Chapter 04 – Building fame

I sometimes frequented the taverns with John or Robert or both. In the beginning, I wasn’t perfectly disguised, mostly for lack of experience, so even with my scarred face, someone would get the hunch that I was a woman. And in one of these times, a group of sailors from a merchant ship decided that since they hadn’t been getting laid for months, they would look over my scarred face and have fun. I discouraged them all with words, and John and Roberts kept ready to intervene, even if I signalled them not to. The bully of the group, a big, ugly sailor with a lot of tattoos and several ear rings, decided my no wouldn’t be enough to discourage him, and became forceful. I was literally pried from the chair, and when I disengaged, he slapped my face so hard that I fell on the floor. John was already unsheathing his sword when I told him to stop. I rose; now the whole tavern was silent, watching, in a circle around us. I told the big bully:

“If you try again, I’ll kill you!”

He laughed, neared and launched another slap. I avoided it, crouching, while with a knife I carved a deep cut in his forearm, cutting the artery and the tendons. He started to wail, and without a word, I stabbed his neck, opening it to the point I almost chopped his head. I looked around, and with my fake voice, I coldly said.

“I always keep my word!”

Then I went back to my chair and sat, finishing my drink. I apparently ignored John’s warning that we had better go; soon the guards would be there, but I had to teach a lesson. So, I calmly finished my mug of ale – it was greatly watered, though – and then rose and followed John. I could see he was almost mad at me, and after turning a couple of corners, we ran to the ship. There, he almost shouted at me.

“Are you damn mad? Do you realize the guards would have arrested you, and then you’d have risked being hanged? They allow us pirates here, but we must keep a low profile! Why didn’t you move when I told you, silly girl!”

“John, listen to me. As you know, for us pirates, reputation is most useful. I could have nicked his neck or just lightly wounded his leg, and it would have ended there. Next time, another one would have been there, doing the same. And so on. Now, they saw a heartless murderer. And they saw that I’m cold enough and crazy enough not to care about the guards. Next time, nobody would even try to approach me. And if they do, it will be enough to warn them, and they’ll stop. That’s what it was all about.”

He calmed down. Then, with a low voice, he said, “Ok, I understand. There is a point in what you did, and probably you got the best you could from the situation. But you had me scared sick.”

It was that statement that made me start to realize that my feelings for John were growing deeper. Until one evening, we drank some heavy booze and were a little tipsy, and we kissed. The kiss became deeper, and at last he got my maidenhood. In the morning, I was unpassionately leaving his cabin. Despite my feelings, I was living with pirates. I knew that for them, everything was just a one-night stand and to take what life gives you, day by day. When he asked me what was wrong, I tried to avoid the question until I broke down and revealed my feelings. Surprisingly, he said he felt the same, and it was months since he didn’t go with a woman, having only me in his thoughts. That day, we became officially a couple. I moved everything into his cabin’s bedroom and then confessed to him about my little fortune. He laughed and said he knew since the beginning, but it was my dowry, and it was my right to keep it hidden, especially on a pirate ship. Then he showed me his little secret. Moving a sliding wall through a hidden mechanism, he showed me the place where he hid his money. In a small hidden room, which filled the space behind the guest cabin I had been living in, no more than fifty by fifty centimetres, he had a chest with several tube-like holes, where to put the coins, with marks on their value basing on the kind of coins, and the quick way to withdraw some or many, by removing a sliding panel at its bottom, or the whole tube. That way, even in a storm, you wouldn’t hear the clinking of coins. And believe me, all in such an orderly manner took much less space than when just thrown into a chest. Some wider spaces allowed me to store my jewels and my letters of credit, which we would change as soon as we were back in Port Royal, so as to avoid them expiring or being voided. You never know with Spanish. We kept the transferring of our growing wealth to the hidden stash in the house in Port Royal, though. We even created a new hidden room, so that if one was found, nobody would look for another. Anyway, the secret room on the ship soon saw a little make-up table for my masks.

Ten months after I first set foot on the ship, and fifteen more Spanish ships had sunk, while in La Havana, contacting an informer to get some tips about ships, John was captured. His execution was scheduled in three days from the capture, to give people enough time to attend, but not enough time for his friends to organize a rescue, or so they thought.

That wouldn’t stop me, and it wasn’t a short enough time. With Robert and the ship’s carpenter, we passed the next two days weakening the gallows’ structure. At the right moment, we would tie a couple of horses to it, when the guards with John would approach, the horses would move, and the whole structure would fall on the crowd. The panic would cause the crowd to overwhelm the guards, and we could free John. With the little particular that I managed to stab to death both the guard commander and the traitor, everything went as planned. The love of the Spanish ruling class for ceremonies, self-celebration and shows allowed us to turn that into a weapon against them. Back on board, we sailed immediately. I kissed John and dropped onto the bed, exhausted.

For the next three years, we became a sort of legend in the Caribbean. Ash & Blackeyes were the two pirates’ Captains with a single ship, and were unstoppable. Feared by every Spanish vessel, because differently from other pirates, we only targeted Spanish ships, and there was never a survivor for ransom in the ships that we captured. In fact, if a Spanish ship disappeared, it became a common saying to say ‘it’s been Blackashed’. Nobody remembered my being a woman, and Ash was officially a male pirate. The episode in Port Royal tavern outgrew, as all sailor’s stories, and I wasn’t anymore a scarred woman killing a bully who tried to use violence to her, but a man who killed alone with a knife twelve men with swords, despite having a deep cut in my neck and the face burning for the oil of a lamp thrown at me, which added background to my scars, and then fled, pursued by all the guards of the city. Quite a legend, obviously an exaggeration, but I wouldn’t complain, and it was functional to my fake story.

What made our fame raise a lot was the almost legendary story of how we managed, with only our crew and small ship, to conquer a galleon, which name was the Carletta, but which we called Narciso, for the reasons I’ll explain soon, another galleon which remains we found a few days after taking the Carletta, sunk by a storm on a barrier reef, and which was carrying – we got from the documents we managed to recover – the reinforcements and payment – sadly lost in the reef – for the fort of Veracruz in New Spain. Then we took all means and signs of identification and burned the remains. The next storm would wipe every trace left.

Back to the Carletta, yes, I admit the galleon captain was worse than inept, and the troops’ commanding officer was such a stuck-up idiot who thought it would be enough to order pirates to lay down weapons and they would obey, as they were just inferior peasants meant to submit to their betters, and who would obey if ordered authoritatively enough.

Poor idiot, when we boarded without them firing a single cannonball, and slaughtered his men, mostly recruits for the garrisons of the New World, he was screaming around like a chicken, and at last, when I challenged him to take the sword instead of talking, he even said that we lowlife weren’t worthy of his blade. Since there was only our well trusted crew present, and the galleon captain, I took a bucket of water, cleaned my face, and told him:

“Well, Major Chicken. I’m Cyndria Monteyo y Spinoza y Aquino de Alameda, I’m even your better. Now, I’m more than worthy of your sword, if you dare. Or you are too coward for that, too?”

That shocked him, and he forgot even the basic courtesy which he was blatantly and proudly boasting about just moments before, attacking me with a surprise attack. I played with him, piercing his muscles after announcing the hit. After he was a mass of trembling muscles, and the sword dropped from his hands, I laughed. He begged mercy from a “fellow queen’s loyal subject”, and my answer was that if I could raze the whole of Spain and behead that bitch of the queen myself, it would be the best day of my life. Then, I gave him the grace hit. I immediately run on our ship, and being proficient at it and having already several basic make-ups ready, in less than ten minutes was back in my disguised self.

The rest of the military prisoners ended with merciful executions. There were a few civilians, one of whom was a stuck-up young woman who treated us with contempt, even worse than the troop commander. When our men found them hiding and brought them out on the main deck, we saw this woman who, with a riding crop, cruelly hit one of her servants on her face, drawing blood, and then kept hitting her on her raised hands, screaming she must lower her hands and take her full punishment. I went there myself and, with a backhand slap in her face, threw her on the floor.

“Who do you think you are to treat people like that?”

“I’m Lady Isabella Cardozo Gutierrez y Barroso y Azevedo! Don’t dare touch me, pirate filth! That scum stepped on my dress, and she deserves to be given as a toy to the crew! Or maybe not, if she earned that punishment again, maybe it’s because the last time, she enjoyed it!”

I went to the girl and asked. “Is it true she gave you to the ship crew to be raped?”

“Yes, mister.”

“How did you end up in her hands?”

“Her father managed to ruin mine with a few tricks and some accomplices, and they got me as an indentured servant, for life. She can do what she wants to me. Practically, I’m her slave.”

“And you, what do you want to do with your life?”

“Raise a family and have a little house, where to live in peace…”

“Ok, granted. Just obey me, and I’ll give you that. You don’t have to obey that filth anymore. And she’ll get exactly what she deserves.”

Then I turned to the other civilians, asking who they were. All the people were at the service of Isabella. Also, they were all of noble origins and as cruel as her, like the typical Spanish nobility. They thought that being them of noble families, we would arrange for a ransom as it was the custom. Apparently, they hadn’t been informed of our peculiar habits. We would later shoot them, because I’m not interested in ransoms, but in wiping from the world the corrupt filth that spread from the rulers of Spain. I went to Isabella and, piece by piece, with sword blows, removed all of her clothes, leaving her completely naked. The crew knew all too well that if, during our raids, they raped a woman, I’d have their own balls fed to them and then kill them. This time, I told them to use her for the rest of the day, and don’t bother about being gentle, but to not leave permanent damage. It was eleven in the morning, so there was plenty of time. The rest of her stuck-up people were forced to watch, shocked and terrorized that it could happen to them, too. I was honestly disgusted, but forced myself to stand my ground, as she was so cruel that she enjoyed doing that to women for futile reasons.

I asked John if he disagreed, but he answered that since we weren’t asking for ransoms and that woman didn’t have respect for anyone, and dared to sentence a child to be gang raped, she deserved everything, and so, at least, she would have been useful for our men.

At around six in the evening, the men were all exhausted. She was bruised, sore, crouching in a corner, crying. I went to her, with the twelve-year-old girl I saved, Caterina.

“How do you feel? Do you still think poor Caterina deserved it?”

She could only cry and babble, “I’m a Lady, you can’t do this to me.”

I raised my voice. “You have only the name of a Lady, this child is more ladylike than you, with far more dignity. Men, are you done with this human waste?”

I got a lot of yes. Then I forced her to stand. “So, your punishment ends here, instead of going on for another three hours.”

She was defiant and still interrupted me, “Do not think I will forget what you did to me. My soon-to-be husband, Alcalde of La Havana Hernan de la Sierra de la Coronilla y Sinagra, will get your heads!”

“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Until now, he failed. Surely, he won’t succeed because of what I just did and am about to do, since you are too stupid to understand the meaning of what I said.” At that, I stabbed her in one lung. She had enough time to realize that she was about to die, and at last, I could see awareness in her eyes. At that point, I stabbed her heart. Her body went into the sea like the others before her. Then, we executed the rest of her people, and threw them to the fishes. At last, we plundered the ship. Caterina told me to follow; there was something she knew that was interesting. She went to the lowest deck and told me to move a few crates and barrels. I called some men to do the job. Behind the stuff they moved, which was filled with junk and cheap merchandise, there was a small, low door, which we would have probably missed. I opened it, and behind it we found a small chest filled with jewels, a folder with several letters of credit for a sum of one hundred and seventy thousand doubloons, a couple big chests filled with gold bars, one huge chest filled with gold doubloons, and at least thirty crates, containing a total of three hundred, of muskets of a last generation, more precise and with a longer range. It was a real coup. I kissed Caterina's forehead, and we brought everything on the Dolphin.

Then, most of our crew boarded the galleon, and instead of burning it, we moved toward a secret bay of our knowledge. There there was a small outpost where we kept our more seriously wounded crew or those no more able to fight. They would farm some vegetables and breed cows. Those waiting for us to get them back would fish in the bay. Most of the place activity was organized toward having a secure place for supplies and spare ship parts in case of emergency, and we would sometimes make a whole trip with the ship full of provisions to store there.

When they saw us arrive there, initially they were scared, then they saw the Jolly Roger on both ships and our men manoeuvring the galleon and cheered. Between the supplies and the wood dismantling, the galleon would provide enough to build several better homes in the bay. So, we spent a month dismantling the galleon and building hidden bunkers for the hundred cannons and the several heavy cannons, all placed to cover both the bay and its access. Those in excess were stored to replace those we could lose on the Dolphin. That galleon had been a real coup. The real reason for the bay’s inaccessibility was that you couldn’t pass its barrier reef even with a rowing boat, but by chance, one of the men of John’s first crew knew the complex passage to enter, and taught it to John and Robert. Big enough for a galleon, disguised enough to be really difficult to find.

The island was small, and a thousand men population would tax heavily its resources, but through our supplies and the low number of people, which in its widest expansion reached the number of three hundred, some being women and children who wanted to live in peace, it was a good place.

In the fifth week, we sailed to Port Royal. Both to allow the men to spend their money, to stash our increased wealth in the house and check it, and to recruit some replacements. The men knew they weren’t allowed to say the galleon's name or what happened on it, or what we found on it. But they could boast about the capture of the galleon Narciso and the fight with the many soldiers there. They didn’t lack fight stories. It wasn’t uncommon for ships, even as big as galleons, to disappear, so, because of the couple of hurricanes in the past months, the Carletta’s could have been one of them. The loot and the woman had been too important to advertise around, and we weren’t eager to have a whole fleet chasing us.