Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom (Sci Fi Essential Books)

WE DO NOT usually hear confessions, but I heard several by special appointment last Saturday. Tonight one man came to the rectory to ask whether I remembered his. I said that I did not.

"Then you've probably forgotten what you told me after you heard my confession, too."

I shook my head. "I recall that perfectly. I told you I'm a murderer myself."

He looked a little stunned, and I invited him to sit down. "The housekeeper's gone home," I added, "but I can make tea for you, or instant coffee." I pointed to my glass. "This's ice water, something I can never get enough of. We've lots of that, too."

He said, "I told you what I did."

I nodded. "I know you must have. I advise you not to repeat it." "

I won't. I don't even want to. That felt so good! I shall owe you for that as long as I live."

Of course I said that was nice and asked, politely, what he wanted.

"I want to know what you did." He sighed, and grinned as soon as the sigh was finished. "You don't have to tell me. I know that. You don't owe me anything. But"

"Confession's good for the soul."

"Right, Padre. It is. Besides, I very much want to know. I'll never tell anyone, and no one would believe me if I did. Will you? As a favor?"

"For my sake," I said.

"Mine, too. I think it might help me."

"And you told me, even though I've forgotten. I won't ask whether you'll forget this. I know the answer."

The smart thing was for him just to wait, which is what he did.

"I was on a ship. A certain man there had insulted me. Over and over, and in a way that threatened to do a lot of harm."

My visitor nodded.

"We had been in a big fight with some other peoplehe and I on the same side. There were a lot of other men on both sides. Fifty or so. And one woman on oursI nearly forgot her. This man had a hammer in his belt, positioned so that he could pull it out with his right hand. He'd been using it as a weapon."

"I'm most sorry, Padre. I shouldn't have asked."

"It's okay." Now it was my turn to sigh. "This is only one instance. There are a good many others, I'm afraid, depending on just how God judges these things."

I sipped my water while I pulled myself together. "This man I spoke of the man who had insulted mecame up to shake hands with me when the fight was over. I'd been using an oak bar with an iron tip as a weapon. It was about this long."

I showed it the way fishermen show the length of a fish, and my visitor nodded.

"Four and half feet, maybe. Maybe five. About that. It would have been heavy even without the iron tip, but the tip brought its weight toward that end. You know what I mean?"

"He wanted to shake your hand," my visitor said.

"Yes. Yes, he did. Everyone was shaking hands with me then, and he wanted to be one of them. I accepted his hand and held it so he couldn't get to his hammer, and I swung the bar I had been leaning on overhand with my left hand."

"I see."

"When he was lying unconscious on the deck, I hit him again, harder, swinging the handspike with both arms. I've never been quite sure why I did that, but I did. A friend of mine picked up his feet, and I picked up his shoulders. His head was a messI remember that. Together, we threw him over the gunwale into the sea."

My visitor had a great many questions after that, but I answered hardly any, just telling him over and over that the answers were too complicated to explain unless we sat up all night. I did not addalthough I could havethat he would not have believed me. Finally I promised I would write everything out and mail it to him when it could do no more harm.

Now I am going to take a long walk and do a lot of thinking. When I return to the rectory, I will begin.

WE REACHED PORTOBELLO ready to drop. Just the same, we put out the same day. A Spanish pinnace had been sighted the day before, everyone felt the galleons could not be far behind, and the mates left in charge had practically been holding their crews at pistol-point. When they heard that Dobkin, Cox, and the rest were not with us, they hoisted anchor within an hour. We would meet in the Saint Blaise Islands to decide what to do next.

Before we got there, however, Capt. Harker joined us in his sloop, the Princess. Novia and I watched him board the Weald and speculated a good deal on what news he might bringa sport in which we were soon joined by Boucher. When I saw signal flags being run up the mizzen of the Weald, I felt certain the signal was to be "All Captains." When the flags were shaken out, however, it was only "Capt. Chris" who was asked to join Capt. Burt.

To head off a row I took Novia with me, and Capt. Burt made no objection.

TWO DAYS, AND I have written nothing. My passport came, but no one is answering the telephone at the Cuban consulate in New York. None of the airlines I have called is offering service to Havana yet. Nor would I wish to try to make my way to the airport through this snow, to be entirely honest; mono service is not to be relied upon in weather as cold as we have had.

Before I write any more, I ought to explain that I have been generally called Capt. Chris or Fr. Chris because of the length and difficulty of my last name. Few know it, and fewer can pronounce it correctly. As for spelling out my name in signal flags, there is not a signalman in the world who would not abbreviate it.

After mass today, I went trolling for some pirate Web sites and found several. One offered a short biography of a Capt. Cos or Kruss, believed to have been Dutch or German. It was not until I read that he had disappeared after sailing from Havana alone in a small craft that I realized that I was "Capt. Cos," although the detail that Cos was said to have made his wife his chief lieutenant should have alerted me.

WHEN THE FOUR of us were seated in Capt. Burt's cabin, he said, "You two have met Captain Harker before, I know. I left him at Long Bay to speed the bigger vessels to me, and he's done well. I've already given him his company's share of what we got at Portobello and Santa Maria. That was little enough, I'm afraid."

Harker nodded. "Not what we were hoping for, but bad luck can't last forever."

"Exactly. Forgive me now, Hal. I'm goin' to repeat a few things you've already heard.

"Chris, you know what I planned earlier. Maracaibo's a different article from that damned Portobello. Or Santa Maria, either. Portobello may be the most disease-ridden town in the world. Maracaibo's healthy. Portobello's a coastal place. Because it is, the good cits feel exposed and are forever demandin' more protection from the Spanish Crown. Maracaibo's an inland port, at the tail end of the Gulf of Venezuela. Think of jolly old London, up the Thames from the sea. Better still, think of Santa Maria, miles and miles up its river from the Gulf of Saint Michael."

I nodded.

"You say Maracaibo is not like." Novia looked worn and tired, as all of us except for Harker did. "How is different?"

"Santa Maria's little more than a fishing village, Seora. Maracaibo's a city, larger than Portobello and Santa Maria combined."

"A rich city," Harker added.

Novia shrugged. "Ver es creer." I doubt that either Capt. Burt or Harker understood her.

"A damnation rich city. The cacao trade alone " Burt shook his head. "Great fortunes have been made in that. More are bein' made every day. Besides that, the land behind Maracaibo's prime cattle country. Hides, tallow, and dried and salt beef flow like water through the city, tons of 'em."