The warrior prince

Bermuda, the mouth of the West Indies. Normally a haven to privateers and lesser beings, it's an unavoidable stop for English vessels on their way to the British Colonies. My cross of the ocean has been long, and young William has been a little sea-sick on the first week of travel, but fortunately, the worst is over, and now the best part of the travel is next.

We are scheduled to stop here for three days, until our water and food stock are recharged, our sugar supplies increased (our captain's a merchant and he's quite aware that a little extra might wage another travel through the ocean), and the latest news collected.

On the second night, he had a pending visit to a friend of his, in the local tavern, the Golden Swan. They had served together as boatswains in the Royal Navy, he tells me, and they had both earned their freedom through extraordinary services.

As we entered, the tavernkeeper asked me name, which I was glad to lie about, and he enquired us about the news coming from the Mother Country.

We were glad to speak about the near-to-come expedition that Prince Harry would wage against the Moors. A small scale in portuguese waters, and he would cross the Mediterranean see to face them. The objective was no other than the plundering of Cairo, but many were skeptical about such prowess.
-"The Mediterranean belongs to the Turks" he says. Me captain showed disapproval.
-"But still we have to teach them".

Many in London had been worried that the very Prince could lose his life during such expedition, it was commented, but he decided to go anyway.

-"We shall get more of that in the years to come, my friends", the captain concluded, while sipping his glass of rhum.

Our next stop in the travel, would be my last: We'd be home!

Spanish Comedians

A long time has lapsed since me last writing, I know. Greater matter recalled me to the old-shaped cottages of me family in England. After embarking for Plymouth, I had to travel to Banburyshire and clear miles and miles of red tape over the Will of an aunt of mine, who is kindly offering me 10.000 Gold Coins.

The only trick on this is that I'll have to take care of her younger son, by the name of William, who is 13 and likes the sword already... He could quickly turn into a fearce pirate, but the will is clear: shall he fall off me custody before he turns 16, the Crown will claim such sum of gold. And I have no interest of losing it. So for three years, young William will be an apprentice bartender in the Caribbean, so he better behave!

During the long journey, back to my island, we've hit the Spanish coast. Near Finisterra, news travel quicker to such a remote harbour than to the Caribbean, which is quite strange, but such are the Spanish ways.

We learned from the harbourmen than the Crown is engulfed in an inner trouble. The Valido of the King, an equivalent to our Prime Minister, has suffered an unexpected rebellion from the Vascongados to the North, which have stealthly striken in the capital, killing two. The Valido, Count José Luis del Zapato was facing formal accusations from his biggest rival, Marquis Mariano del Rajoy to be a coward.

The Valido, a grand manipulator of the Public opinion, has organized via his minions in the capitol a huge parade to keep the populace quiet. The fact that most actors of the Comedy (a mentidero, those Spaniards call it) are behind the Valido is earning him more and more supporters, while the Marquis remains isolated in his intentions.

If such is the situation in my nearer seas, and the Spanish armada is divided as well, don't be surprised that a bold captain plunders Cartagena one of those days!

Rule Britannia!

Corruption in San Juan

Happy new year, fellow Sailor!!

As I return to the Colony, from my little cottage in the inner-land, I reopen my tavern at the sunset. The gentle sun of the Caribbean has toasted its walls during all the weeks I've spent away from the harbour, away from the sea rats and the stories from other sea.

But the man I met tonite could be said to be a brave son of the devil. Flying Spanish colours, landing in a British Colony requires a good amount of guts. I first saw the Barque ("El pico del mar" was the name), docked in the harbour and I was stranged. I first thought it could be a capture from a boarding and that the pirate captain might have forgot to remove the flag... but no.

In the night, a tall, dark-haired young man, who had to be a spaniard, for his jacket was the Costa Guarda's, entered the Tavern. Not that the hour was the best: the place was utterly empty... but the young man came with "friends", his men, that quickly, and loudly, ordered rhum.

-"¡CANTINERO! ¿Donde está mi bebida?" I had become unused to the squilling of the sailors, no matter where they came from. Among them, I saw a familiar face. It was Smitty!! That snake was now on a spanish ship... I couldn't believe my eyes.

-" Smitty, ye sneaky worm! Come over yer taverneer!", me shouts.

The man smiled and approached his captain. -"Look, Cap'tn. He bes the Taverneer. The best in all da seas". The Spaniard smiled and they both approached me at the bar.

-"Buenas noches, tavernero. Smitty le conoce, por lo que veo". I nod. me no likes to speak a language I am barely able to mumble, but yes, I reply in spanish -"Así es. Venía mucho por aquí, cuando andaba sin barca".

The man didn't replied, but raised a large purse that brought my attention. -"Cuando tenga su parte de este botín, vendrá a verle muchos días". I was satisfied. I like keeping my customers, specially a drunkey like Smitty close...

Then I engaged my regarding client into a conversation about his trips, that took some rhum shots to begin. -"¿De dónde viene? Cuenteme..."

The man, maybe because of the rhum, laughed and say -"San Juan! Jaja.... Emboscamos a un galeón de la flota del tesoro. Habíamos estado en el puerto unos días antes y sabíamos que ese, en concreto, llevaba joyas en sus bodegas...". I was really Impressed. That ugly Spaniard had it over a galleon with THAT DARNED BOAT. I let my astonishment come over me...

But the Spaniard laughed, shaking his head and revealing some golden earing on his left ear. -"Lo mejor fue que les engañamos. Les dimos una carta falsa de Don Álvaro de Bazán, Marqués de Santa Cruz y Capitán General de Galeras con órden de zarpar antes del amanecer... les emboscamos en las vecindades de la Isla de la Culebra... y como era de noche, ni nos vieron venir..."

I was so damm angry that I fainted indifference and changed the subject... -"Ya, ya... Un plan genial... ¿Cómo andan las cosas en San Juan?". The man understood my reflection and followed the game. -"Humm... tan corruptos como siempre... el cabildo de la isla anda revolucionado con el Gobernador por el cobro de un impuesto al comercio"

-"Ciudad rica, Gobernador avaro", I replied He nodded, in laughs... -"Sí, sí.... pagar uno de cada cien maravedíes más los impuestos, es algo que los mercaderes no están tan dispuestos a hacer... el nuevo gobernador tendrá problemas...".

-"Sus problemas. El resto nos alegraremos de que los fuertes no estén tan atentos al mar, no?" I asked. He nodded again, laughing and then drinking...

The night was spent in good conversations, sea chanteys from the Spanish renegades and the man divided the rich plunder before leaving. The feast continued until the sun rising... I returned to my bed in the Colony, exhausted...

Peruvian Silver! Arrrrrrrgh 5/1

Quite nite in da harbor, at the time being...

Lately few ships have come to rest to our friendly shores. Two days ago, a frigate left. Today in da morning, a small fleet of barques... Me clients grow thin!!

But as I've not beeing waiting all day in da harbor -the puker is a specie that leaves some later effect on me grounds-, I didn't saw a Spanish merchantman come, full o'drunkies...

Suddenly, the later creeps come to me doors, asking loudly for rhum to wet their ugly throats. "¡Cantinero, Echanos ron!" I smile, seeing they carry gold in their purses... gladly smile.

"Por supuesto", I say in my mumbled spanish. I take out me best looking bottles, not da best rhum on it, though, and serve it as I collect the gold coins...

"¿De donde vienen ustedes?" I ask. Suddenly the dogs smile and laugh, as one responds: -"¡Del Perú! Jajajaja".

Me has heard some story about the place. Mountains, mountains and mines, that bring Gold and Silver to the Spanish Main, where the Treasure Fleet and Silver Train carries it to Europe... Unholy....

I ask them if they bring any news from the place and another responds:

-"Pues claro... Unos indios han tomado un fuerte en las montañas y se rindieron el día antes de que saliéramos para Caracas, donde robamos este bote".

Me realizes they are renegades... Arrrgh! Ugly sea-rats.

I lower my voice and ask one of them "¿Qué les llevó a salir de Perú?" He says nothing, and shows me a very large purse, full of coins.

As the rest of the gang seeks a table to sit, I stay with the young man at the bar.

"Le diré un secreto, cantinero. Mis compinches y yo asaltamos a una de las caravanas de burros que llevan el oro. Les condujimos sin problemas hasta las vecindades de Caracas, donde robamos el barco y cambiamos algunos lingotes. Están podridos en esa colonia y no le hacen ascos a unos lingotes frescos..."

Steadily, he walks proudly away, as I remain astonished...

29/12 Voracious Sea

Sea chanteys all around my tavern. An expedition is just over. In our colony, this means problems, unless some dirty captain plans to sack something and is in need of sailors to waste in battle...

Those men appeared to be coming from the Pacific, so it has taken a long time for them to get here. No wonder they're happy to land somewhere, with some gold in their pockets... but soon I will hold such gold, and they will start to rip people's guts to get some, if they don't leave.

As I spot one of them, that sparks my curiosity, I ask him -"Aye Matey, Where's yer tatoo from?"

The man looks at me clumsily. He's drunk as a barrell. -"Arrrgh. Ye know about Siam?" I nod. A land just south to the inmense China whose opium is quite appreciated by the explorers and the sailors. -"Me does". I say -"What's new from those lands?"

The sailor laughs loudly. But there's no joy in his laughing -"Earthquakes that bring the waves deep into land, my lad. The wave came without warning, and ravaged the town we were heading to, Ayuttaya".

I reply : "Isn't it a dutch trading post?" -"Aye... We were in numbers and armed to kill dutchies, shall they try to stop us..." Me realizes they're Pirates, not merchants.

-"Arright... Ye want more rhum". -"Aye" He says.

A big wave... must be what the japanese call "Tsunami". I've heard some about them. Devastating, destructive... Nothing to laugh at. I see the very captain of the expedition approach. A young Baron that earned himself a name sinking spanish ships on the gulf of Mexico some years ago.

-"Baron Huntington! Good wings bring you here!" The man smiles and approaches the bar.

"Still have that rhum of yours that makes me stay in bed for days?" -"Aye, Baron", I smile. I show him a selected bottle from my reserve and we share a drink. -"Ye come from Siam coasts, yer men say".

The Baron nods and replies -"Yes, yes. But the bloody wave my frigate had to ride was almost unworth the trip. It came when we were about to reach the coast" -"Good plundering?" Me asks.

-"Nay". "Everything was in ruins. Lots of indigens, not many dutchies... a coup turned bad". No wonder his men were wanting either gold or blood from him... so I ask -"Anymore plan in the Pacific, then?". The nobleman smiles anew... -"Raiding Panama!" He laughs.

I decide to retire now. It's been a lonely nite without Smitty around. I think he's been enroled, somewhere.

22/12 Chesnot et Malbrunot

Arrrrrrgh! I've been hit by a bottle.

Some son of a sea-rat wanted an extra rhum shot for free and decided me head was da best place fer looking it.

Bastard. As my helper envelops my head, I mutter dammnations to whoever looks at me. I see a frenchman at the bar, who's singing Joyfully.

My Slave, a negro from Petit Goâve enquires him in my place

-"M'sieu, qu'es-ce qui se passe? pou'quoi vous êtes si content?" The man smiles with a stupid frechman's smile, for some reason.

-"J'ai eu des bonnes nouvelles!" He says while drinking rhum. -"Mes amis Chesnot et Malbrunot ont été liberés par les turcs".

-"Les tuqs?" My slave, asks. -"Oui, un peuple qui vit au delà de l'Europe, vers l'Est. Mes amis fesaient des affaires là-bàs, et furent capturés par des criminels, contre ranson".

The kidnapping of people is something the scruffy pirates of these latitudes have learned well from the sarracenes. It was once said that pirate Barbarrossa, a turkish dog of the past century, imported privateering from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean Sea. Me not knows.

I slowly get into my feet and approaches the frenchman. I won't fatigue to mutter french. -"Aye, Sailor. Ye look happy as a baby with a sweet"

-"Mais oui!" He says -"I just got news of the liberation of two friends from the Turks!" He says with the pitiful accent that characterizes frenchmen.

-"M'sieu. Voulez vou' quelque chose pou' boire?" -"Rhum", he replies.

I send him to get another bottle to the cave. -"Aye, tell me: who where those two chaps ye talk about?" -"Two dear friends of mine. They had business in Mesopotamy, but it is hard for times for us in the Turkish domains... they grow highly intolerant with the europeans. ", he mumbles, more than says...

-"Right. I won't ask what they were doing there...Nay." As I saw my slave coming back, me says

-"Here's your rhum". I spot Smitty, falling ill after his last bottle. As I kick him out of the Tavern, I dare looking back at the frenchman... flirting with the negro.

I spit on the floor, and get back behind my bar.

Good nite,

Bartender Miki

20/12 The good sarracene

Aye, it is a dark knight in da harbor. Me tavern is full of drunk sailors

"Gimme more rhum! Or I'll cut ya throat!", some jump at me. I'm still quick with da Rapier, my fearce blade. -"Stay down, you rat!" Is me Answer.

A Spanish captain approaches at once. He's a merchant, and a brand new one: he still looks pale, but he's too hairy to be an english puke, like me. Arrr, what will he ask? Wine?

Suddenly, he speaks: -"Tavernero, echame de lo que tengas"

I mumble my spanish, yet me says: -"Caballero, os gusta el ron?"

The spaniard nods. -"Del dulce", he claims.

As he opens a tiny purse of heirs, I ask him for some news to tell the drunken chaps that sit aside in the surrounding tables. Sing, they sing. Awful sailor songs with their yet more awful voices. "Arrr. Olde Sam. Ye be me Sai-ling Massshter".

-"Traigo noticias del Viejo Mundo. Unos moros atentaron en Marzo en la Villa y Corte. Dispusieron una serie de bombas que acabó con 192 súbditos. Algunos de ellos, también eran Moros, pero la mayoría era gente muy pobre." He started to say. Few were my glances on him, yet I thought the history could be worth a couple of shots with the Spaniard. -"Esos moros necios se hicieron volar con una bomba más cuando los hombres de Su Majestad los iban a prender. ¡Ratas! ", He yelled.

Maybe it was this last scream that attracted the attention of all the surrounding drunkies. -"WHAT!", a sailor yelled, raising his head, covered in vomit, from the floor. As I saw that, I ordered to me helper -"bring some sawdust over there". The drunkie was speaking loud to the now silent bunch, and concretely to the unfortunate Spaniard who pronounced a wrong word in the very wrong place

-"YOU CALLIN' ME A RAT!?" the sailor, now steady on his tiny legs, yelled. The Spaniard turned his face with a touch of despise. Before he could mess it, and having me carrying a corpse to the Fort, I decided to stay in the middle -"Smitty, you drunken bum! He was speaking to me, telling a story about the Spanish King".

Smitty lowered his thin arms, that had a couple of knives on each end, and started to laugh. -"HAHAH!! Methinks this is a curious Spaniard, ye got here!!". I took a broom I had nearby and hit him in the end, for major entertainment of all the public gathered around.

-"Siga contandome la historia, Capitán", I mumbled to the Spaniard

The public, glass on hand, was now totally overwhelmed by the young figure of this man, who was speaking of some sarracene in the dreamed Spanish capital, where all gold that doesn't end in their hands, end.

-"Bueno. El maquiávelico plan que tenían los sarracenos era de seguir plantando bombas, y quizás de matar mucha gente más. El tema es que fueron traicionados por uno de ellos, Rafah, se llama el chico, que los había delatado a la Guardia del Rey."

"Impressed"could have been a nice word to describe the face of the people. -"G'wan" said a mulato over my left.

-"A Rafah no le hicieron mucho caso. Se conoce que los sarracenos tramaron su treta en el Norte, en Asturias, y de ahí bajaron luego a la Villa y Corte a sembrar el terror. ¡Lo que no me explico es como los dignatarios de la Guardia no hicieron nada, y como un Juez de Paz ha ordenado apresar a todos aquellos que colaboraron con él para al menos detectar a los sarracenos traidores!"

Some of the audience left the mass that lied behind the Spaniard, now. A history of murder, with no gold involved, was barely of his interest. But some remained, some ready to make questions.

-"Aye, Matey, Seems that in the Olde World, yer King is a little more benevolent than His Guv'nors in the Spanish Main". I slowly translated to the Spaniard, who was unfamiliar with the English language.

-"E injusto también con los que la ayudan a atrapar a esos marranos. Rafah no merece pudrirse en las cárceles de Toledo".

The few that remained nodded. -"Are ye a renegade, my lad?", some ask. He did not need translation, this once. Renegade is a word that sounds bad everywhere.

-"No. Sólo un mercante. Pidieron un cargamento de buena madera navarra en San Juan, pero prefiero coger provisiones en esta isla. ¡La comida es prohibitiva en San Juan!"

Everybody laughed at the exclamation. There was not a single man in the room that hasn't been to San Juan for a matter else than sack it.

-"Tiene razón, caballero", I limited to say.

That night the spanish fool ended drunk in the arms of a dark-skinned woman, a favour that my slave is willing to do for a couple of Spanish golden coins, and that not many get here in the Tavern.

I had to carry Smitty, my best client... to the mud just outside the place.

Good nite, for 'dis nite,

Bartender Miki