There is nothing worse for a pirate than dying on dry land. Except, maybe, swinging two feet above it.
When their captain is imprisoned, facing the gallows, the men and women of the Lady Lesya's crew will try everything to break him out--even if it...
The old man, Logan, was holding forth again, this time on how he had built a little house outside town, how he was trying to grow vegetables, how he hoped his hen flock was doing well in his absence... What kind of pirate captain was he? Etienne hoped that he would never become like that. If he was lucky enough not to die on his sinking ship, he would... He would die on his still floating ship. That was the best way to end a life dedicated to oceans and plunders. The only way!
Having lost any interest in the pathetic-excuse-for-a-pirate's life once more, Etienne found himself pacing his cell like a trapped animal, trying to shut out the constant blabbering and think about the situation at hand. But even in absolute silence, the result would have been the same: there was nothing he could do to break out of here. Hell, there weren't even any guards around to bribe! Hope was the only thing he had left—hope that his crew would come and rescue him—and hope was something invented for the weak and the cravens. As for his crew...
O'Ma was patient and thoughtful. The quartermaster would think everything through carefully, calculating the risks before acting—which could mean acting only to take his eyeless, soiled corpse down from the gallows. Dune would follow him, hopefully, only to meet up with his captain and puppet master—but without Etienne's direct orders, his muscles wouldn't be of much help. Annoyingly optimistic, Tiago was also utterly unreliable, and Stalker would rather steal Lesya and sail far away, a grin on his stupid painted face, like the son of a bitch he was.
Once again, his fate seemed to depend on Alexandra. Leaving her on the ship had been a bad idea after all. She would have been able to prevent such a fiasco, somehow, instead of looking after the girl, not knowing the first thing about his present whereabouts. However, Etienne didn't feel any panic—just cold. Probably because he had faced the rope before—on more occasions than he could remember—and knew it was the price to pay for following a life on the fringes of society, outside the laws of men. He also trusted Alexandra fully, with more than his mere life. She had given it back to him once already, along with pride and purpose.
She had found him in a dark alley then, in the back of a shabby alehouse, face down in mud and shit, skin covered in nettle rashes and fleas. A filthy nobody with no possession other than the rags on his back and the meager contents of his stomach. Despite the stench of his body, unbearable even to his own nostrils, she had picked him up without a trace of disgust on her thin face. Death was what he had expected—called, even. But Alexandra had been the one to answer.
Etienne remembered to breathe and unclenched his fists. Now a captain of his own ship, followed by a relatively trustworthy crew, a cell was not going to stop him. And if he had to stick his neck into a slipknot soon, at least he would join Lesya.
In the meantime, hope could go fuck itself. He would wait! After all, life was full of opportunities for those able to see them.
Etienne Desjours, captain of the most beautiful brigantine sailing the Atlantic, came closer to the bars separating the cells. He grabbed one nonchalantly and interrupted his neighbor.
"Tell me more about these hens of yours!"
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