Elephiant Yancy sat on the wide, second-story flagstone veranda that Baldridge had built, in a grand chair carved from slabs of mahogany and inlaid with ebony and ivory detailing. He was a small man, and thus the chair itself sat on a raised section of stone that he, Yancy, had had constructed, so that even seated he might look down on anyone standing before him.
Yancy rested his head in his hand and stared idly out beyond the low wall that surrounded the veranda. Beyond and below the house lay the town of St. Mary’s, where the pirates and whores and dealers in stolen goods and tavernkeepers made their homes. It was a variable population, perhaps two thousand people at its most crowded.
To the south of the town lay the shallow harbor with its black, muddy water. At the mouth of the harbor was a small island, Quail Island, which was home to a battery of cannon and not much else. But Quail Island was perfectly situated. With his men garrisoned there, ready at the great guns, Yancy could dictate completely who came and went from St. Mary’s.
From his veranda Yancy could see the southern half of the harbor. He watched as a small ship stood slowly into the anchorage, rounded up, and dropped her anchor under a backed main topsail. Wondered, with only the slightest curiosity, if she was from England or America, or if she brought mail.
He thought of Baldridge. Baldridge had created all this and had been forced to abandon it. He, Yancy, had found it, all but in ruins, had built it back up, had made it his own. Baldridge might have started the whole thing, but Elephiant Yancy, former pirate and Roundsman, had resurrected it to an even greater glory than Baldridge could have envisioned.
St. Mary’s Rediviva.
He repeated that thought, worked it around in his mind the way an Arab worked his prayer beads. He didn’t really believe it at all, which was why he had to keep telling himself it was true.
At length he looked down at the two pathetic creatures seated on the low chairs before him. One of them had been talking for… how long? Yancy did not know, had not been listening. As lord of the island, Yancy had taken it upon himself to sit in judgment in such petty disputes. It was part of the burden he had to carry as supreme ruler of the kingdom, and he accepted that, but it was still a great bother and a terrific bore.
He was king, but he was not so ostentatious as to use that title. He insisted, rather, that he be called “Lord Yancy.”
“It’s a lie, what he said, Lord Yancy, I swear to Jesus God it is,” one of the men was protesting. “That stuff he says I stole, it was mine, it weren’t never his. Except for the knife, and that I won in gaming, fair and all, and he knows it-”
“That’s a lie!” the other interjected. “Son of a bitch is trepanning you, Your Honor, and I can have a dozen witnesses say that’s a fact!”
Yancy sighed audibly, stared out at the harbor again. Other men might look at his wealth, his power, his harem of women, and they might be envious, but they did not understand the terrible responsibility he carried.
He looked back at the men, put thumb and forefinger under his nose, and slowly ran the tips of those fingers down his mustache, smoothing the hair and then stroking his neatly groomed goatee with his full hand. He had practiced that gesture in the mirror until he was certain he had achieved the thoughtful, contemplative look he wanted.
The two litigants were both talking at once, a jumble of sound that Yancy could not pull apart so as to hear the individual words. He waved his hand for silence, and both men stopped talking. They paused a moment, hung there in expectation. When Yancy did not speak, one of the men started in again, but the guard who stood to one side punched him in the head, and he shut up.
“I have listened to your arguments,” Yancy announced slowly, even though he had not. He did not in fact even recall what their dispute was about. “You are both liars and thieves, perfidious men. I banish you both from St. Mary’s. You have until sundown to leave.”
There, that was the simplest solution.
Both men looked stunned, and as the guards stepped up behind them, one shouted, “Yancy, damn it, that ain’t…”
The words died, withered under the heat of Yancy’s glare.
“Lord Yancy, sir, I mean-” the man stuttered.
“You argue with my judgment? Shall I cut your hands off and then banish you?”
Yancy saw the guards’ faces brighten at the thought, but the man shut his mouth tight and shook his head. Finally he managed, “No, my Lord…”
“Good. Begone.”
Yancy closed his eyes, massaged his temples as the guards shuffled the two away. He hoped someone was watching, as he knew that this particular gesture gave him the look of a world-weary monarch, a man who carried a great load on his shoulders.
Elephiant Yancy was not much above five feet tall, and thin, and he had the small man’s energy, but he tried not to display it. It was not fitting for one in his position.
But energy he had, and drive. He had the energy for pirating in the Caribbean, for sailing the Round. Five years before, he had stepped ashore with the small crew of his pirate sloop, the Terror, and taken possession of Baldridge’s old haunt from the few drunks who lived there. He had the vision and energy to see it built up again to its former glory, to court trade from the American colonies and from London.
He had done all that, and now he was at the top, and he moved with the languid quality of the nobility, let others serve him. He did not rush, he did not speak quickly, as was befitting a monarch. He dressed in the clothing of a gentleman and sported great capes lined with red silk and wide-brimmed hats with long feathers trailing behind. He understood that in order for his people to respect him as lord of St. Mary’s, his every action, his every word, must be lordly.
But for all his certainty about his own divine right to rule, Yancy was worried. He closed his eyes, still massaging his temples, pictured the faces of the guards. They were bored by the trial, pleased by the possibility of cutting off a man’s hands, disappointed when Yancy let him go. They were a brutish lot. Their loyalty was open to question.
There were currently more than five hundred men on St. Mary’s, and nearly every one was or had been a pirate, and those who had not were still of no higher moral character. They frequented the makeshift taverns along the harbor, caroused with the native girls on the beaches or in the thick jungle, spent their booty, died as broken wrecks in the dirt streets. They were his army, but how many could he really count on?
Thirty, he reckoned. Those men who had first come with him, who had helped him build this up, who had recognized his place as king of it all. He had made those men rich, had given them harems, slaves. They lived with him in the big house, surrounding him. His Praetorian Guard. They would stand by him. Of the others? A third, perhaps, would stand by him, but they would be loyal to whoever they thought wielded the most power.
The last would like to see him impaled. He had just added two more to that group.
He sighed, stood up from his chair, which he thought of as a throne but did not refer to as such. He walked across the wide veranda, his cape swishing behind in a dramatic swirl of cloth, leaned his elbows on the stone wall, looked down on the town and the harbor below.
The jungle spilled from the interior of the island right to the water’s edge, as if cascading down the hillsides, a thick green waterfall of vegetation running down to the sea. Here and there the green was splotched with color, the lovely flowers that were native to the place, bougainvillea and hibiscus, the air heavy with their scent.
A dusty road ran from the center of the town below and followed the shoreline to the harbor to the south, where it terminated at a battered old dock. A boat was pulling away from the newly arrived ship to the docks, which probably meant mail. Yancy hoped there would be some good word from some quarter. He could use that.
Soft footsteps at the far end of the veranda, and a native servant announced, “Dinner, Lord Yancy. Me bring there, lord?” The servants were all Madagascar men and women, some slaves, some freemen, depending upon their station. It was Yancy’s standing order that the servants announce themselves from a distance. He did not need people sneaking around behind him.
“Yes. Set it here,” he said, never taking his eyes from the harbor and the boat that had now reached the dock. He could see a man get out of the stern sheets, step onto the dock, hurry along the road to the town.
The servant set down the tray and retreated quickly. Yancy glanced at the food. Cold roast beef and a pot of mustard. Bread, butter, a slice of kidney pie. A gold chalice filled with wine. It looked like the Holy Grail.
