Cutthroats of the Coast

Chapter 19 - Escape?

The sun had risen past the rooftops of Tangier by the time Maria agreed to take us inside her house.  What swayed her to indulge us in this way was not due to the talents of myself or my comrades. Nathaniel was at his most pompous and Ramsbottom at his most incoherent.  I cannot say what Jack hoped to achieve by removing his shirt and revealing musculature that Dr Wren would have loved to either draw or dissect, so perfect was its form, but it did not stir the Amazon into offering any sanctuary. My own pathetic squeak on viewing her pistol, nor my accompanying leer at her bubbies swaying deliciously beneath her shift, failed to pry any Christian charity from the girl.

 No.  Maria let us take shelter from Cholmeley’s men because of a half-empty bottle of rum.  My rum.  That stone bottle hard won from the burning house we had only just escaped from.

She was brisk about her business once her decision was made.  Maria was no fool.  From our sudden appearance in her goat pen, the commotion behind us, and the general uproar in the streets, she had deduced that we were not eager to make the acquaintance of Tangier’s garrison.

 “Inside the house, ingleses.  Soldados bastardos search for you.  Hurry!  Imediatamente!”  She waved her pistols at us in an insistent manner, directing us to the back door of another of Tangier’s white-walled houses.  “Go in before someone is seeing you!”

We were herded by the irate girl like a flock of sheep snapped at by an ill-tempered dog.  Flickering light from the spreading fire behind us cast weirdly moving shadows across the rear of the girl’s house.  Bleating and cursing, we ducked under the low lintel of the yard door and tramped into the kitchen.  In the distance, voices screamed for water and a fire engine.

“We must be away, madam!”  Oblivious to the girl’s stony expression and pistols, Nathaniel blustered on, his authoritative demeanour undermined by the stench of the piss-pot and his dishevelled clothing.  “We are in pursuit of some bonny rascals indeed!  You must take to your chamber for there are wicked men at loose in the city tonight!”

“Indeed, Senhor Broadbank?  They must be very wicked men for you to take up with these…” she waved a pistol at us, “Criaturas.” 

“You know of me?” 

“Who does not know the black coated pimp of the fortress, Senhor?  Many women of the town speak most highly of your coin, and your want of honouring it.”

She held the pistols in such a way as one could not doubt her aptitude in their use.  Firm and steady, the muzzles wavered not one inch, their muzzles gaping, thrown into a stark relief from the flickering of the hearth.  One pointed directly at Jack, the boy and I, the other at Nathaniel’s forehead.

“You must not delay us, madam; we are about the King’s business!” 

 “Oho!  So the King’s business means that piratas can burn my neighbour’s houses, eh?  Upset the goats and walk shit into my house?”  She glared at Nathaniel and because her attention was upon him, the rest of us were able to ogle her with freedom.  My God but she could turn an Oxford cleric’s predilection for fornication from the bestial to the seraphic.  If she had courted the magisters of that town then a very great number of my fellows need not have made sure of their locks at night.  The very sight of her stirred a man’s blood to a furious tumult.  “If these are your men, Senhor Broadbank, then please ask them to stop licking at my buntlings or I shall have to…how you say…kill one.”

“Stop that, you fools!  She could blow your heads off!”

“Or yours,” said Jack with a grin, “Or your little lad!”

“Ay, ay, ay!” she laughed and winked at Jack. “A very tiny babe, or so say the doxies! It must be suckled hard before it comes to manhood!”