"Tonight I will submit myself as captain of this combined crew." "I intend to lead the men in retaking the fort, having ended your tyranny over this place for good." "She's adrift." "Alone in the most terrifying way." "You know who I am?" "I think you know who that is." "I will protect you." "The captain of Scarborough, he offered me and nine men of my choosing full pardons if I would aid him in the capture of a fugitive from justice." "You understand what I'm asking you to do?" "Go back and watch the gold." "Keep watch on the Spanish soldiers who are watching the gold." "Her father is a very influential man." "If I return her to him, I believe that I can win him as an ally." "Courting Lord Ashe and retrieving the Urca gold are working against each other." "If you prevent any further attack on the fort," "I will bring the girl down from the hill and deliver her to you." "You are no longer a hostage." "I'm gonna get you out of here." "I remember music... in her home." "It was always so warm there, so lovely." "And I remember when I would visit there with Mother and Father, how she would lean down so her face was very near mine and she's smile." "I remember hoping I'd be so beautiful one day." "And I remember watching her talk with my mother from across the room and how she'd make my mother laugh." "And you're saying she's here?" "Lady Hamilton is on this island?" "She is." "She's a friend and she wants to help rescue you from this place." "But I don't understand." "Captain Vane gave me his word I'd be unharmed here." "Things have changed." "Things are changing as we speak tonight." "You are now worth more to him as part of a very dangerous game here on the island." "As such, he has no intention of returning you to your father any time soon." "Trust me." "Trust Mrs. Hamilton and know that we must leave this place now." "How?" "There is a network of tunnels that run beneath the fort." "And the entrance to one of them isn't far." "By the time anyone realizes you are gone, you will be safely away from here and in the care of Captain Flint." "I remember Lady Hamilton's face." "But I know Captain Flint's name." "My father's mentioned it in his letters." "He says Captain Flint is the most wicked of the New World pirates." "That he's evil." "Promise me that my escape isn't some awful ruse to deliver me from one madman into the hands of another." "Captain Flint is a good man." "If you don't trust my word about it... trust hers." "Where do we go?" "Shut up." "Just get it done." "Where's your count?" "Hard to tell." "Everyone's holding this one close." "Well, I'm hearing you're up three." "I have it as four." " You have Dobson as a nay." " Yes." " Brewer's a nay." " Yes." " Winslow?" " Winslow?" "No, he's a yea vote." "When did you ask him?" "A little while ago." "Why, has something happened?" "He got into it with Muldoon over last mess, said Muldoon was chewing too loud or something." "Muldoon brought his mother into it." "Muldoon's in your camp, so Winslow flipped as a "fuck you."" "Seriously." " That's a good one." " Yeah." "My seamanship, my prospects for garnering plunder, my skill in a fight, the sound of my voice, the sound of another man's eating." "I suppose at the end of the day, they're all functionally equivalent." "A man casts his vote for the same reason he does anything in his life." "Why's that?" "Because it feels good." "Three votes, four votes." "30 of them will change their minds before they raise their hands tonight." "The thing that will decide this vote hasn't happened yet." "You're going to convince them they'll feel better about voting for you over him." "I think I've got a pretty strong case." "His way, a lot of them will die tonight." "My way, they won't and we'll gain the favor of a man who could move this place a step closer to sustainability." "Perhaps." "Though, still, his argument would seem to be the easier one." " You think?" " Sure." ""Captain Flint will betray anyone to get what he wants."" "Yesterday it was Mr. Gates, today it was me." ""Which one of you would like to be tomorrow?"" "Captain?" "They're ready." "There's only one item for consideration tonight." "Captain Hornigold?" "A man asks for your trust, he asks and offers you things in the future." "And the brighter those things may be, the more you must ask yourself," ""What is it they are intended to blind me to in the present?"" "It's no surprise that that man wants to shift your attention to the future." "To the things he says he can give you." "To the hardships he can remove." "A most shining future it would have to be for him to blind you to the cowardly and devious acts of his past... theft, betrayal, lies, murder!" "When we first elected to merge these crews..." "Where the fuck have you been?" "A launch landed on the beach a short while ago." "The news it brings is of the upmost importance." "More important than losing our ship to Captain Hornigold?" "Yes." "...have been wrenched from us by men of the worst sort..." "They're supposed to be watching over the gold until we arrive." "What the fuck are they doing back?" "Because there's no longer any gold to watch over." "It's gone." " It's gone." " Did he say gone?" "Did someone say gone?" "The gold is gone." "You hear that?" "It's gone!" " The gold is gone!" " I don't believe it." "Who could've taken it?" "This is clean." "It is as if it never happened." "Anything tying you to yesterday's events is gone." "There will be questions, of course, but should any find their way to you, know that the other girls are discussing openly downstairs" "Charlotte and her lover's decision to escape together to Providence." "All you need to do is say the same." "These will not fit you, but they are clean." "When you are ready, I will be downstairs and we can discuss what comes next." "I was married to a man once." "Rotten fuck... raised his hands at me, burned me, shared me with his men." "I didn't know any different, didn't know I could do anything about it." "Even if I had," "I wouldn't have thought I had it in me." "One day, we were in a tavern." "He was hurting me." "And a man saw it." "And he walked over... and he slit his throat." "That was Jack." "I was 13." "I always thought he saved me from something." "Always been so fucking grateful." "Now I wonder... maybe Jack took me from something" "I was supposed to figure my own way out of." "Maybe he took away the chance to get strong enough to save myself." "To grow up." "Instead, I went with him, did what he did, did what the others did." "Thought I'd become one of them." "If I'm not what I was when I was born, and I ain't what I've become instead... what the fuck am I?" "She's going to rest for now." "I know this is the last thing you need to hear, but me and the girls were talking." "We know what risks we face with the turns." "How to avoid them, protect against them." " What she did to Charlotte..." " Don't." "That's not something we know how to protect against." "Shouldn't we be focusing on getting her out the door right now before it's one of us next?" "Please don't be the voice of this." "If you're concerned that by removing her from this place she could get violent with you, there are men we can talk to about making sure she can't hurt you." "I don't want to hear that again." "Not from you, not from the other girls, ever." "When no one in the world... no one... no one... could care less about what those men were doing to me on the beach, she did." "That means something to me." "So for as long as she desires, this place will be a safe place for her." "And those men you would talk to about solving this problem?" "They value their relationship with me far more than they do yours or Isabella's or anyone on that floor." "If I hear from those men that inquiries have been made about them," "I will not receive that news well." "Is that clear?" "Idelle... please let the girls know I understand their concern." "If any one of them wish to come to me, my door is open." "I will." "Two guardacosta men-of-war sitting right in the bay when we arrived." "We made our way down to the ridge and watched while they ferried it all into their holds." "Watched that gold disappear from that beach piece by piece, and watched them weigh anchor and set sail." "When it was all clear, we walked the beach." "Not a fucking piece left behind." "Not a fucking piece." "Thank you." "What's happening out there?" "They've called council to debate how they wish to proceed." "That should be productive." "The good news for you is Hornigold's support has disappeared completely." "There's not a soul among them that has any appetite for fighting over the fort tonight." "Without the gold, it all seems rather pointless." " And the bad news?" " It's chaos out there." "Likely to be for some time." "There are as many proposals for what ought to be our next score as there are men to voice them, including ransoming that hostage girl of yours for cash instead of favors." "If she's ever delivered to us." "One way or the other, those men want to get paid." "And soon." "May we have the room, please?" "What a fucking mess." "We have to think very carefully about how to navigate these next steps." "The case for returning the girl to Charles Town in exchange for reconciliation cannot come from me." "I've just had my authority challenged." "Even on it's merits, the argument would seem desperate and invite doubt and suspicion." "But if it came from you, we might just stand a chance..." "Let me stop you right there." "There is no "we."" "We stopped being a thing of any relevance about an hour ago." "Is that so?" "I believe I've been clear about the nature of my investment here." "The gold was the inducement." " Now no gold..." " It's an unfortunate development that we have to adapt, and quickly." "Adapt?" "I've had about my fill of adapting lately." "Doing your bidding, keeping the crew in line for you." "I wasn't the only one to benefit from that." "It certainly seemed that way." "Even now you're the only one benefitting from it." "What are you saying, that I'm benefitting from the gold having disappeared?" "It certainly solved a number of problems for you, didn't it?" "I have half a mind to wonder if you didn't orchestrate this whole thing to your advantage." "Listen to me." "I understand your disappointment at this recent news." "I share it." "But I need your help." " They need your help." " Oh, please." "Don't try to convince me to do it for the sake of their futures." "For the sake of your own." "Those men listen to you." "They give a shit about what you have to say." "What you think, what you want them to think." "Where else in the world is that true?" "Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter?" "You walk out on this, and where the fuck are you going?" "You'll address the men?" "Yeah." "Many of them won't want to hear it." "Don't you want to discuss how you'll approach them?" "I know what I'm doing." "Some fuckin' day, huh?" "I'm sure you idiots had half that money spent already." "What were you gone do with it?" " Me?" " Mm." "I was gone walk away from all you people and never look back." "I mean it." "That money was license for me to leave all of this and all of you behind." "And any one of you who says he didn't at least consider doing the same is a lying sack of shit." "Truth is, there's only one kind of person who'd want to do what we do if there was an easier way to survive." "And because I don't believe there is a rotten, murdering fuck amongst you," "I don't imagine I'm alone in having taken some comfort in the idea of all of this coming to an end." "But now... no gold." "We're back to the same two choices we've known our entire lives... toil for another man's benefit or steal for our own." "Unless..." "Captain Flint just showed us a third way." "Reconciliation." "Pardons." "And not because we need to apologize for what we've done." "Not because we got any desire to go back to where we came from." "But because maybe... with a little help... this place could be the reason we never have to do either again." "The question then becomes what do we have to lose?" "Truly amazing." "With that one and the captain aligned, there would seem to be no limits to their ability to manipulate sentiment among the men." "Perhaps the men are swayed by the strength of the argument." "A political alliance with the most dogged pirate hunter in the New World?" "Because once they were friends?" "I think it's clear what needs to happen next, Billy." "So easy for you to betray your oath?" "I'm aware of my oath." "Those men are my brothers, same as yours." "But because they would march blindly to their end, does that mean we must as well?" "If you and I know we have the opportunity to save eight of them from that fate, give eight of them a real future, and we can actually deliver, doesn't our oath compel us to do so?" "Are those eight men not our brothers as well?" "Do you think you could find eight men that would see things the same way?" "I do." "Men who would be willing to betray the captain, assist us in subduing him, and deliver him to the Navy by force?" "I do." "Then find them." "We'll meet at the bluffs in an hour, then we move." "Sit." "I have some business to attend to." "Eat." "When I return, you and I will discuss the road ahead." "It's better on Wednesdays." "Alice gets the leavings from the tavern on Tuesdays, so on Wednesdays, it is a bisque." "Friday, it's more of a stew." "And Saturday..." "I'm not even sure Alice knows what to call that for her Saturday's." "Don't you know who I am?" "No, why?" "You famous?" " No." " Me, either." "Though I am working on it." "Jacob Garret, carpenter's mate with the Intrepid." "So you don't want to tell me your name?" "All right, suit yourself." "Yeah, a couple of the guys and I are working on a plan to split off and start our own crew." "Now, I only tell you this so when you start hearing" "Captain Jacob Garret stories, you'll be able to put a face to a name." "Jesus Christ, Jacob." "She don't need your life story." "Take her upstairs, fuck her already." "We ain't got all night." "If it makes you feel any better, Captain Jacob Garret would never have a man like that on his crew." "Why me?" "Because you're new." "And you seem nice." "What do you think?" "So, aren't you gonna tell me the rules?" "No?" "You're supposed to tell me what's allowed." "I tell you what I want." "You tell me how much it costs." "No?" "All right." "Not a problem." "Well, why don't we... look, all right, usually the girls would charge me five pieces..." "I'm thoroughly boring, not into any of the weird or controversial stuff." "What do you think?" "Does that sound fair to you?" "Are you kidding me?" "You can't do this." "I'm sorry, she's new." "Left another man downstairs under the impression he was her guest for the night." "Look, I wasn't trying to make any trouble, all right?" "This is her fault, not yours." "In fact, the management would like me to make it up to you." "On account of the confusion." "I'm sorry, ma'am, but may I ask, how did you arrive in this place?" "My father brought me here when I was a child." "Was he one of them?" "No, he was most assuredly not one of them." "I remember when my father told me he was leaving for Carolina." "He left me behind." "He said Charles Town was far too coarse and violent a place to bring a child into." "But you seem a formidable woman, ma'am." "Perhaps it was exposure to the challenges of this place that made you the person you are." "I suppose that's one way to look at it." "We staggered our departures from camp so as not to arouse suspicion." "Did you secure the skiff?" "Billy, someone's coming." "What is this?" "Have you ever been tortured?" "What?" "Suffered pain applied by men who saw you as less than a man?" "Saw you as an animal?" "'Cause it isn't actually the pain they're inflicting that's the most frightening part of it." "It isn't the fear of future pain." "It's the knowledge that even when the pain stops, even if they were to let you go, that they've changed you." "That pain, that fear, that despair... has made you someone else, someone you barely recognize." "Against your will." "I said what I had to say to get out of that place, but I have no intention of honoring their offer." "10 pardons." "I would fight to the death to ensure not a single one of my brothers ever has to face what I faced." "Now, if there's a man on this crew that feels differently, that feels as though he'd be willing to accept another brother suffering that fate so that he might avoid it, then that's a man I need to remove from my crew." "Right now, Mr. Dufresne here has identified you men as the most likely to represent such a problem." "Was he right?" "Don't appreciate being fucked with, Billy." "If you ain't got the balls to stand up to Flint, maybe you..." "There will be no more dissent against Captain Flint." "There will be no subversion of his plans." "There will be nothing but adherence to the principal that we are none of us safe until we are all safe." "Does anyone have a problem with that?" "Then be on your way." "Fuck!" "Is there another way around?" "Not without going back through the courtyard." "And if they haven't checked your cell yet, they will soon." "When they see that you've gone, they'll search every inch of this fort until they..." "They're coming." "Oh, God." "Let me help." "Now go." "Here, take this." "I saved your life." "I killed him for you." "Low and his crew." "I killed them all to protect you." "You didn't do it for me." "You will turn on absolutely anyone, won't you?" "So what's the plan?" "Leave me to answer for this among the men?" "Assume they'll tear me to pieces for granting access to the woman who stole the girl out from under us?" "My death sentence?" "Listen to me clearly." "Put down that key, walk back through that gate, return the girl, and I will sort this with the men." "You have my word." "But lock that gate and there is no walking back through it, ever." "And I assure you, you will hear from me again." "I know how you feel." "Not that long ago, I was lost." "Without friends." "Without identity." "I thought there was no life for me that I understood and I felt as though that meant there was no life at all." "But I was wrong." "Especially in this place." "There is always a life, there is always a future, as long as one is willing to build it for themselves." "Now, though, I am beginning to understand there are limits to what one can build alone." "I can only scavenge leads generated by Eleanor for so long." "I have an appetite for something larger than that, and it requires expanding." "Proper spies." "Perhaps off the island as well." "For this, I need a partner with knowledge of the sea and I need a partner I can trust." "No word?" "No, no word." "If Eleanor says she'll come down that hill with Abigail, she will." "I understand that once the girl is delivered and Captain Flint's set sail to return her to Charles Town that you intend to join them for the voyage." "Is that true?" "With all due respect, Mr. Guthrie, what concern is it of yours?" "Charles Town, ma'am, is not London." "It may appear to you to be a civilized place, but rest assured, it only appears that way." "Governor Ashe and his militia are men of the most brutal kind when it comes to enforcement of the laws." "Hello, Abigail." "I'm Miranda Hamilton." "Do you remember me?" "I don't suppose you'd mind sharing that bottle?" "If you don't mind, I'd prefer to be alone." "Shame." "Because there is something we really ought to discuss." "If this is about Charlotte and Mr. Logan, I assure you..." "I heard on the beach they're in Providence." "Why, did you hear something different?" "Then what is it you wish to discuss?" "Best we do this in private." "Can I have a word?" "Of course." "I'm waiting on a final tally, but I believe we've lost around 18 defectors over the last few hours." "Some due to loss of the gold, some following Hornigold out the door out of loyalty to him." "Anyone we'll miss?" "Mr. Dufresne." "Really?" "He saw the crew's overwhelming support for you, felt his resentment towards you had become an impediment in his existing amongst them." "So we are without a quartermaster." "For the moment." "We should take care to steer the men towards a replacement from Hornigold's men." "Someone to fold the two crews together but not someone who's gone offer you any personal resistance." "I was thinking Mr. Scott might be an ideal candidate." "Billy, I don't mean to be blunt, but what the fuck are you doing?" "Why am I supporting your captaincy?" "Yes." "When I went into the water that night after Andromache," "I remember losing my footing on the bowsprit." "I remember as I was falling, reaching out, grasping your hand." "And the last thing I remember before I went into the water was feeling it slip away." "Now, I told the men you tried to save me." "But the truth is it's just as likely you let go and dropped me into the sea." "Which do you think it was?" "Doesn't much matter, as far as I can tell." "I'll likely never know for certain." "It's possible you'll never even know for certain." "And right now, I'm more focused on what comes next than what's passed." "I believe you were right." "I believe that for what comes next, the men of this crew will need your leadership." "So I will do what needs to be done to preserve it and protect it." "Mr. Gates turned his back on you." "Don't think for a second I'll make the same mistake he did." " Captain?" " Yes?" "Word from the tavern." "Miss Guthrie's asked for you." "Why don't you introduce yourself?" "Don't be frightened." "I'm a friend of your family's." "And I'm a friend of yours." "You're Captain Flint?" "My name is James." "James McGraw." "Where are you headed?" "That's a very good question." "I'm far too recognizable for the English colonies." "I'd spend the rest of my days looking over my shoulder." "It's shameful... for a man who's defended this place for so long." "Cast aside by it." "Perhaps it has cast me aside." "Or perhaps it's just taken me this long to realize this place has been dying for a long time." "I may be an old man, but I see no reason to allow it to drag me into my grave." "What if you didn't have to go anywhere?" "Oh, England will have her island back, son." "The day that happens, it'll be a bad day to be a pirate here." "Unless we had something to offer them that might change their thinking about us." "You think there's something valuable enough to make the British Navy forget that you and I are pirates?" "And what do you think would have that kind of value to them?" "Not what." "Who." "How soon before you can sail?" "First light." "No need to delay." "My father has left for the interior to lay the groundwork with Mr. Underhill for the partnership." "With any luck, by the time you return, you and Governor Ashe will be greeted by a group of handsome men, pretty wives, and rosy-cheeked children." "Lawful citizens of New Providence Island, who, after decades of struggle, have finally have found a way to sell their sugarcane to honest markets." "You know, if you and I aren't careful, we might actually see this thing through." "I took her." "Without his consent." "You know that, don't you?" "I had the thought." "His men warned him not to trust me." "They told him that I would betray them all." "Do you think there's any chance he'll survive this?" "The things I have destroyed to reach this moment... everything and anything that stood in it's way." "And for all that effort, for all that sacrifice, it is now entirely reliant upon you." "Trust is a funny thing." "When I pledged my support to Captain Flint," "I believed the trust between us to be of the strongest kind." "We both desperately wanted the same thing." "And that makes for good partners." "But over the past few days, it's become clear to me that the prize we both wanted is becoming less a prize to him and more an obstacle." "You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" "The Urca gold." "I have feared for days that Flint might not want that gold to ever be found, that it would interfere with plans he held more important than gold, more important than wealth." "And I have felt the ground rushing towards us ever since." "And my greatest fear has been that in the moment he decided to end the hunt for the Urca gold, the moment he decided it was in his interest to betray my trust... that he would find a way to do so" "by deception, by force, by who the fuck knows how." "But what I do know is that he would ask my help to make it happen." "And by that point, the gold would be as good as gone." "Any resistance I offered would be futile and I would be just another tool that he'd used and then promptly discarded." "Why are you telling me this?" "A few hours ago, a launch arrived." "Two of our men who were scouting the Urca gold were returning to the island against their instructions." "You see, they had been told very clearly by Captain Flint to remain with the Urca until we arrived to help us prepare our assault on the Spanish beach." "So the moment I saw them approaching, my first thought was that the only reason they'd be returning early was if the gold was no longer there." "And I thought, "My God... did Flint do this?" "Through some kind of luck or guile or fucking sorcery, did he reach across an ocean and make $5 million in gold vanish?"" "And sure enough, just a few minutes later, those scouts were standing in front of Captain Flint reporting to him the gold was gone, on its way back to Spain." "They told Flint the gold was gone." "Yes." "What did they tell you?" "The two scouts reported to me what they had observed on the beach, what had driven them to leave their post ahead of schedule and return to Nassau with the utmost haste." "That a tropical disease had befallen the Spanish camp." "Dozens dead or dying." "Many more suffering, weakened." "Only a handful of men defending it, most barely even able to stand." "The Urca gold is on that beach exactly where we left it." "And owing to a most fortuitous act of God, it is almost entirely undefended." "So I offered those two scouts a deal they simply could not reject." "Help me tell a very simple lie," "I will employ a smaller crew to retrieve the gold, and our three shares increase five-fold." "So, do you know of a crew who might be willing to aid in this endeavor?" "Go have a look."