Chapter Eleven: Storm Brewing (EDITED)

Something moved at the back of the house, causing Flower to look up expectantly.

“Luigia?” He called.

His daughter looked up as a buxom, plump woman came into the living room, wearing a red dress and looking peaceable.

“Ulisse,” she said, smiling briefly at Mariana before she caught sight of Florencia, “Who’s this?”

He smiled encouragingly at his wife.

“This is Florencia,” he reached an arm out towards the brunette; “she’s from the ship.”

“A girl dressed as a boy?” Luigia moved closer, curious, “That’s a bit conspiratorial, isn’t it?”

“It’s necessary,” he replied, reaching into his coat and pulling out a bag of money, which he handed to her, asking, “How was dame school?”

“Unattended,” the woman replied, sounding a little disconcerted, “only six other children out of the three-four hundred on this island!”

“And Mrs. Watts?”

“She had to attend a birth somewhere,” Luigia explained, suddenly blithe again, “so it was just me and children-”

It was as though they had forgotten that either of the girls existed, and seizing on this, Mariana turned to Florencia.

“Do you want to play?” She asked, none too quietly.

Florencia opened her mouth to reply, but Flower butted in.

“She’s tired, Ana,” he gently chastised, “She’s had a long day-”

“I don’t mind,” Florencia said quickly, as memories of playing marbles, checkers and having bilbo competitions with Margarita swarmed before her eyes.

“You’ll clean, eat and dry off first,” Flower told her firmly before turning back to his wife, “could we have some plates-?”

She nodded her dark head and reached for Mariana.

“Come, child,” she called, taking the girl by the arm and leading her out back.

“I’ll start a fire,” Flower said as soon as they were gone.

He removed a piece of flint and a chunk of some gold-like material from a box on the ledge above the fireplace, and began striking them together over a pile of dead grass and sawdust tinder that caught alight readily when the first shower of sparks landed on it. He was putting his magic stones back as his wife walked in with a small stack of plates, two cups and a jug of milk, both of which she put on the table, smiling kindly at Florencia.

“You look frozen,” she commented, “I’ll get you a blanket-”

She bustled out before Florencia could say anything, and before long, she found herself wrapped in a thick woollen blanket and sitting in front of a crackling fire. She had cleaned her feet with a rag that Luigia had leant her, and watched as Flower fed the hot flames with driftwood.

“There,” he said, sitting back comfortably, “now we just have to hope the damp in the plaster doesn’t-”

He was cut off by Luigia barging in again with a brush in hand.

“Ana’s in bed,” she told her husband, adding, “Don’t mind me” when he and Florencia watched her.

She took the bucket that the latter had been soaking her feet in and put it down by the front door, around which the stones were caked in mud. She knelt and began scrubbing them in earnest, which made Florencia flush guiltily, as she had dragged a great deal of mud in with her.

“No need to look so upset!” Luigia told her on catching sight of her contrite expression, “Mud’s an occupational hazard in any house-especially this season!”

And with that, she carried on, scrubbing the flagstone floor with a swish-scratch noise and circular motion that Florencia found almost hypnotic. She ignored Flower and his marmosets in favour of watching the big jolly woman scour the floor whilst humming a nursery rhyme.

“You could eat your dinner off it,” the latter announced, standing and waddling off with the bucket, still humming.

“Is she-?” Florencia began, as soon as she was sure that the woman had gone.

Flower shook his head. His hair was slightly curly, she saw.

“Ana’s mother died giving birth to her. She was my first wife; Luigia’s my third.”

He sighed raggedly and stared at the flickering flames, causing Florencia to feel another rush of hot, burning guilt for asking such a personal question. He silently poured her a cup of milk when he got himself one, which she drank gratefully. He smiled and cut her some bread and cheese too when her stomach growled loudly, which made her blush, slightly embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she told him quietly.

Flower shook his head again.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault,” he sighed, “none of it is.”

They fell into silence once more, with only the fire, which filled the room to the rafters with the smell of wood smoke, to disturb them.
“Why do the other pirates hate the captain?” Florencia finally asked him, having gathered her courage.

Flower, who was supping his own cup of milk, looked over the rim at her.

“Where did you hear such a thing?”

He sounded suspicious and frowned a little as her face grew redder than ever.

“You know that woman who led me away?” She said, and he nodded, “Well…I ran away from her, when we reached the town. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I walked through the town, and then onto this little quay.”

She looked hesitantly at Flower.

“I was grabbed by these two boys-”

Flower looked highly alarmed and nearly dropped his cup.

“But this man called Walsh stopped them!” She added hurriedly, “He took me to see his captain, and he said…”

“He said what?”

Florencia blushed again.

“He said…he said that if Storm did not leave tonight, that he would go to the governor. He also said that enough pirate blood had been spilt.”

Flower took another sip of milk, his expression thoughtful.

“Was this captain’s called Black Allen, perchance?”

Her head, which she had bent in order to stare at her feet, shot up as she came to stare at him.

“You know him?”

“We’ve met,” Flower replied a little shortly, “and the captain’s had run-in’s with him too…”

His expression quickly turned grim. He took another sip of milk, but said nothing more.

“Why?” Florencia asked him quietly, “Why doesn’t Black Allen like him?”

“It’s not just Black Allen,” Flower told her, “its everyone-pirates, Rogers and every man jack.”

He sighed again.

“But why?”

“You know full well why,” he told her a little sharply, “you saw firsthand what he does-look what he did to your family-!”

He put his cup down harder than his tractable nature usually let him, looking a little pale beneath his swarthy skin than normal. He looked away, somewhat shamefaced, as Florencia stared at him, flabbergasted at his outburst. She could feel tears prickling her eyes as she took looked away, squeezing them shut as the sound of gunshot echoed through her mind, distant but chilling.

“Pirates are a dying species, Florencia,” Flower told her, “many of those that remain out here have become smugglers and wreckers in order to live; some can’t go back because they’ll be hung. Those living here-they just want to live in peace., but is one of the very last, few pirates who still rove around, scourging the sea for live fish instead of skulking in some uncharted cave with cargo salvaged from a ship that foundered on a reef. He pillages at will, regardless if there is a navy ship berthed a furlong away.”

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing and continuing, “All he has to do is attack the wrong ship in the wrong place and leave people alive and he will be followed. This island is on the map, yet only the pirate captains’ know where the sandbanks are, but someone was to follow him, then pirates wouldn’t be the only ones to know the safe passages.”

Flower poured himself a glass of milk and glugged it down before whipping his white moustache away and turning to look at her, almost as if pleading for her to understand.

“Even associating with pirates is a hanging offense under British law,” he told her with immense gravity, “regardless if the pirate’s your uncle or your dear old granny.”

His skin flew past white and took on a nasty grey hue.

“Mariana and my wife could hang for knowing me. There are condemned men living on this island, men from Nassau, and debtors from Jamaica and the thirteen colonies. If the captain were to bring one ship here, it would be a bloodbath,” he shuddered, “And the likes of me and Black Allen would be the first to be hung, not including the captain.”

He poured himself a third cup of milk, drank it and looked at Florencia again, whose throat had tightened almost painfully with the melancholia welling up in her.

“HMS Gladful,” Flower began, sounding no cheerier, “was a British sloop-o’-war. It set sail in summer 1717 in an attempt to quell piracy that turned into an unmitigated disaster. The hold was stocked with gold and boxes of Letters of Marque signed by King George of Britain. The idea, conjured up by some Anglophile Frenchman, was to bribe the pirates with a bag of gold dust, give them a letter and then pack them off a-privateering for the British Crown. Naturally it failed; when the ship was found a month later, there was no gold dust and all fifty men were dead, along with Captain Birsay and some Spanish peer who came to help. He poured his own money into the scheme, in fact, and the story goes that…”

He frowned, thinking.

“What?” Florencia prodded, leaning in.

“It was Bernardo who told me…he said that this Spanish nobleman-from Cuba, I believe.”

Florencia froze, a fresh cup of milk raised halfway to her lips.

“Apparently,” Flower went on, “He said that he was doing it because, ‘his daughters would be sailing across the sea one day to marry and that no man was going to stop them while he had breathe in his body’.”

He shrugged and made a face, not noticing how rigid and distant his young companion had suddenly become.