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@@ -2682,6 +2682,57 @@ The sun was just past it's peak when Queen Anne's revenge appeared on the horizo Revenge anchored a short distance back from Delos and launched two long boats that came over to Delos. Edward and his men came aboard and grilled the pilots about the best way into the harbor. In the end one of the boats took four of the men back to Revenge, while Edward forced the other two into the second boat with him. As the sun set the crew began to row upriver toward HMS Victory which, according to the pilots, had a small watch. Tambo went with them, Kobayashi remained on Delos to bring her into the Harbor once the long boat returned. +Edward sat on the deck brading punks into his beard and tying more to strands of his long hair. He caught Lulu watching him from where she sat, perched on the rail. "Make me look scarier." + +"You already look pretty scary uncle Edward." + +He made a hurt face. "You mean I look scary all the time?" + +"A little." She giggled. Then she felt a little bad about laughing. "Maybe if you cut your hair? It's a little wild. Or trimmed your beard?" + +"Never." He smiled. "Wild and scary aren't bad things in my line of work." + +"That's what papa says. He says you look the part better than anyone he's ever met." + +"He said that did he?" Thatch seemed pleased. Lulu nodded. + +Later Thatch was the first one in the long boat. He stood in the bow, one foot on the gunwale, adjusting his hat. He looked up at Lulu and tipped it to her. Tambo was the last man over. He shook Lulu and Henri's hand before he went over. "If this goes wrong, take the ship, go to Nassau with your Aunt." And then he began climbing down the netting into the long boat. Lulu and Henri glanced at each other. Lulu tried to smile, but this backup plan, it was not a thing that would make anyone smile. She filed it away under things not to worry about right now. The sun was setting as the long boat headed up the river toward Charlestown. By the time they were out of sight the darkness of night had fallen and the only thing left to do was wait. + +Lulu paced the aft deck. Henri fell asleep in Aunt Māra's lap. Kobayashi sat on the bowsprite with the glass and periodically scanned the horizon. Eventually Lulu too grew tired and laid down on the deck, wrapping a quilt around her. She was just dozing, slipping between darkness and dream when the distant sound of a canon jolted her upright. A moment later Queen Anne's Revenge fired an answer. Then the other two ships. Kobayashi had the anchor free before Lulu could get the sails up. He raised the foresail on his was aft to follow Queen Anne between the sandbars. The three ships road the tide and a light wind through the narrows and up the river into Charlestown harbor, one stayed behind the make sure reinforcements didn't arrive by sea. + +When the people of Charlestown awoke the next morning, they found themselves effectively prisoners of a terrifying man who moved in a cloud of smoke and now commanded the very warship that had been sent to protect them. At first light, in the silence of the morning, a shrieking whistle came screaming through the pink dawn and exploded in the courtyard of the residence of the mayor, blowing out windows and sending shrapnel searing through plaster walls. The kitchen was destroyed, one pig torn in the half by a chunk of cannon ball, and very loud message delivered. The king is not here. We are here. + +### Birdie and her father + +Birdie jolted awake just like Lulu did, but for her the whistling sound came before the sound of the firing, which was only a split second ahead of the explosion as the cannon ball found the governor's mansion and the poor unsuspecting pig, which Birdie did not know about. She was about the jump up when she felt her father's hand on her arm, holding her down. "Patience." + +"Was that?" + +Her father yawned. "It certainly sounded like something Edward would do. No reason to fire a blank when you can lob an actual cannonball into town." + +"Where do you think it hit?" + +"Edward hates two things. People from Boston, and governors. I imagine this one went somewhere it might find a governor." her father sighed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "How was your first night in jail Birdie?" He smiled at her. + +She stretched her legs which were stiff from sleeping on the hard ground. "Not that bad actually. I didn't feel any rats?" + +"I didn't either," said her father. "And I didn't sleep much." He stood up and stretched. He walked over the windows and looked outside. "Fair winds, onshore. And I see Delos in the harbor." + +Birdie leaped up and rushed to the window. Her father lifted her up so she could see. There was Delos, at anchor a stone's throw from HMS Victory, which she saw was not flying the same black death's head that flapped a top two other sloops and Queen Anne's Revenge. Delos was the only ship in the cluster anchored near the harbor entrance that wasn't flying the black. She squinted and tried to see if Lulu and Henri were on the deck of Delos, but she could not see that far. "What do we do now?" + +"The same thing we've been doing. We wait. It's like sailing Birdie, lots of waiting broken up by the occasional moments of sheer terror." He set her back down on the ground. + +"I don't recall any moment of terror sailing." + +Her father chuckled. "You're young Birdie." + +She didn't like this answer. She didn't *want* moments of terror while sailing. She tried to imagine the scariest thing she could, but a storm was all she could come up with, and that didn't seem that bad. In the worst case you drowned. Every sailor drowns eventually, no need to fear that. Birdie wasn't in a hurry, but she wasn't afraid of drowning or the sea or a storm. And she didn't think that was going to change even when she was her father's age. + + + + + + ### following your path campfire talk |