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

Tavern's News opens!!

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Bartender Miki