Chapter 47: Deniable Piracy
"The lads aboard my ship have never cared much what folks call the work."
James leaned forward. "So long as the coin spends and the trouble earns its keep. What sort of rough work are we talkin’ about?"
"The sort Spain can’t officially do shit about it."
Thatch snickered. "That makes it privateering when the Crown approves and piracy when it doesn’t. Sounds to me like Don Juan is hoping that distinction stays in this room."
Juan looked at Thatch. It wasn’t a hard stare, only a quiet one that carried an unspoken question.
He wanted to know if James would rather continue this conversation without anyone else listening.
James caught the meaning.
Thatch had been the one to bring him here. He’d handed over private information about Juan’s artillery without hesitation, as though he wanted to see exactly how James would use it. The question about the mortars hadn’t been careless. Nothing Thatch did in a meeting like this happened by accident.
He’d been watching from the beginning, waiting to see James press the advantage. When Juan finally lost his composure, Thatch had smiled like a man whose wager had paid off.
James also knew how this man’s story ended.
It wasn’t with betrayal.
The legend Thatch was building, the beard, the burning fuses, all the spectacle surrounding him, was meant for enemies. For the sea itself. The violence James carried in his foreknowledge pointed elsewhere, never toward allies who still had value.
That was enough.
"One moment."
He turned to Thatch with a solemn expression.
"Lad."
Thatch frowned.
James scratched his chin, as though the matter genuinely required consideration. "I’ve known men with pleasant smiles who’d sell the ship beneath their own feet. What’s your read?"
For a second, Thatch simply looked at him.
Then he barked a short laugh that held no amusement.
"Don’t start."
"I asked a question."
"No. You’re entertainin’ yourself."
James spread one hand.
"Can a man not do both?"
Thatch held his stare a moment longer before snorting. "If he’d planned to murder ye, I’d have watched."
"I knew there was a reason I kept ye about."
"I ought to start charging for my patience."
The corner of James’s mouth twitched.
"I’ll take that as confidence in his character."
"I wasn’t talking about him."
Juan said nothing. He had learned that interrupting other captains only prolonged such conversations. By the time the room fell quiet again, his hands had returned to one another.
"May I continue?"
Both pirate captains stared at him, and then nodded.
The Spaniard let the silence settle before speaking again.
"You asked what sort of work I require."
He reached for the map on the wall and rested two fingers against the stretch of coastline west of Pensacola.
"I require someone to strike here."
James followed his hand.
Mobile.
There was always a bloody harbor involved.
"The fort?" Thatch asked.
Juan gave a slight shake of his head.
"The fort can be rebuilt."
His fingers remained where they were.
"The governor cannot replace lost time."
James knew the name before it was spoken.
Bienville.
One of France’s most capable colonial governors. Not because he won battles, but because he rarely needed to. He traded. Negotiated. Waited. The sort of Frenchman who’d rather spend five years making friends than five minutes fighting. Which, if anything, made him more troublesome.
"The tribes, then?" James asked.
Juan inclined his head.
"Yes."
Well.
That was considerably less convenient than burning a fort.
James remembered how the map would look a few years from now. French influence creeping inland a little farther each season, not by planting flags, but by convincing everyone nearby they were better neighbors than the Spaniards. It was slower than conquest, harder to stop, and considerably more irritating.
Juan tapped the harbor.
"I do not need Mobile destroyed. I need it distracted."
His hand fell away from the map. "If the governor spends this season repairing ships and warehouses instead of extending his reach inland, I gain time."
James gave a quiet grunt. "So I’m to sail over there, make enough of a nuisance of myself that the French forget they’ve other work to do."
"Precisely."
"A respectable profession."
"And that’s worth hiring pirates for?" Thatch asked.
"It is worth hiring anyone who succeeds."
James shrugged.
He already knew where this led.
Three years from now the French would have no reason to hurry. The palisades outside this fort wouldn’t withstand what Bienville eventually sent down the western bay. Juan’s governorship still lay ahead of him, and none of it would come soon enough to help the soldiers watching the bay today.
James kept every piece of that knowledge locked away.
"So what do you want burned?"
"Supply depots, ships in the harbor."
Juan’s voice stayed calm, but the resolve beneath it had been forged over years.
James studied him.
"And what do we get in return?"
"Complete the task, and you receive the artillery you requested earlier."
"I’d rather have the guns aboard before we sail."
"Payment comes after the work is complete."
Juan kept his gaze.
"That point is not negotiable."
Thatch leaned forward.
"One mortar would do wonders against a harbor and a city."
He opened his hands toward Juan.
"That serves your interests every bit as much as his."
Juan paused.
The hesitation lasted only a heartbeat, shorter than he intended anyone to notice.
"You will receive one mortar and two cannons before the work."
"Deal." James grinned.
Silence settled over the room.
Outside the shuttered window, the afternoon heat pressed against the fort, unconcerned with the agreement that had just been made.
James sat through one slow breath, weighing what he’d accepted.
A French harbor two hundred miles to the west.
His crew stood aboard the Rose at that very moment, completely unaware their captain had just agreed to attack it inside a Spanish official’s office in Florida.
He found himself looking forward to explaining it.
A display shimmered into existence before him.
⚔ [QUEST ISSUED]
A Diplomatic Misunderstanding
A French governor is building influence faster than Spain can afford to ignore. Fortunately, harbors are expensive to repair, warehouses are flammable, and politics has always struggled to compete with a large enough fire.
Disrupt Mobile’s harbor before France’s governor consolidates the inland tribes beyond recovery.
Reward : 90 Fate
Reward : ???
You have accepted an assignment that officially does not exist from a man who officially lacks the authority to issue it, against a nation officially at peace with the people unofficially paying you.
Human governments continue to rely upon the remarkable legal principle that pretending something is not happening causes it to become someone else’s problem.
Your species has maintained this belief for several thousand years despite the evidence.
