Chapter Text
Izzy snapped shut the latches on the wooden chest containing the merchant vessel’s supply of ready cash—less ample than he’d hoped, but there was still the cargo to go through, and that should provide both profit and resupply. “Cargo manifest,” he barked, to the clerky-type person from the merchant’s crew.
“What?” the man squeaked, apparently unable to take his eyes off the knife Izzy was holding to his neck. They were in a cramped, cupboard-like office, with an untidy desk, and the clerk was small enough for Izzy to loom over, a fact of which he was taking full advantage.
“The car-go man-i-fest,” Izzy repeated, enunciating each syllable. “So that we might decide what we’re going to steal.”
“Oh. Um….”
“If you’d rather, we can just bring the whole fucking lot of it up on deck and chuck what we don’t want into the sea.” That was, in fact, the usual procedure, but Bonnet, wringing his hands over what might become of the “those poor men” if they limped into port with nothing to sell and no supplies for the journey back, had suggested this procedure instead.
“Oh, no, no, I’m just trying to remember where it is,” the man babbled. “In one of the drawers, I think….” Izzy let him step closer to the desk, and he began opening them, with quick, fluttery movements.
The third or fourth drawer he opened contained, resting atop a pile of papers, a seaman’s knife. Substantial enough for cutting rope, or…quite a few other things. The clerk’s hand darted towards the knife, then froze as Izzy’s knife pricked his skin.
“I wouldn’t,” Izzy said. Wouldn’t if he were this pathetic asshole, anyway. “None of this shit’s even yours, is it? You really want to get gutted like a fish over it?”
“Ah,” said the clerk. “An excellent point, now that you mention it.” He closed the drawer and picked up one of several ledgers from a shelf above the desk. Opening it to a place near the beginning, he handed it to Izzy. “It goes on for several pages.”
“Good,” Izzy said, glancing over the pages in question. It was a mixed cargo of manufactured goods from England, heavy on luxury items—just what he’d been hoping for when he selected the ship to raid. Snapping the book shut, he tucked it under his free arm and sliced off the top part of the clerk’s ear.
The clerk screamed and flailed about for a bit, touching his ear and then looking at the blood on his fingers, and saying things like, “My ear!”
It was probably as much as he’d be allowed to get away with, under the new system, given that the man hadn’t actually tried to stab him. But at least it did bleed a lot. “Maybe it’ll remind you not to get cute, next time,” Izzy said told him, picking up the money-chest and shoving it into the clerk’s arms. He staggered a little under the weight. “Try not to drop that,” he advised, and prodded the clerk with the knife. “Move.”
Up on deck, Bonnet was encouraging the merchant crew to appreciate their good fortune in being raided by the crew. “We haven’t nearly as much cargo space as your ship,” he explained. “So you’ll still have some things left when you get to….”
“Barbados,” Izzy supplied. He’d seen the destination on some of the papers in the office.
Bonnet wobbled a little. “To Barbados,” he repeated, faintly, then noticed the clerk. “My goodness, Izzy, what did you do to the poor man?”
“Did you cut off his ear?” Black Pete demanded. “Captain told me I wasn’t allowed to cut off any ears. Is he allowed to cut off ears?”
“Well,” said Bonnet. “I’d rather he didn’t, but….” He glanced at Blackbeard.
“I’m sure he had a good reason.” Blackbeard’s tone suggested that he better have.
“He was thinking about pulling a knife on me,” Izzy explained. “And it was only half his ear. Less than half.”
“Oh, well that’s all right, then,” Blackbeard said, sounding relieved. To the clerk, he added, “You’ll be fine. It’s like having a cool scar, only better. You can tell people about how you survived being attacked by pirates.”
“Yes,” Bonnet added. “Admirable restraint; well done, Izzy.”
By now, the rest of the merchant crew were watching with far less fear than Izzy would have liked. “Can we move on to the cargo now?”
The usual method was to force the ship’s own crew to carry the stuff up out of the hold—but that relied on having a sufficient number of competent pirates to stop them from getting ideas about re-negotiating the terms of their surrender, once they were moving about their own ship and able to speak in pairs or small groups. Things being as they were, Izzy thought it best to keep all of the prisoners under Blackbeard’s eye.
Instead, he took most of Bonnet’s imbeciles to do the carrying, along with Fang to help supervise. He also exchanged the clerk for the ship’s cargo-master, who pulled his cap down over his ears s he reluctantly joined the party going down into the hold.
Sorting the cargo and getting it up on deck was predictably unpleasant: the cargo hold was dark, cramped, and dripping, because it was a cargo hold, and Bonnet’s imbeciles were incompetent, lazy, and whiny, because they were Bonnet’s imbeciles. The only bright spots in the afternoon were seeing Wee John crack his head on a beam, and Lucius slip on a puddle and fall on his arse.
The crew fucked around so much, and Izzy had so few options for making them regret fucking around, that by the time Izzy showed the cargo-master the last thing he wanted from the inventory, man had completely lost his fear of him. “You want that?” he chuckled.
“Yes,” Izzy snarled. “Both crates, if you want to keep both your ears.”
Lucius, who happened to be passing by—carrying the lightest thing he could find, of course—sing-songed, “You’re not allowed to cut off eeeee-ars!”
“Yes I am!” Izzy shouted after him. He was encouraged to refrain from cutting off ears. It was different.
The last two small crates were stacked under a bunch of things they weren’t taking, and by the time Izzy finally took them up on deck—or, rather, forced the cargo-master to take them up on deck, at knifepoint—the rest of the crew were sitting around, prying crates open with their knives and digging through the contents, talking about what they wanted for their shares. The old Blackbeard wouldn’t have tolerated that shit, but now he was busy sitting on a crate with Bonnet and gazing raptly into his eyes. Izzy was surprised the merchant’s crew hadn’t tried to turn the tables on them—if they had, this lot would have deserved it.
He cleared his throat pointedly, and everyone…took absolutely no notice whatsoever. He tried again, which caused Lucius to glance up at him. “Do you need a drink, Izzy? This one’s full of wine.”
“There will be no fucking drinking until all the fucking cargo is properly stowed, on the Revenge,” he shouted, and now everyone turned to look at him.
“Okay,” Lucius said. “You don’t need to bite my head off.”
With all the efficiency of a flock of concussed ducklings, the crew began loading the spoils into the dinghies. To speed things up, Izzy got several of the more timid-looking members of the merchant crew to load up their ship’s boats, as well, and row them over to the Revenge, with Fang and Ivan each going in one boat to supervise.
Finally, near sunset, they were rowing back to the Revenge themselves, with Bonnet calling out farewells and restaurant recommendations to the merchant’s officers. At one point, he leaned so far over the gunwales that Izzy had high hopes he might fall out of the dinghy, but Blackbeard—or, probably, Ed—caught him by the back of his coat and pulled him back into the boat.
Back on the ship, the crew was doing their usual half-assed job of stowing the cargo, but since it was at least on board, and moving slowly into the hold, he focused instead on getting the ship underway and pointed toward a friendly port.
Once that was done, he picked up the two small crates, which he had carried personally from the merchant, and took them belowdecks.
His arms full, he nudged the door to the Captain’s Cabin open with his foot, only remembering as he did it that there could easily be something going on in there that he did not want to see. Fortunately, Edward and Bonnet were just sitting on the sofa, fully-clothed and not braiding each other’s hair.
#
Ed glanced up to see Izzy coming into the cabin, carrying two crates and looking angry. “Everything all right, Iz?” he asked.
Izzy put the crates down with a thump. “We’re underway,” he reported. “Cargo might be properly stowed something this century. If either of you care.”
Oh, shit. Izzy’d had the day’s harder job by far, dealing with the plunder, given that the merchant’s crew had surrendered promptly upon recognizing Blackbeard’s flag. And then he and Stede had rushed into the cabin, once they were back on board.
Ed glanced at Stede, wondering if he’d need to have the problem explained to him. But he winced, and said, “Sorry! I was feeling a bit lightheaded, from being out in the sun all afternoon. So Ed thought I should come inside, and…I’ll go out in a bit and see how they’re coming along.”
“I’m sure it’s fine for now,” Ed told both of them. “You want a drink, Iz?”
“Oh, you should,” Stede said, perking up and raising his glass in illustration. “That ship turned out to have some rather excellent Madeira.”
“Imagine that,” Izzy said sarcastically.
Of course, he would have been the one to choose it out of the cargo—although if Izzy knew what Madeira was, much less how to tell if it was excellent or not, it was news to Ed. “Yeah, good call,” he said, sloshing some more of the stuff into his own glass and holding it out to Izzy.
Izzy scowled but accepted the glass and tasted it.
“Good shit, yeah?”
“it’s fine.” Izzy dropped into one of the yellow armchairs across from the sofa where Ed and Stede sat.
“What else did we get?” Ed asked, stealing Stede’s glass to take another sip. Having a drink and talking about work was something Izzy could usually stand—sometimes he even relaxed a little—so if he could manage it with Stede also in the room, that would be a good step.
“Some silver, a lot of cloth,” Izzy said, naming the items that would easily convert into cash. “Decent amount of resupply—flour, salt fish, and the like. And some stuff you’ll have to decide if we keep or sell, like the wine, and tea. And.”
He stopped, his jaw working uncomfortably. Ed waited.
Finally, Izzy used his foot to push the two crates he’d brought in closer to the sofa, and said, “That.”
Ed took out his knife and leaned over to pry open the top crate. After brushing away the packing straw, he saw a row of little jars. “The fuck’s this?” he asked, taking out a jar and showing it to Stede. The label had fancy curly writing on it, and he didn’t feel like trying to figure it out.
“Lemon curd,” Stede read, sounding a little puzzled.
“Yeah. Well.” Izzy rearranged his feet. “They didn’t have that other shit you like now.”
The marmalade, he must mean. “Oh,” said Stede, giving Izzy one of his soft looks. “That’s very sweet.”
“I didn’t get it for you,” Izzy snapped.
“No, I understood that,” Stede told him. “I still think it’s sweet.”
Izzy scoffed, and looked at Ed as though he was wondering if he was going to sit here and let his First Mate be insulted like that. “He doesn’t mean anything by it,” he told Izzy.
Izzy’s lip curled, and he told Stede, “Everything about you disgusts me.”
“He doesn’t either,” Ed added, in case Stede didn’t know that.
Izzy grumbled, “Yes, I do,” but softly enough that Ed could get away with pretending he hadn’t heard it.
Taking full advantage of that option, he opened one of the jars. Inside was a sort of bright yellow paste that smelled of lemons, which he supposed stood to reason. Prodded with a finger, it was more solid than gravy but softer than cheese. He scooped some out and tasted it: sweet, but sour at the same time. “Oh, that’s nice! Here, try it.” He offered the next finger-full to Stede. “Sort of, ah….”
“Tangy,” Stede supplied. “Yes, it’s lovely on scones, or as a filling for a rich pastry.”
Ed took another dollop for himself. “Here, Iz, try some.”
Izzy looked scandalized, and Ed wondered if he should attempt to clarify that he had not, for so much as an instant, thought that Izzy might lick it off his finger, as Stede had just done. Deciding it would just embarrass him more, he handed Izzy the jar, instead.
For a moment, Ed wondered if they were going to be down a jar of lemon-whatever after Izzy threw it across the room, but after looking at it like a particularly disgusting bug, Izzy got out his knife and scooped up a tiny amount, tasting it gingerly. “Hm,” he said, and handed the jar back to Ed.
Stede reached for it, and stopped. “Er, was that your ear-cutting knife, just now?”
“...maybe.”
His expression gave nothing away; Ed was sure that Izzy did know whether it was the same knife or not, but couldn’t guess whether he was pretending it might be in order to fuck with Stede, or—less likely—pretending it might not be, in order to cater to his squeamishness. Finally, he said, “Izzy keeps all of his knives clean.” That wasn’t a lie, although Ed had no idea if he’d found time to clean them since returning from the merchant ship.
Either way, it seemed to satisfy Stede; he stuck his fingers in the jar. “I suppose it was a good idea, cutting off that poor fellow’s ear,” he said. “Showed them we meant business.”
Izzy scowled.
“But overall, it went well,” Stede continued. “The new system. I’m pleased.”
Now Izzy scoffed, loudly.
“I think Iz has some…” What did Stede call them? “Notes.” Ed did too, although he hadn’t quite figured out exactly what they were. Giving Izzy a meaningful glare, he added, “For how we can improve next time,” reminding him of what Stede had been teaching the crew about framing criticism in a constructive way, and emphasizing that he, Edward, expected Izzy to make an effort.
“Next time,” Izzty said sourly, clearly getting the message and not liking it much. “Well, next time might not go quite so smoothly, if that lot gets into port and starts telling people how they were raided by Blackbeard’s crew, and they almost mistook them for a bunch of kids on a Sunday-school outing. We didn’t have much trouble today because the name of Blackbeard still means something, but next time?” He shook his head.
“So what I’m hearing,” Stede said, “is that we need to project more menace?”
Izzy tipped his head to one side. “Menace, sure. Or. We could try some—” Ed watched him swallow several words that were, presumably, not constructive. “Professionalism. If the prisoners think we’re having fun, it has to be….”
“Violent, bloodthirsty fun,” Ed filled in. “Yeah, that’s—I could tell something was a bit off, but I wasn’t putting my finger on it. If we’re going to make the new system work, the prisoners have got to take us seriously. Can’t have them having fun, or the whole thing falls apart.” Nodding to Izzy, he leaned over and refilled his glass, then poured more for himself and Stede.
“I think I see,” Stede said. “What do you suggest?” He looked back and forth between Ed and Izzy.
Not wanting to hurt Stede’s feelings, Ed hesitated, but of course Izzy did not have that difficulty. “Less bickering amongst ourselves, for starters,” he said. “Absolutely no holding hands and blowing kisses among ourselves.”
Ed wondered if anyone had actually been blowing kisses, or if that was just an Izzy expression for the crew being generally affectionate. The part about hand-holding, unfortunately, he knew was aimed directly at him and Stede. It had only been for a bit, when Stede felt faint, but…well, he wasn’t wrong.
“Really,” Izzy continued, “if your crew could be persuaded to pretend that they have some passing familiarity with the concept of doing what they’re told, that would help. Who knows, maybe they could even practice a bit, here on our own ship.”
Stede couldn’t possibly have missed the acid that was dripping from every word by the time Izzy finished speaking, Ed thought, but he acted as though he had, saying brightly, “Ah, a bit of role play, you mean? You’re right, that could be just the thing. We’ll have half of them pretend to be the prisoners, and the other half be the pirates, and then swap ‘round so everyone has a turn.” There was absolutely no hint in his voice or face that he wasn’t completely convinced that was exactly what Izzy meant.
Izzy opened his mouth to say something, then decided to take a large swallow from his glass instead. He really was making an effort.
“Speaking of everyone,” Stede added, handing their glass back to Ed and standing up, “I should go and see how we’re getting along with the cargo. And how Roach is getting along with supper. Lovely as lemon curd and Madeira are, we’ll make ourselves sick if we eat nothing else.”
Ed wasn’t so sure about that—there were plenty of times his main meal of the day had been rum and something not nearly as nice as lemon curd—but he didn’t argue. Stede had funny ideas about meals. Like how ship’s biscuit didn’t count as one.
Izzy shifted restlessly, after Stede was gone, and Ed wondered if he was going to go, too, but instead he said, “Don’t suppose there’s any chance of looking for a competent crew member or two, when we’re in port.”
“Mm,” Ed said. He’d tried to broach that subject himself. “Stede’s worried about harshing the vibe we’ve got going here. We’d have to find somebody who’d fit in.”
“I meant what I said—if we go on like this, your name won’t go on doing all the work for us forever,” Izzy warned. “And when it stops, the two of us, Ivan, and Fang won’t be enough. No matter how good we are.”
“The others aren’t all that bad,” Ed argued. Most of them, sure. “Jim’s all right with those throwing knives, and Wee John can come in useful if you want something set on fire.”
“I know; that’s why I left those two on deck with you and the prisoner. But how much use will they be if it all goes to shit? What do you think would’ve happened, today, if the merchant crew had decided to reverse their surrender after watching Bonnet’s im—people fuck about for a while?”
Izzy’s voice got louder and squeakier as he spoke. He did get himself wound up. “Well,” Ed said, “the first thing I think would’ve happened is that I’d’ve shot the ringleader in the head. I was paying attention, Iz.”
With that, Izzy deflated a little. “Didn’t look like it,” he muttered.
“Yeah, I was keeping it casual—didn’t want to put the idea of fighting back into their heads.”
“Oh.”
“But you’re right we need to tighten up for next time,” Ed admitted. “We’ll have to come up with some ideas for things we can do that’ll put the fear of Me into ‘em, without too much actual bloodshed.”
“I suppose,” Izzy sighed. “As long as it’s real terrifying stuff, not like….”
He trailed off, probably not any more eager than Ed was to talk about the night that the Revenge’s crew had tried to stage their own fuckery, when Izzy’s resentment of Stede and of the changes Ed was making had boiled over and nearly broken them apart.
Except it hadn’t been resentment, not mostly. Confusion, and even more than that, fear. Ed remembered what Izzy had said, the last time they…did what they did. Now that you’ve got him, what the fuck do you need me for? Poor old Iz. If he’d just said that that night, things between the three of them would have settled into place a lot more smoothly.
But then, if he could just say things like that, he wouldn’t be Izzy.
Ed felt a surge of fondness for the whole complicated, prickly little mess of him.
With Stede, it was easy to find something to do with a feeling like that—kiss him, or take his hand, or come up behind him and give him a cuddle. But Iz sat two arms’-lengths away, and might as well have been on the moon, for all Ed could touch him.
Instead, he picked up the jar of lemon curd. “This was a good idea,” he said, eating another dollop of it. Luckily, it did taste good—although that wasn’t really the point.
Izzy looked away, his shoulders stiff, but Ed pressed on. “I know you’d have rather brought me that clerk’s severed head.”
Drawing in his breath sharply, Izzy said, “Figured you didn’t really need a severed head at the moment.”
“I know,” Ed began, but Izzy flinched, hard, and so he didn’t say, I know you’re trying. I know you love me. I know this is hard for you. “You’re always on top of the resupply. Figures you’d know we’re all stocked up on severed heads.”
Izzy relaxed a little, half-turning back toward him. Ed thought he might have even said something else, if Stede hadn’t chosen that moment to come lolloping back in, like an over-excited puppy. He was carrying a tray, and said, “It seems we’re having a cold collation this evening. I’ve authorized the crew to open a cask of wine, since we’re already having our own party in here.” To Izzy, he added, “The cargo is all at least put somewhere it won’t fall overboard in the night, so I said they could finish stowing it properly tomorrow.”
Izzy grunted at that, but didn’t argue—Ed guessed he didn’t want to supervise the stowing of the cargo any more that the crew wanted to do it.
Stede perched the tray on top of the lemon curd crates, where it was in reach from both the sofa and Izzy’s chair. It held mostly what you’d expect—bread, cheese, and cold salt meat—but also some small dishes of the little extra bits you only got on this ship, like olives, pickled vegetables, and dried fruit.
Helping himself to an olive, Ed asked, “Iz, you eating?”, before either Izzy could get any ideas about not being welcome, or Stede could mortify him by telling him how welcome he was.
Izzy looked like he was thinking it over. Good; it was just bread and cheese, after all, like they might have eaten on the old ship. Not the fussy sort of meal Stede liked sometimes, with fiddly little spoons and all different things you were supposed to eat in a particular order. “Fine,” he said grudgingly, and took some bread and a piece of meat.
They snacked for a bit, with Stede enthusiastically talking up the little tidbits and casting significant looks in Izzy’s direction. When he got a little too obvious about it, Ed opted for a distraction. “This thing’s new, isn’t it?” he asked, pointing to a little dish of shiny brown ovals, about thumb-sized, that looked uncomfortably like cockroaches stuffed with moldy cheese. He’d encountered the cheese before, and knew that the mold was supposed to be there—gave it a unique flavor, apparently—but he couldn’t figure out the outside bit.
“Dates stuffed with bleu cheese,” Stede said proudly. “Go on, they’re lovely. And you like both of those things.”
“When did I have the dates?” Ed asked.
“Lots of times,” Stede said. “In the filling of the crepes we had for breakfast last week, for one. And stuffed in the pork loin, after we robbed that ship that had the pigs.”
Chopped up and cooked, in other words. They would have looked different. He picked one up, but still wasn’t quite sure he wanted to put it in his mouth. There’d been times in his life that he was hungry enough to eat an actual cockroach, but this wasn’t one of them. “Iz, is it just me, or does this thing look like a cockroach?”
Glancing at it, Izzy picked up another of the things and popped it into his mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed. “Yeah,” he said. “Doesn’t taste much like one, though.”
Now, of course, Ed had to eat his, too. He chewed it a little better than Izzy had, tasting it. If it had just been Stede here, he might have said something about how the saltiness of the cheese was good with the sweetness of the fruit. As it was, he said, “Yeah, no, it doesn’t.”
Looking a bit pained, Stede asked, “You’ve both eaten cockroaches, have you? When? And why?”
“When you’ve run out of rats, usually,” Izzy said. “I don’t suppose you’ve made the Atlantic crossing. Have you.”
Ed could see that Stede didn’t understand the connection between the two. “If you get becalmed out there—or blown off course, whatever—you can’t send somebody in a dinghy to resupply at the nearest island,” he explained. “You eat the biscuit that the weevils have got to, and then you eat the rats, and then it’s either cockroaches or your shoes.”
“Or both,” Izzy added.
“Or both,” Ed agreed.
“Oh,” said Stede. “Yes, I see. I suppose I haven’t made the crossing, in the way you mean. I was sent back to England for school, but….”
“Yeah,” Ed said. “Unless you run into some real bad luck, it’s mainly a problem if you’re sailing with some bastard who’s too cheap or too stupid to lay in enough supplies to handle a slow crossing. Passenger vessel wouldn’t have that problem.”
“Not so as the passengers would notice, anyway,” Izzy added.
“I suppose not,” Stede agreed. “That journey was when I fell in love with sailing—or the idea of sailing, I should say. I didn’t know very much about it, and of course it is very different when you’re just a passenger.”
Knowing that Izzy didn’t consider Stede much more than a passenger now, Ed jumped in with a question about the ship he’d crossed on. Unsurprisingly, Stede knew all about its history and specifications, and went easily from talking about that, to his memories of the voyage. Ed replied with some stories of his own, and Izzy….
Stayed. He didn’t say much, except when Ed asked him to confirm a detail of some event he’d been there for. He stayed even when they started in on another bottle of wine, and Stede cuddled up against his side, putting Ed’s arm around him and twining their fingers together.
He stayed, mostly looking anywhere but at the two of them, in a chair two arms’ lengths away, looking very small, and—when he did occasionally glance their way—very lonely.
“Iz,” Ed said quietly, when Stede had bounced up to go look for a book that had a picture of something he was talking about. “You….”
“What?” Izzy snapped, looking away.
“If you wanted….” Ed stopped, tried again. “You could. Come over here and put your head on my knee. If you wanted.
Izzy stared at him in flat disbelief. Ed understood. It wasn’t the kind of thing they said to each other. The kind of thing Izzy could stand to hear.
But right now, Ed thought, not saying it might hurt worse than saying it would.
“I don’t,” Izzy said, just as Stede, over by the books, said Aha! “Want to.”
“Okay,” Ed said. “Just saying.”
“Don’t.”
Stede came back with the book and another bottle of wine. Tucking himself back in next to Ed, he refilled their glass. “Another, Izzy?” he asked, holding up the bottle.
Izzy stood up. “I should go.”
“If that’s what you want,” Stede said, polite but confused.
“I don’t,” Izzy said, and left.
Once he’d gone, Stede frowned. “I hope it wasn’t something I said.”
“No,” Ed told him. “Something I said.”