The Dread Pirate Molly Hawke Ch. 01

Bess had made certain beforehand that everyone knew that their success depended on speed, surprise, and audacity and that once the cat was out of the bag, she'd need all the withering fire that every one of them could give her or the Spaniards might recover.

Bess didn't even slow down. She just ran straight on, the cannons and carronades of her three boats roaring as quickly as their crews could swab them out and reload to fire again. The effect was that each of the Spanish escorts was ripped up on at least one side and the middle two were raked on both sides by accurate fire from only yards away. Enough gunmen had run onto the decks of 'Molly's Marauders' to prevent the Spaniards from even beginning to think about returning the musket fire which was keeping their heads down.

As they began to pull away, Bess gave the last signal, urging the deck crews to try for the masts themselves with cannonballs. Between the three ships, five guns were ready by then and answered her cries. Three masts fell over into the water just as the last of her boats raced clear.

In one pass through, the escorts were crippled. None had any usable sails and to get out the spares and get them rigged would take hours, longer in the dark, since it would be night by the time they were done with that and replacing the shot-up rigging. And worse, three out of four had at least one mast shot down.

Once her boats were all safely through the gauntlet, Bess changed her course to stay as close to dead-ahead of the stricken escorts as possible since there was little in the way of guns carried there on any ship. She grinned, pleased with the way that her course also happened to be the one that got her to the galleons the quickest. She knew that the Spaniards mounted oars on their ships, but they couldn't row after her and change their sails all at the same time and splitting the tasks would double the time needed for both.

By then, Alexander Hawke and his ships had forced one of the fat galleons to heave to and she sat almost dead in the water as her crew tried to make a little headway to stay near the rest of the flock with their oars. Without anyone to shout a beat to them, the rowers only floundered. Bess and her little fleet now joined the rest as they pounded the sterns of the fleeing herd with their guns to send them off, taking great pleasure in kicking the shit out of the captain's quarters on every one that they could by sending chain and grape shot in through the windows. Within fifteen minutes, the convoy was scattered, each captain deciding to make his own luck. One prize sat striking her Spanish flag in surrender and another was barely making headway as any of the crew still alive fought to put out the blaze on the foredeck.

They'd set out to take one galleon, but had instead taken two. Setting a prize crew aboard each one after the fire was out; they turned away as it began to grow dark. The stricken escorts hadn't arrived yet and only fired the small and ineffective swivel guns at them, since they did not want to turn so that they could bring their main guns to bear. To do that might feel a little pleasant for a moment or two, but it would only invite the broadsides of every one of the attacking ships and they'd have to sit there and be demolished.

After that, Hawke gave her the captaincy of the Bermuda sloop, which she promptly re-named Sea Witch.

But that had been before -- long before, when she still held the love of the man.

As she thought about it afterward, Bess saw that it was perhaps not the best thing to show up one's lover at his own game. A man like Alexander Hawke came with an ego which exceeded the size of his manhood by a fair margin. As well, the problem with privateering was that it was based on the shifting sands of political affairs far from them all in Europe. When England and Spain entered into an uneasy truce, it became clear that some fish would have to be tossed into the skillet. Hawke's error lay in not staying abreast of current affairs. He'd taken three prizes on letters of marque which had been rescinded without his knowledge right after they took the galleons.

"Who is that boy?" Alexander asked as he saw Bess walk into the inn that he was staying at one morning, leading a boy of about eight by the hand. He was naked inside one of her shirts, but not looking particularly ashamed. He looked to be more in wonder at all of the things that he saw than anything. It was a far cry from the look that he'd worn when she'd first seen him.

"I took him from a Dutch merchant on St. Maartin a week ago," she said, her jaw set, "He's from one of the Arawakan tribes. He comes from Hispaniola from what was said to me. I even know the place. I'll keep him with me until I can go there again. In the meantime, he is my little friend."

"Why?" Hawke asked, barely half-interested.

"Because near me, he has a chance to live without the fear that I saw in his eyes. He was paddling in his canoe when he was enticed aboard a ship which was anchored to take on fresh water. I brought him to see if I could buy a pair of breeches and a shirt here in the market to fit him."

"Do as you like," Alexander said, "it's what you always do regardless."

She ignored him and did in fact find him at least a pair of breeches and two shirts to wear. The troubling thing to Bess was the feeling that she'd gotten from Alexander's comment.

It cast him in a bad light to her mind and it showed her something telling about him.

He'd started out so in love wither, but at his heart, Bess now knew that she'd loved a very selfish man. She doubted if he'd have ever felt the things that had come to her to only see the fright in the boy's eyes. Alexander wouldn't have cared a fig at what he saw.

How much would he have cared if they'd made a child together?

It had been a little daydream of hers for a time now, but she knew right then that she'd never be the mother of his child.

Bess kept the boy with her for the next month and a half until she could find out exactly where he'd been taken from and she sailed there when she could to return him. For the first week, she'd slept with her arm over him so that he'd stop shaking. They didn't understand each other at first, but eventually he managed to charm her with his smile and growing up where she had, she knew parts of three Arawakan dialects, so they soon found that they could converse a little.

When she stood in a little clearing surrounded by angry tribesmen, the boy spoke for her and they released her with their obvious, but incomprehensible thanks as she knelt to kiss the boy goodbye, telling him to stay away from ships and the people on them. She rode back to her ship in a canoe loaded to the gunwales with fish and fruit.

"Where have you been?" Hawke asked when he stepped on board her ship the next day, "They told me that you went ashore."

"I did," she replied, "I took my little cabin boy home."

Alexander's face paled and his mouth fell open. "You went there alone and they let you go? No man has ever come out of those trees."

She shrugged, "I'm not a man, am I, Alex? I know that I made at least one mother happy."

He looked at her curiously then, "Why would you care?"

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First Betrayed, then Spurned

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Bess was at home visiting when Alexander had been caught at an inn. Ever hopeful of a quick end to the troubles of the hour, the chief constable and his men had asked as to the whereabouts of the beautiful woman pirate with the red hair, since the Spanish ambassador wanted her as well for killing his son-in-law. Hawke was hopeful, but for a different reason; he wanted to plea-bargain -- offering something up so that he might live to sail away.

In the blink of an eye, he gave her up, telling where the Sea Witch could be found in exchange for a chance to run, pointing out that he'd likely be guilty of another murder or two if he had to fight his way out of his current predicament. The chief constable agreed, knowing that this had been an accidental meeting and he'd only brought one man with him.

At that instant, miles away, Bess dropped her bowl of soup in shock, knowing that she'd been forsaken as it happened. The next thing which was done was for Alexander Hawke to tell the constable that 'Molly Hawke' had acted without his knowledge or consent and so she was guilty of piracy, but the Crown saw a chance to rid itself of at least two of its troubles at once, though as agreed for now, Alexander was allowed to leave and was not pursued.

Bess almost ran out through her mother's door and down the path to the rickety old dock where her little boat was tied. Jumping in, she set the oars into the oarlocks and began to row. It was over a mile around the bend in the channel to where her ship lay at anchor. She sent runners to where the crew was celebrating with messages that they had to sail within two hours.

Once underway, Bess decided on sailing to Tortuga to apply for her own letters of marque, though it was said of her that she may have been at least two women for the strange way that she could appear when it was supposedly well-known that she was elsewhere. She tried to plan and manage things for her and her crew, but as she did, she thought about the other trouble that she had.

Like a lot of people who grew up privileged and are accustomed to taking what they want, Alexander Hawke had a roving eye and it wasn't all that long before Bess knew of it and she dropped hints to warn him, but Alexander could be a stubborn man -- even in matters where it was not his conscious will which was involved as the driving force.

She didn't catch him at it right away; she just knew that it was going on. Bess even knew why that was. A fair portion of her time was being taken up in running the ship which she'd been given. Where Alex relied on rumors and luck to guide him in finding his prey, Bess used her ship to hunt for wrecks on the coastlines after storms -- which it was said that she'd produce if she knew that a fat prize was sailing near places where she knew the nearby inhabitants.

By then, there were no more Caribs on many of the islands, but there were sizable groups of Maroons -- people whose numbers were made up of runaway slaves and others of mixed, mostly Afro-Carib blood. Bess would stop now and then near groups that she knew to work out arrangements as to the salvaging of the wrecks. It was her way of offering something a little more steady to her crew -- who grew to love her for it, as well as the people who tried to eke out a meagre living as they hid from the landowners who were looking for them.

As far as Alexander's dalliance, not long before the evening when Hawke had betrayed her, Bess had heard about the wench involved and went to see her one night as she stood at the edge of town waiting for the coach that Alex said that he would send for her.

"Keep away from my man," Bess said quietly to the shocked woman from very close up to her ear, "I only say it to you one time and that be here and now."

"Where did you come from?" the light-haired girl asked in a shaky voice as she spun, trying not to scream in alarm, "There was no one here a moment ago."

"A lot can happen in a moment, Miss Cherrie Lynn," Bess said, dragging out the syllables and pronouncing the first name almost as 'cheery'. She was in a mood now and her patois grew thick as she spoke.

"I know that not your name and I must say that you 'ave done well to have had only that face, a pair of bosoms and a cunt to carry you this far from England. But now you are playing with fire, girl. I come ta give you warning."

"I told no one that I would wait here," the woman said, "How did you know I would be here?"

"I know what you will do before you have the thought," Bess said, "I come from people who have other uses for the dark of the night. You know of what I speak?" she asked as she held up a hand to stroke the small lizard sitting there a time or two looking past it into the blonde's eyes.

"You," the girl said, "You are one of the - "

"Ay -- yah," Bess nodded with a smile, "you don' need ta say the name. It what I am.

Me dance on hot coals and me walk on glass splinters if I've a mind to and it suit me. It my way that I know of the craft of my grandmother who have skin as white as yours and it my way to know obeah and hoodoo and they not the same thing. If you can't keep your 'ands off my man, it go badly for you." She lowered her hand and Cherrie wondered what happened to the little lizard then.

The girl was trying to show a little of her own backbone for a moment. Bess even saw it coming before she said the words. "Perhaps it says something that he finds that he must seek another for his pleasure," she sniffed, though there wasn't much depth to the front she presented.

Bess lifted her other hand and Cherrie jumped a little as a flame sprang out of her palm, "Another ting like that spoken to me will buy you de hair burned off ya head, girl. Watch that tongue while you still have it.

What it say," Bess replied in a long hiss, "is that him a fool. What it say is that him not up to what I can do for a man. I can break him back when I fuck with him easier than you might break a match, dear. He lie on me and it all him can do to catch him breath. I ready long before Alexander to fuck again.

Him fall asleep and me ready to only begin then." She raised her hand again and Cherrie saw that it was empty, but a second later, she saw the lizard appear and she knew that it was alive.

Bess looked at the lizard again for a moment, "But me stay with the man that me love. At leas' until I find that my 'eart is hurtin' me overmuch. When that 'appen, Cherrie, you'd best not be near to him then."

She looked at Cherrie Lynn with a sad little smile, "What it say is that him think he must find someone who more a match for him low drive. It my problem, woman, not yours. Keep away."

She turned then and Cherrie Lynn watched Bess walk off into the darkness. Just as she left Cherrie's view, the sky lit a little and the coach came into sight. The blonde wondered how it could be possible. She hadn't shifted her gaze. One second, she was looking at the strange woman's back and the next instant; she could see the coach coming. She looked around and there was no sign of anyone.

Cherrie was going to decline the coachman's offer, but the coachman remained on the bench and when the door opened, it was Alexander himself. A few kisses and Cherrie forgot all about her earlier meeting as she climbed into the coach.

In a dark grove of trees not far off, Bess hung her head.

"What it say," Bess whispered to herself, "is that you are the fool, Bessie."

On the afternoon when she'd decided to end it, they were all at the harbor on Antigua. Bess had asked her crews for their confidence and armed with that, she planned to tell Hawke that they were done in more than love. She waited as the air grew hot and almost turbid with humidity -- a perfect day for a captain to do little, other than play with his latest conquest.

In her mind, Bess could hear the actual words as a feminine voice chuckled and said that by her count of her days, she dared not allow him the thing that he wanted today, but she told him that she'd give him so much in other ways that he wouldn't miss it at all. As the echoes of the words spoken to Alexander Hawke by the woman that he held at the moment a few hundred yards away died out, Bess set her jaw.

He'd betrayed her and said nothing in warning to her when they'd met afterward. Despite her warnings, he was still playing around. Enough was enough. She knew a little about a lot of things.

One of them was how large the reward was for Alexander Hawke. She didn't care about it in terms of her own gain, but its size was convenient to her in another regard. It meant that there was a demand for him.

Another thing that she knew was that the governor of Antigua had gone to school with the son of the governor of Jamaica. Her runner was already on his way up to Government House in Kingston with news of where Hawke could be found.

When she judged the time to be right for it, Bess stared at Hawke's ship until the lookouts lost the battle to stay alert and lay their heads down on their arms.

Then she nodded to her own men and the Sea Witch slipped her mooring and with only one small sail on the forward mast, Bess gave her quiet commands and her ship slid almost soundlessly closer so that her quarterdeck lay across Alexander's stern.

Bess picked up her glass and looked through the open window for a moment. She could see a blonde head lit by the sunlight bobbing over something and she guessed that the something must be her ex-lover's cock.

Bess smirked; turning her small signal cannon and aiming it a little carefully. She didn't want to chance hurting the girl so she aimed a little higher, through the glass of the upper panes. She turned and her ship's mate handed her the slowmatch. Bess didn't hesitate in lowering it to the little cannon's touch hole.

It wasn't exactly a roar -- more like just a bang, but there were satisfying shouts and screams after the top half of the window disappeared. A pair of wide-eyed heads appeared through the lower opening and Bess smiled as she spoke.

"What kind of man you be, Alexander Hawke, that you can't see your peril when it come to you? Look at me hair and me eyes. Look at me face and skin. I told you when we began. No woman share lightly.

A woman who is Scottish, Spanish and Maroon, she not share at all, ya know. You think you can play with another woman behind the back of a witch who love you? Not for long," she said, shaking her head, "not for long.

You can't play one minute past the time when she stop loving you. And that is now."

She stared for a moment as she recognized Cherrie Lynn, wanting to be certain that she'd made no mistake and so she pointed as a puff of a breeze blew her red mane a little, "I warned you. Now I say the words to damn you."

Her hands moved as she spoke words in a language that none of them knew and her hand carved motions and symbols in the air.

"You want each other so much, "she sneered, "then you must fuck like stoats now."

She glared at the blonde, "You will be with him child by the dawn, for him cannot stop now. For just this one day and night, I give you to each other and you find that you can' stop, neither of you.

But by the dawn and I daresay long before," she smiled, "He will want you no longer, and yet he will not be able to leave you behind. I chain you to him as a weight aroun' him neck."

Her eyes opened wide then as she saw something which caused her pain and regret, knowing that what she sent would cause her to be damned as well. It wouldn't be the same, but her doom was clear enough to her now.

"You will hate him and yet you will need him so. But he will not want you," she said, her voice rising. "I curse you with the truth of what will come."

She knew what was to come to them anyway by then, but to know one's end before it arrives can be a particularly cold curse from the lips of an enemy. Another thing which Bess knew was that though Cherrie would become pregnant, the child would be still-born, but there was a limit to what Bess would tell.

"You will need me again, Alexander Hawke, but it will not be my touch that you crave then. You will die hanging from a yard."

She looked at Cherrie, whose jaw was still open, though her horror was growing, "On that day, you will be free -- just when you yearn to hold him the most."

Bess looked up and called to the men on her deck for the single sail to be set again and as the sheets fell and began to billow, the Sea Witch began to move slowly away. Bess hung her head and began to weep at what she knew of her own fate.