I spent the next few months under the command of Captain De La Roca and our reputation became legendary and notorious on the high seas of the Caribbean. We plundered merchant ships and trading convoys with breathtaking impunity, taking in a king’s ransom in gold, silver, spices and jewelry. They could never catch or stop us, only finding the empty remnants of cast adrift vesels along the way.
The word soon spread like wildfire under the superstitious Dutch, French, English and Spanish crews that plied their trade in the Atlantic. Somewhere out there in the rat’s nest of islands near the Jamaican archipelago roamed a fierce some pirate ship, one of the most brutal known in the new world. If caught, one would do well not to expect mercy of any sort. The sailors spoke under themselves in the smokey English tavern and decadent French brothels, and they would always talk of the behemoth known simply as the Moor, of the vile Captain with the burnt off face commanding the demonic crew and finally they would talk of the child. A shudder would go through even the hardiest of sailors when the blond haired devil was mentioned. They would call me a witch, a satanic apparition sent from hell to torment good Christian sailors.
“I heard she can conjure spirits from her bare hands and that an ungodly force is protecting her.” They whispered to each other, always crossing themselves afterwards. It didn’t matter to me what they called us, just that the fear would grow in their hearts each and every day. As expected, we soon had a bounty on our heads. The infuriated governors of the surrounding islands had issued a kill on sight order for each of the crew with a reward of a thousand gold coins per head brought in. We did our damnest to drive the reward up, turning the Caribbean as far as the Gulf of Mexico into our own private playground, virtually grounding trading to the Americas. I would stand on the tables at the Port Royale Inn, waving a reward poster and mocking their pathetic attempts at capturing us. It was always a raucous affair and the rum would flow as the pirates celebrated their newest conquest. They had grudgingly accepted me as one of their own, even though I could still see the fear in their eyes; it was something that never quite left them.
We spent many an evening in the dingy tavern, downing copious amounts of pilfered wine and spirits and feasting on great slabs of roast beef while singing dirty folk songs of the high seas. We would talk of latest kills and how the last captain pissed himself and jumped overboard to get away from us. And all the while, Captain De La Roca stood in the background, like a teacher observing a group of unruly children. But each and every man there owed him a debt of gratitude, he had guided us safely and skillfully through many a sea borne battle and had always brought us home intact.
Meanwhile, Gavorche and I had formed a great friendship and I came to love cooking under his guidance. Though there had been many calls for me to join the rest of the crew up on the deck, I had always known that my place was in the galley, right next to the big mountain of a cook. We had some good times down there and the crew ate like kings. We serve them only the finest meals courtesy of many a blue blood that had his precious cargo intercepted by us. The spices and the laughter flowed beneath decks and little Adelmar grew into a tenacious and very well fed animal. He was very protective of his mistress and many a pirate that came too close to me bore the bite marks of the wolf.
It was one evening, very much like a hundred ones before that, the cook and I were in the galley preparing French onion soup with roast beef for mains. We chatted amiably about politics and Greek philosophy as the ship made its way towards the Bahamas, set for another lucrative raiding trip. I turned to Gavorche in a serious tone.
“Do you think you will ever go home?” I asked.
“Home?” He asked, putting down his knife for a moment.
“Back to France I mean. Would you ever go home and start up your restaurant again?” It was a strange question but it was bugging me for a while now.
