Jade (Sally Watson Family Tree Books) by Watson Sally

Author:Watson, Sally [Watson, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781930009677
Publisher: Image Cascade Publishing
Published: 2013-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

Life as a pirate turned out to be surprising in several ways. To begin with, Jade had vaguely supposed pirates to be fierce, brutal, lawless, and bloodthirsty like the notorious late Blackbeard; wicked by the very look of them, spending their days and nights in looting, fighting, and other deeds of horrid violence. In fact, most of them were nothing of the sort, and the Queen Royal sailed day after peaceful day committing no piracy whatever because the empty seas showed them nothing to pirate.

And Jade felt more at home than she had ever felt anywhere. They didn’t seem wicked, these pirates—except for a few, like Barton, who liked brutality and killing, who had won a dozen duels and was always looking for another and rather had his eye on the inexperienced Tom Deane. Or there was Rafferty who liked stirring up trouble. Or Calico Jack Rackam who didn’t like anyone at all—including himself, said Rory shrewdly. Most of the others were victims of fate or men, refugees from terrible things like bond-slavery, injustice, poverty, and cruelty. And a rough, tough, uncouth, rum-guzzling lot they were, too, with even less reason than Jade to love society, for it had treated them far worse.

They were also, on the whole, kind, loyal, fun-loving, sentimental, musical, and nothing if not democratic. They made and enforced their own laws, elected their own captains, had their code of honor, and maintained justice much more successfully, they said smugly, than did the outside world. Moreover, if they became dissatisfied with a captain, they simply deposed him and elected another the next time they set foot ashore for fresh supplies of water and turtles.

“We voted Charlie Vane out that way a year ago,” explained little Sam Clarke, dwarf and self-styled clown. “Elected Jack instead. Figured he’d make a good figurehead (he hadn’t gone to pieces then) and Anne’d really run things.”

“You kill Vane?” asked Domino bloodthirstily.

Sam looked shocked. “Of course not! Gave him a boat and food; him and them as wanted to stick with him. He’s got another ship now; we see him now and then.”

“Well, why do you have to do it on land?” asked Jade, intrigued by this rather odd set of ethics. “Depose him, I mean.”

Sam looked even more shocked. “Well, we couldn’t do it at sea, could we? That’d be mutiny. Besides, it’s one of our rules.”

They were standing outside Anne’s cabin in the aftercastle, which was, in effect, the general lounge for the entire nothing-if-not-democratic crew (except, ironically, the captain himself, who was no longer welcome). Mark was at the helm; and one-eyed Cory Dickson, the star gunner, was up in the fo’c’sle teaching a fascinated Joshua the rudiments of the art. Amidships a trio of trumpet, fife, and drum played a rollicking hornpipe, and a dozen pairs of large horny bare feet flapped out the complicated steps. Domino, unable to bear it any longer, joined in with a dance of her own which she said was the same thing only better.

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