Free Scarface by Andre Norton

last.”
    “Now that,” commented Cocklyn, “is what I might expect of the so-dear Captain. He had a use for you. But then why would he have thrown you away here in Barbados?”
    “He told me that my death would be a fitting end to all he wished to do here—”
    “Curious, very curious. A man of secrets, this captain of yours. I wish we might have put hand on him so that we could have conversed together. So you were a weapon of sorts whose purpose was fulfilled upon this visit to our island? There is an interesting mystery there, and mayhap some day we shall learn the truth of it. What name did he give you?”
    Scarface felt the red tide of shame rising on throat and jaw. His eyes dropped from Cocklyn's face to the pillow beneath his elbow.
    “What name suits a hacked face?” he demanded roughly. “I was Scarface to all the bullies of Tortuga!”
    “Well-a-day, such names have—before this—become agoodly threat to the godfathers who granted them first. But had you never another?”
    “Liza once called me ‘Justin.’” He told of that last strange interview with Cheap's housekeeper.
    “ ‘Your lady mother’ and ‘Justin.’ Aye, she must have known something. And that name is not a common one. How say you, Firken?”
    “No common one, no, Major. I have never met a man who bore it.”
    “Justin. That is well enough, but we must have twonames—we all do, rich fools that we are. What is your choice for a second, Justin?”
    Scarface was crumpling the linen between his hands again. Cocklyn still sounded as if he were jesting but he really was not. The Major meant that he, Scarface of Tortuga, was to have a proper name at last.
    “I will borrow no man's name,” he made answer slowly, “lest he have reason some day to make complaint against my bearing of it.”
    And at that Firken nodded. “Quite proper. So let me suggest this. You have said that this Captain Cheap spoke of you as a weapon he would use in some act of revenge— very well, take you a name which will bear him out.”
    “Firken!” Cocklyn was laughing again. “Faith, man, your sins have found you out at last! You are a poet at heart—or else a sorry playwriter.”
    Mr. Firken dropped his gaze to the pile of papers before him and there was a pinch of pink in his sallow cheeks, as well as a tight line of annoyance about his prim mouth. Major Cocklyn's chance shot had struck very close to home.

    “But idea of a poet or not, it is clever, damned clever, man. Now let us see—'Vengeance,’ ‘Revenge'— Gad, the lad's no ship to carry such a tag about with him, ‘Sword'— Aye, I have it! ‘Blade'—that's the name you want—Justin Blade! It has a good mouth-filling sound to it and not far removed from our Saxon heritage. Justin Blade you are.”
    Scarface liked it—"Justin Blade.” As Cocklyn said, it had an honest ring. He grinned happily at his godfathers and the Major was quick to give him an answering smile of triumph.
    “Might I suggest”—Mr. Firken had regained his composure and was all business once more—"that we keep this christening a matter secret to ourselves? Master Blade had better forget that he ever bore another name.”
    “Right as usual, Firken. I can see clearly why Sir Robert has fared so well at your hands. As far as the world will know you were Justin Blade when you came kicking into this life, lad. To make it all legal Firken will put it down in one of these solemn papers of state. But we have wandered far from the matter which brought us hither. You will not speak against the pirates, Justin?”
    “I can't.”
    “Very well. Nor could I, in like circumstances.” Cocklyn swung around to the secretary. “Write out the oath, Firken, and administer it to him. If Sir Robert raises any quarrel with that, I'll answer for it.”
    “As you wish.” Firken's pen moved across the paper in even lines. And soon after, Justin Blade took the oath to hold the Queen's peace and go no more adventuring in unlawful