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“He seems to be enjoying that,” Manus said to Daisy, watching the Swede open and sample some of the many bottles of wine they’d liberated from the plantation house. As they watched, the Swede thoughtfully swished a mouthful of a likely expensive vintage between his teeth, then spat into the enormous bonfire crackling away merrily in the center of the yard. The fire sputtered and flared, ledgers and receipts curling like dry leaves, and the Swede selected another bottle and popped the cork with a long knife.
“What’s not to enjoy?” Daisy daintily licked one white paw, then used it to clean traces of blood from around her mouth. The plantation overseer had objected to their arrival and cocked a pistol at Stede. Daisy, who’d been perched on Ed’s shoulder while Manus scouted ahead, had leaped down and dealt with the issue by relieving the overseer of his hand. “Well, metaphorically speaking - I’ve never had a taste for wine, myself.”
“Fair enough,” Manus said, mantling his wings so the chains of his golden breastplate lay more neatly across his shoulders. “We ought to save some for the ship, though - Stede might appreciate it.” He flexed his talons where he was perched on the back of an upholstered chair, enjoying the way the silk parted and gave way to show the horsehair stuffed inside. Across the broad lawn and curving driveway that led to the shaded portico of the main house, Frenchie and Roach had propped up a series of gilt-framed portraits, each nearly life-sized. Lucius, his snake daemon wrapped around his wrist like a jade bangle, was carefully adding a lavish charcoal mustache and goatee to the grim painted visage of Lady Frederica Margaret Arbuthnot, Viscountess D’Arcy. Lucius was wearing the same outfit that Lady D’Arcy had chosen for her portrait, and the mulberry painted silk mantua frankly suited him better. He’d already drawn crossed eyes and a lolling tongue onto the pouty constipated face of Lady D’Arcy’s ermine daemon. Overall, the effect was an improvement, even as the paintings nearest the bonfire began to crack and warp in the heat.
Stede, scowling, had tossed the last ledger of people bought and sold onto the roaring fire himself. Then he'd made his now-customary offer to those plantation residents who’d been before, rather than wielding, the whip; they could join the crew or make their own way, either on Barbados or wherever they wished to go. Today they had some new recruits who’d taken to sacking the house with great enthusiasm, and some passengers who’d declined a new career in piracy but had requested passage to a neighboring island. The rest had melted into the countryside, bearing as many sacks of provisions and valuables as they could carry. “Back wages,” Stede had said cheerfully. Most of the livestock had vanished with them.
“We've plenty of spirits from the last plantation,” said Daisy, watching as Stede took a cut-crystal cruet filled with lamp oil and began to trace out letters across the lush grass, now somewhat trampled. “And I think that marquess had a better palate. I heard Roach and Stitchy say this stuff wasn't even fit for a stew.” Far across the billowing green ocean of sugarcane that surrounded them, there was a percussive thump followed by a billow of dark smoke, as Oluwande and Jim began setting fire to the sugarworks and storehouses. These, they’d discovered early on, burned quite sweetly. Before the crew left, they’d set teams of oxen to drag harrows across the fields, breaking and pulling the cane up by the roots. Buttons, to the surprise of everyone, was a natural teamster.
Ed strolled up, idly picking his teeth with a fine white quill that he’d probably nicked from the Lord’s office. “Everyone all right then?” His beard was coming back in nicely, Manus noted with satisfaction, though it was still short of the lush dark growth that had given him his name.
Daisy purred and went to lean against Ed’s legs, a heavy furred weight in the heat, both tropic and incendiary. “Everything’s excellent - Stede got some simply awful letters from D’Arcy’s desk that will be very useful, and Roach has a whole new set of copper pots and spices. Dinner will be a treat tonight, I’m sure.” Ed grunted in approval as Daisy burbled on, about dinner and Jim's new pearl-handled pistols, Lucius' watercolor set, the stout stylish boots Fang had liberated from the Viscount's wardrobe. Manus noticed that Ed was sporting a new waistcoat in dark patterned silk brocade, threaded with silver; the original owner had been much thicker in the midsection, so Ed had belted it closed with a velvety sash the color of old blood, with matching trailing tassels on the ends. Daisy, who was still a cat despite everything else she was, eyed these covetously.
Oluwande and Jim emerged from the thickets of cane, trailed by the stolid bulk of Jome and the sleek prowl of Marty, all somewhat sootier than they had been. Across the fields they could hear Buttons bellowing indecipherable directions in Gaelic to the oxen, who lowed gently back in response. There was a satisfying creak of crashing foliage as the oxen began to move. Lucius had shed his new outfit and bundled it under his arm, though he still wore all the pieces of the hammered gold and garnet parure; Frenchie and Roach emerged from the shattered doors of the main house, pitch torches in hand. Humans and daemons all turned, like a compass needle finding true, to Stede. The man in question finished his turf message with a dramatic flourish of lamp oil and flung the cruet into the bonfire, then jumped back when it shattered from the heat.
“Ready?” Daisy called to Stede.
Stede beamed. “Oh, I think we should let our new friends do the honors, don’t you?” He gestured to two of the new crew members, whose names Manus hadn’t learned yet. One had a smallish crocodile as a daemon; it said something approving in a language he didn’t recognize as the young man, now dressed in far nicer clothes than he’d owned that morning, took the torch from Roach and held it to the bonfire. The other man, whose daemon had fox-like features but the largest ears Manus had ever seen, grinned and did the same. They tossed their torches in unison through the open doors, and Manus could see the fire start licking tongues of flame up the painted panels, one of the few things of value they’d left behind and unmolested. The painted face of Lady D’Arcy glowered over her mustache in the flickering heat.
“If you would be so kind?” Stede asked, and Frenchie handed him a short barrel stave, one end already alight. Steve darted across the lawn, touching the stave here and there, but he’d used a heavy hand with the oil. The letters flared up and joined together, because of course Stede had used his fancy fucking calligraphy, Manus thought fondly. Steve had to dance away from the last bit as it caught fire. They squinted in the growing dusk at the message charring itself into foot-high letters into the imported English turf: “With Kinde Regards From Capts Stede Bonnet & Edward Teach.” Manus had to admit, the squiggly decorative bit at the bottom was a nice touch.