Free PIRATE: Privateer by Tim Severin Page A

stained with spilled drinks and scuffed by boot heels. Shafts of sunlight entered through the unglazed windows and struggled to penetrate thick clouds of tobacco smoke.
Along the far wall were rough wooden shelves stacked with bottles and tankards. Below them, on stands, were several kegs and a battered serving counter. The smell was of rum, beer, unwashed bodies
and stale tobacco. The place was packed with customers. They sat on benches and stools around tables set far enough apart for the serving women to push their way through with more drinks.
Occasionally one of the drinkers got up to accompany a serving woman. The two of them disappeared behind a length of sailcloth hung over a sagging rope which screened off the far end of the room.
The tavern did double duty as a brothel.
    Anne-Marie’s entry attracted several glances. Most of the drinkers were men from the
Sainte Rose
so they recognized her immediately. Free of shipboard constraints they ogled her and
there were several catcalls of approval. Near the counter a heavyset man in a stained apron was staring at her in a calculating manner. She guessed he was the tavern owner and wondering if her
presence would cause trouble. But the shrewdest appraisal came from the serving women. There were about a dozen of them, and their ages could have been anything between fifteen and forty. A few
paused briefly in their work and looked her over carefully, then went back to attending to the customers. Others glared, not troubling to conceal their hostility. These were dressed in brightly
coloured skirts that had been chosen to set off the colour of their skins which ranged from jet black to a pale coffee. Every one of them was naked from the waist up.
    Anne-Marie looked around the press of drinkers, searching out her brothers. The three of them were at a table some distance into the room and seated with a couple of men she did not recognize.
Unwilling to force her way through the crowd she stood waiting until they noticed her presence, and then she beckoned. Yannick scowled and deliberately raised his tankard to his lips before slowly
getting to his feet. Roparzh and Yacut stayed where they were.
    As he slouched towards her, she saw Yannick was very drunk. He staggered, swerving between the tables. He was passing one group when someone put out a leg and deliberately tripped him. He fell
forward, reaching out, and dragged down one of the other drinkers. Immediately there were angry shouts and several curses as drinks were spilled. Then Yannick was back on his feet and looking round
to see who had tripped him.
    The fiddler stopped playing. Suddenly there was a silence as half the room waited to see what the sullen Breton would do next.
    With an oath Yannick lunged, clawing for his victim. But he had mistaken the man responsible for his fall. Within a heartbeat the scuffle was threatening to turn into a general brawl. Bystanders
were knocked off their seats, pushed and shoved, took offence and began to fight amongst themselves. Several of the serving women dodged behind the curtain. The others withdrew to the side of the
room and looked on, arms folded under bare breasts. It was a scene they had witnessed many times.
    The tavern owner was quick to intervene. He charged through the crowd with several of his regular customers at his back to help him. They seized Yannick and the other struggling men and bundled
them towards the door and out into the street. Anne-Marie beat a tactful retreat before them.
    Outside, only Yannick and his real tormentor wanted to keep up their quarrel. Anne-Marie saw that it was the same sailor, Gaston Rassalle, who had insulted her on the
Sainte Rose
. Both
men were in an ugly mood, glaring at one another. Rassalle spat on the ground contemptuously. He reached behind his back and pulled a knife from its sheath on his belt.
    ‘I should have gutted you at Vera Cruz,’ he sneered as he crouched in a fighting stance.
    There was a glint of steel