Anne Dray's Arc

Chapter 4 of 28

Anne left the tavern with a challenge and not enough hands to meet it. She stood on the deck of her warship and counted her crew. Ten men. Maybe twelve. A treasure ship carried marines, cannon, and a full deck of Crown sailors. She needed thirty fighters just to board it. She had a day left to find them, and the free captains would not lend a single one until she proved herself first. A voice called down from above. "Two ships anchored past the point. Small ones. Fishing hulls." Claire hung from the mast rope, spyglass to one eye. She was the best lookout Anne had ever hired, and her aim with a musket was better still. She dropped to the deck light as a cat. "Not fighters. But hulls hold men." Anne climbed the shore to the tall redwood behind the tavern. From its base she saw the whole cove. Two crews sat idle on the beach, mending nets, waiting on captains who never returned from the last Crown raid. Leaderless men. Not fighters, but hands. Her brother Chris came up beside her, breathing hard, the scar bright across his face. He had rowed her ashore since dawn without complaint. "They won't follow a bounty," Chris said. "Same as the captains." "The captains want proof," Anne said. "These men want a share and a deck under their feet." She walked down to the beach alone. She did not talk of banners. She named a number. A cut of the treasure ship's hold, split even, paid the day it was taken. The idle men looked at their empty nets. One stood. Then six. Then the whole two crews. By dusk her deck was crowded. Thirty-one men, most of them poor sailors, few of them killers. Claire drilled them at the rail with muskets while there was still light. Chris showed them how to swing a grapple and hold a line. They were rough. They were enough. Anne walked her full deck and felt the weight of it. She had the hands to storm the treasure ship now. But she had not won these men to her banner. She had bought them, one payment against one raid. If the raid failed, they would scatter, and the free captains would hear she could not hold a crew. Worse, she had promised a share of gold she did not yet have. The strait waited a day out. The Crown ship sailed under guard. She gave the order to weigh anchor. The warship turned toward the strait with a paid crew and a debt she could only settle by taking the treasure ship whole.