so hard as before. We be needing a new door for half a year now, he says and he lifts his eyebrows like they