TheCorsair
Pēdicãbo ego võs et irrumäbo
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
"The only rules that really matter are these:"
"What a man can do..."
"...and what a man can't do."
Dover, England
September 12, 1697
Johnathan Nathaniel Sparrow sprinted along the Great Pent Road, as much to escape the stench as to make good time. The tides were out, leaving the port more a stinking saltwater marsh than anything else. Ships slouched here, wallowing in muck that was too thin to walk on and too thick to sail on, waiting for the return of the tides so they could drag themselves from the mire once more.
Ordinarily, Johnathan would have stood and stared, dreaming of adventure to be had beyond the horizon. Of the Indies and the Americas, where it was said a man could find gold with a shovel and a strong back. Or of distant India and China, where men wore silk and dragons and tigers could be found. And of the sea. Always of the sea.
It called to him, the sea. His mother had sworn his father was a pirate, had sworn that he had born off the cost of distant India and that he had been baptized in a sacred river named the Gangees, and that someday he would return and they would live like kings.
A sigh.
His mother had also sworn that she earned an honest living as a cleaning woman. That the drink was purely medicinal. That she had married his father. That the time she'd thrown him into the Pent when he was six was to teach him to swim. She had sworn a lot of things.
But she had been his mother, and he had loved her. Loved her still, even though she'd died the winter he'd turned fourteen. But she had seen to his upbringing three years before that, apprenticing him to Master Christopher Halliwell the apocthecary. And even though he knew what sort of price she'd paid Master Christopher to apprentice him, he never blamed her. Everyone had to live, and his mother had usually treated him right.
The thought of Master Christopher got him moving again - even though he hadn't intended to, he'd stopped and stared at a moored ship and become lost in thought. The Pearl it was, a grandly-named little sloop that ran cargo and passengers, some legal and some not, between Dover and Calais regularly and other places as chartered. He took to his heels again, racing along Snargate over Sluice until he reached the Crosswall.
He eyed it cautiously, considering. The Crosswall would save him time passing over the Dour, but it had rained recently. It was treacherous on the best of days, and this was not the best of days - not with a fortnight of near-constant rain. Today had been dry, but it would take more than a single day to dry the wood of the great dike.
John jingled the coins in his pocket. He'd been given nine shillings to collect the Master's package, and he still had twelve pence of it. And he was thirsty from running, and there was a tavern at hand. Surely Master Christopher wouldn't begrudge his faithful apprentice a drink, after his hard work?
Of course he wouldn't.
And, with that decision, he pushed open the door of the Black Anchor.