Chapter Twelve-The Dancing Whore at the Anchor Inn

The Dancing Whore at the Anchor Inn

She was hiding in the parlour where her mother arranged the expensive furniture and the carpet from Europe. A portrait of every member of their tiny family was gingerly hung on the Chinese wallpaper as a whale-oil lamp burned dully on the table. She had snuck in to steal the book her mother had been reading that day when she was not telling Pia, the maid, how scandalous it was. The Condesa had left it lying on the harpsichord she never used; indeed, the thing had become almost ornamental since the day it was imported.

“I will not just sit here and farm!” Her father was shouting outside in the corridor, “Not when somebody is trying to do something about these bloody pirates-!”

He was absolutely lived. Florencia peered through the crack in the door and saw his red face. He had clattered into their front yard on his horse just as she was sneaking down from her room. She narrowly missed discovery as her rather overweight mother flew out of the sitting room in a dither; her hair was only half-curled and she reeked of perfume.

“Croix, you cannot go blundering off!” Her mother bickered, “You could be killed and where would I be?”

The tall and whiskery man stopped pacing abruptly.

“A day will come when our daughters need to sail across that sea to marry their husbands, and no man shall stop them while there is breathe in my body!”

She quickly pulled back from the door as a shadow passed across it. Her father stormed his way to the front door, and she listened to her mother tap-tapping after him, begging him not to abandon her, but it was too late. She heard his horse snort, and then a short, “Ha!” as he whipped the beast into a gallop and thundered out of the yard; Florencia, shaking, shoved the parlour door open, and ran to her room.

“…captain’s blamed for the massacre and the HMS Keturah’s too, not forgetting the Fortuna, which was a Dutch merchant ship.”

Florencia came back to her senses in time to see him grime and shudder, although he did not go into detail, merely breathed out slowly and commented, “He’s never denied either attack, although I’ve yet to see any gold dust to prove him being at the Gladful’’s-”

“But why should that scare anyone? Pirates attack ships all the time-” She blurted out, quickly clapping a hand over her mouth.

“Used to,” he corrected her, “and there are different ways for pirates to gain infamy. Some do it by stealing a great hoard, and others, like the captain…it’s how they kill the hero.”

She looked at him, puzzled.

“The captain hacked Captain Hawke of the HMS Keturah to pieces,” Flower stated bluntly.

“…oh,” Florencia said very quietly, then, “So why has no-one tried to stop him-?”

“I didn’t say that hadn’t,” he said simply, ““His Grace the Duke of Powys, the Governor of Jamaica, levied a five hundred guinea reward on the captain’s head, dead or alive, back in 1720 after one of the fishing villages there was bombarded. Suffice to say, though, nobody’s been able claim it, but that’s not without trying-”

“Black Allen-would he do that?”

“Mmmm?”

“Catch the captain for the reward,” Florencia explained.

Flower shook his head, as he was wont to do.

“No; but the Governor might.”

He put his empty cup down and reached for a long stick that he used to prod the ashy fire in place of an iron poker.

“Most pirates would be warily of tackling the captain in a hand to hand fight,” Flower told her, “he’s small but tenacious. You see, stories have filtered through ghosts and old timber, somehow, about how he shot the Dark Horse’s old captain, an Irishman called Bare Bone Donovan. He marooned the crew on a tidal sandbar as well- you’ve seen Donovan’s skull

“That one on the desk?” Florencia cried out, covering her mouth in horror.

“Kept as a trophy,” Flower nodded, “Bernardo claimed that Donovan was an old drunk, so that wouldn’t have made him hard to kill.”

Florencia swallowed, feeling ill. The cook tossed the fiery poker on the flames and stood, stretching.

“We’d best be off,” he told her, “the captain’s probably winding his back-”
He crossed the room and pulled a shutter back; outside, Florencia heard the familiar pitter-patter of falling rain. She was surprised to see that night had fallen and that it was not just cloud cover making the sky so dark. Flower disappeared through the kitchen door, and, out of compunctious desire, Florencia crept after him, passing through a store cupboard hung with a salted leg of pork, a rack of dried fish and a string of vegetables. The kitchen, tiny, square and dark with one wooden wall, was beyond another door, and was filled with staked crockery. A lit candle shone light under another door, which was in a brick wall that neatly bisected the room in half. She edged closer to it and peered through the door, which was slightly ajar, to see a bedroom that was even more cramped than Flower’s cabin was. He and his wife had squeezed two beds in, and on the one that Florencia could see, Mariana was fast asleep. Her mother was holding the candle as her father smiled sadly at his only child. His eyes were all for her as the brunette begun to feel hotly ashamed for sneaking upon such an intimate event. Flower swooped down and pecked her on the forehead.

Florencia turned and fled.

*

The rain began to pour down as Flower and Florencia left his house. His wife had given her a pair of shoes, which she had refused at first until Luigia persuaded her that they were too small for Flower.

“Besides,” she added in a jolly voice, “can’t be having your little feint discovered, can we?”

Florencia was grateful, for the shoes were waterproof and made walking much less painful, although the leather still chafed her feet. However, the burning feeling was not as bad as treading on a loose stone or thorn from some bush, so she consoled herself, as she as Flower slunk through the dark. His house was right by the warehouses and market, and had been bought, so he said, from an elderly poulterer, whose business Luigia now kept up.

Neither of them was carrying a lantern; they did need one, as the warehouses were lighted to deter thieves. A couple of watchmen sitting on the street corner kept an eye on the area as they passed and moved towards the quay.

“We usually meet at the Anchor Inn,” Flower told her, pointing at the noisy establishment on the quay, which was light up so brightly that it appeared to be on fire, “and seeing as the captain said nothing otherwise, I guess…”

A dog was sniffing around outside of the inn. It yelped and sped past them as a customer lumbered out drunkenly, kicked it and them relieved himself in the gutter with a low moan.

Florencia retched at the smell close to. It seemed that the gutter was not only a dump for kitchen waste but a public toilet as well; ammonia and the foul stench of rotting fish reached her nose as Flower pushed her to the door. A plank had been put over the boggy, mordant ditch, almost like a gangplank or drawbridge without the rope; they had to stand on it for a moment as Flower began to push the heavy door open.

“No room!” A woman cried out shrilly from inside.

She must have thrown herself at the door, Florencia guesses, as it bounced and pushed the cook back a little, unsteadying the brunette.

A blast of hot, dry air escaped the rowdy parlour; with it came fiddle and drum music, and laughter that strained to reach her ears as Flower questioned the landlady.

“Even for a man and his small boy?” He asked, “We just want out of this rain.”

The rain, which was still drizzling down on them, was cold in comparison to the drenching shower that had soaked them that afternoon. The wind had picked up again as well, and blew coldly through her hair, smelling of salt and weeds and tar from the ships at anchor.

“Yer’ll ‘ave ter stand!” the woman told him, “An’ pay fer yer victuals!”

The door opened a crack and Flower ushered Florencia through. She caught sight of a skinny woman with a big chin, who glowered at her as the cook squeezed his way into the already full parlour.

“Much thanks,” he said to her, but the woman just grunted, shut the door and battled her way back to the bar.

Florencia, meanwhile, could not help but stare, for the scene before her was perhaps the loudest, most negligent, lewd and boorish that she had ever seen. All around her, people were drinking-out of bottles and fine little glasses-one big woman was even glugging beer out of a bucket. The air was so heavy with alcohol like rum, port, brandy and claret that she feared that the tipsy young lady at the back of the room might drop her lantern and set not just the painting she was ogling on fire, but the whole tavern by blowing it up. The fumes soaked the furniture and the wallpaper, and the people lolling on or against them seemed not to care as they gargled wine and quaffed ale by the gallon.

It was not just the sheer drunkenness and lack of awareness and safety that struck Florencia; the women did too. There were a dozen of them dotted around the place, blithely applying more paint to their faces, playing dice, gossiping, pick-pocketing and seducing the menfolk, and all the beat of a skin Marine drum and the slash and screech of a broken old fiddle. Someone sung off key near the bar, whilst one of the whores stripped off to her shift to do a risqué dance on a silver platter for the pleasure and money of her gentleman.

Florencia jumped as a hand grabbed and gripped her, steering her through the squash of perfumed, sweaty bodies until Flower pulled her behind one of the benches, which were set back from the wall. There was a gap, big enough for a man to stand in, and a wide enough windowsill for a child to sit on. She scrambled up gratefully, gasping at the coolness of the stone ledge and panting for air as she pressed her head against the cool, smooth glass. The panes were small and fogged up as she breathed on them and rubbed her shorn mop of hair there. The thatch in question had become matted through rain and sweat, and curled slightly.

“Stay here,” Flower told her firmly, all but shouting, “I’ll be right back.”

She could only look at him and nod weakly, deafened and thirsty from the exertion. She lost sight of him amidst the sea of people, patched and clad in calico, as someone gave a loud whoop and a number of pirates began clapping and calling.

She looked over, curious and expectant. The whore who had been undressing clambered up barefoot on the sturdiest table, around which many swarmed like bees around some very dusty flower. Florencia watched, slightly revolted, as the woman began to dance a hearty jig, amidst an uproarious chorus from her scores of gathered admirers. Her woman’s flesh jiggled beneath her gossamer shift, and her hair soon became undone, veiling her ruddy face in reddish hair and a sprinkle of pins, like a cloudburst.

“You’ll rot throughout if you watch that sort of behaviour,” Flower told her, dusky voiced as he reappeared with a tin pitcher and something wrapped in greasy paper.

He handed both to her, and as soon as she grasped the package, Florencia knew that it was food. She raised it to her nose and breathed in deeply the smell of meat, herbs and pasty; pulling the paper back, she found a slice of cold pie, pink and brown, the cooked pork covered in a soft, clear jelly.

“Eat it,” Flower told her, “it’ll probably be the best food you get for a while-”

She picked little pieces off it, no more than crumbs, as she ate like a bird and huddled against the window. The glass soon lost its pleasant chill and steamed up as the room grew hotter with the press of bodies that crept closer to the walls, seemingly expanding as the night ate into the next morn.

The dancing whore was still entertaining her audience; candlelight had been directed on her, Florencia saw. She had put her shoes back on, and lobster red as she was with exertion, she was smiling as she danced a minuet with a large patron beside the table. Those that were not watching appeared to be drunker than ever, whilst others haggard looking as they lost a heap of silver to someone better at faro than themselves. A few disappeared from sight with some busty young thing on their arm as another pirate threatened his lass in the far corner.

However, it was the sheer din that they were creating that affected Florencia the most. It was giving her a splitting headache, and although she was thankful for the small beer that the cook had brought her, it did not make her feel much better. She put the pie aside, pushing it away and stretching her cramped legs.

“Can we go yet-?” She began asking Flower, before starting in fright as the door flew open.

It did not bounce off the wall like Florencia half expected it to, although it did knock some pirate and a fat a little maid over, as they bundled behind the door. The candles seemed to flicker as though a cold wind had just blown by, despite that they were behind thick glass, and that was not all; people’s clapping froze as all eyes turned to the newcomer.

The fiddler, a squint-eyed old man, tortured his bow a bit more before stopping, and the whore’s merriment seemed to die with the music. Men sipped silently from their tankards, both warily and angrily, as the landlady swelled up like a pig’s bladder.

“Yer can’t come in ‘ere!” She barked, “We’re full, an’ we don’t want your sort either!”

Several of the other pirates sneered in agreement as their womenfolk stood stock still in awe and terror as the mob shrank back. Florencia looked at the arrival with a sense of dread welled in her belly.

Although he was sodden and swaying slightly on the spot, Storm was immediately recognisable by his rather imperious posture and the dribble of scarlet on his chin.

“I’m lookin’,” he said, garbling slightly, “fer-”
Something banged and the landlady came running out with a broom clutched in a hand and a look of livid fury on her face. Her curly hair bounced as she came up close to stop, much to the horror of some of the watching, whilst more cheered her on.

“Get out!” She roared, almost as fierce as Storm could be, “Go back ter whatever sulphurous pit you crawled out of, you-!”

Words either failed her or she was drowned out by the ceiling high war cry uttered by the other redundant pirates and their criminal fellows. Florencia supposed that it was the latter that had happened, for Storm’s face twitched noticeably.

“Go on!” The landlady shouted, pointing at the door and lifting her improvised weapon, “Go back ter New Spain and risk their necks, before yer bring the Devil down on us all-!”

She was acclaimed loudly; even the dancing whore was waving her fist and bouncing on her feet, her face flushed with militancy.

Florencia watched, half holding her breathe, as Storm took a shaky step forward and bellowed back, “Quiet you old hag-!”

His voice was oddly high, and it was at that moment that Flower decided to intervene.

“Captain!” He cried out above the rabid furore, “Captain!”

Storm’s fist hovered in midair, poised to slam the big chinned woman in the face, as his cook fought his way to the front with everybody staring at him, disbelieving, jeering and venomous.

He seized his captain by the arm, and being taller, ducked a little to hiss something in his ear, before straightening up and looking around at everyone. He was a little pink faced with all the attention as he told them, “He’s just drunk, that’s all-”

“Not this morn, ‘e weren’t!” Cried out a faceless someone in the crowd.

“Must be mad, though, to come back ‘ere-!” Another cried, as derogative mocking from each and every man, woman and even child rained down on Flower and Storm, along with fruit peel, small stones, bits of glass and baccy and all manner of other things.

“Go on; get out, the pair of yer!” The landlady hollered, “Don’t yer dare darken me door ever again!”

Florencia grabbed what was left of her pie slice and wriggled between the mass of writhing bodies, which were so close that they were suffocating. She popped out from between them like a cork from a bottle and barely managed to squeezed through the door, which the landlady slammed shut with a painfully shrill screech of, “Somebody fetch the Governor!”