Free Web NovelChapter 11: An Honest Card Game
The question remained with him when he went belowdecks. It sat in the back of his mind the way a pebble sat inside a boot. Not sharp enough to stop a man from walking, but it was there, and every step reminded him of it.
The voice had nothing to say.
James wasn’t sure whether that was reassuring or not. Even if it had been a short time, he’d learned that silence wasn’t the same thing as respect for privacy. If anything, silence usually meant observation.
The voice liked information. It collected details the way some men collected coins. James suspected it was recording everything for some reason. Whether it intended to share any of it remained to be seen.
He let it watch.
The lower deck of the Rose smelled like a ship that had been lived in for a long time. Salt clung to the timbers an sweat lingered in the air. Wood and men occupied the cramped space and had reached an uneasy compromise.
Mixed into that familiar scent was something newer. Sawyer’s repairs.
Fresh-cut timber stood out immediately, new wood and old sweat. It wasn’t the smell of home, but it reminded him that not everything in this world was old.
The ship rolled beneath his feet. His body moved with it without conscious effort. The instincts he’d inherited handled the trouble automatically, just as they had since the moment he’d awakened in this life.
The mutter of voices and slap of cards drew his attention to a table.
A lantern hung above it, fighting a losing battle against the darkness. Four men sat beneath, playing cards. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
The lantern provided enough light to see the game. Barely. For four sailors gambling, it was about half the light they actually wanted. For the rest, they made do.
Greasy Pete caught James’s attention first. That wasn’t surprising.
Pete had roughly the size of a water barrel and looked determined to prove he could match one for weight. He appeared to be wearing two coats at once, and one of them looked as though it had originally belonged to a much shorter man. Sweat ran freely down his face. Whether from the heat or the cards was difficult to say.
Beside him sat Rook. Small, quiet, and still enough to make a church statue seem restless. The only thing that moved were his hands, and even they appeared reluctant to waste the effort.
Across from them sat Doyle. Doyle was Irish in the way some storms were wet. No one within shouting distance could reasonably fail to notice it. His face revealed very little during a hand, but his left knee communicated information freely.
The fourth player was a sailor called Twice. James knew the reason for the nickname only because the original Calloway had known it.
The memory still existed somewhere in the back of his mind.
He had no intention of looking at it again.
The nickname involved a goat, a churchyard, and an explanation that somehow became more absurd the longer it continued.
They were playing One and Thirty.
James recognized it immediately. It wasn’t blackjack, but it was close enough to be family. He’d seen variations of the game played across more than a few Royal Navy mess tables.
Build toward thirty-one in a single draw. Decide when your hand was good enough. Knock. Hope everyone else had done worse. Then lose money to the calmest man at the table.
Simple, quick, and ideally suited to what these sailors were actually gathering here to do.
"Captain!"
Pete brightened immediately. He sounded like his preferred solution to a problem had just walked through the door. "Come sit. Rook’s been robbing us blind for an hour. We need fresh money at the table."
"Rook," Rook said, "can’t help it if the rest of ye play like blind bastards."
"How d’ye cheat at One and Thirty?" Doyle demanded.
"I’m not."
"Then cursed."
"I’m not."
"Then possessed."
"I’m not."
Doyle pointed across the table.
"One of those three."
Rook’s expression remained perfectly neutral. The sort of neutrality that suggested he knew exactly where the line was and preferred not to discuss how close he stood to it.
James pulled out a chair and sat.
"Deal me in lads. I’ve had a long sleep, losing money might be a pleasant change."
Doyle’s knee immediately began moving again.
The first hand unfolded exactly the way first hands often did. James’s attention wasn’t fully on the game. Part of his mind was still standing at the deck above, staring at the horizon and worrying over unanswered questions.
He drew poorly, judged the hand badly, knocked too soon, and lost without argument to Pete.
Pete spread his cards on the table with the pride of a craftsman unveiling completed work.
"Beautiful," James laughed. "Truly, well played."
"Hold on there and I’ll blush." Pete said while collecting his winnings with both hands.
Twice glanced at Pete.
"Don’t hear that much about a man built like a sinkin’ barrel, mind ye."
Pete flipped him off.
"Aye. Stuff it up yer arse and choke on it."
The next hand began, and Doyle reached into his coat.
The bottle he fished out was small, dark, and sealed with materials that looked suspiciously improvised.
"Made it meself."
The table studied the bottle.
Pete looked from the bottle to Doyle and back again.
"When exactly did ye have the time to make this?"
Doyle shrugged. "Turns out if ye leave a man alone with enough rum and bad ideas long enough, he’ll eventually find himself a hobby."
Pete didn’t seem reassured.
"And where did this hobby of yours take place?"
"Below decks. Near the rope storage. Dark, quiet, and nobody bothered me."
Rook slowly lowered his cards.
"What exactly is in it?"
Doyle started vaguely listing ingredients. "Rum, mostly. The rest was whatever looked like it might improve the situation. Some sugar. A few herbs. Citrus if memory serves. Handful of other things I stopped keepin’ track of after the second bottle."
"What things?" Rook frowned.
Doyle examined the bottle. The expression suggested he’d once known the answer and had since misplaced it.
"Things," he said at last.
The bottle made its way around the table.
When it reached James, he accepted it. The bottle’s history had grown less reassuring with every sentence, but he’d swallowed enough questionable things over the years that curiosity still held a comfortable lead over caution.
He took a drink.
The liquid hit his tongue.
Whatever Doyle had added to the rum hit like it had been waiting all week for a victim.
The burn tore through his throat, climbed into his head, then settled in his chest with all the subtlety of a boarding party.
Pete blinked four times in slow succession.
"Ye distilled a grudge and put it in a bottle."
A crack appeared in Rook’s composure.
"Doyle, be honest with me. Did any part of that attempt to crawl out while ye were makin’ it?"
Twice’s reaction began as a cough and ended as a prayer.
"Christ above, I tasted colours."
James said once he trusted himself to speak again.
"That’s extraordinary. What did you put in it?"
"It’s good." Doyle appeared completely unaffected. "Strong."
"That’s certainly one description."
The game continued.
James picked up his cards. He drew. He considered the hand. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Then, somewhere between taking his second card and deciding whether to knock, his attention shifted.
To the hands holding them.
The cards were important.
The people holding them were more.
Rook’s right index finger shifted against the edge of his cards. Barely enough to call it movement.
James noticed it because the movement was so small.
A heartbeat later, Twice pushed his bet forward.
The same thing happened on the next hand.
And the one after that.
Every time Rook liked what he saw, that finger rose slightly. Every time it did, Twice seemed to find a little extra confidence.
James had earned a reputation in the Edinburgh of his youth. According to local reputation, he had been the finest card cheat in three parishes.
That reputation had also forced him to leave more than one tavern through a window.
James leaned back in his chair.
The ship rolled gently.
The lantern swayed overhead.
"Whose deal is it," James asked pleasantly, "for the next hand?"
