The sun had risen past the rooftops of Tangier by the time Maria agreed to take us inside her house.  What swayed her to indulge us in this way was not due to the talents of myself or my comrades. Nathaniel was at his most pompous and Ramsbottom at his most incoherent.  I cannot say what Jack hoped to achieve by removing his shirt and revealing musculature that Dr Wren would have loved to either draw or dissect, so perfect was its form, but it did not stir the Amazon into offering any sanctuary. My own pathetic squeak on viewing her pistol, nor my accompanying leer at her bubbies swaying deliciously beneath her shift, failed to pry any Christian charity from the girl.

 No.  Maria let us take shelter from Cholmeley’s men because of a half-empty bottle of rum.  My rum.  That stone bottle hard won from the burning house we had only just escaped from.

She was brisk about her business once her decision was made.  Maria was no fool.  From our sudden appearance in her goat pen, the commotion behind us, and the general uproar in the streets, she had deduced that we were not eager to make the acquaintance of Tangier’s garrison.

 “Inside the house, ingleses.  Soldados bastardos search for you.  Hurry!  Imediatamente!”  She waved her pistols at us in an insistent manner, directing us to the back door of another of Tangier’s white-walled houses.  “Go in before someone is seeing you!”

We were herded by the irate girl like a flock of sheep snapped at by an ill-tempered dog.  Flickering light from the spreading fire behind us cast weirdly moving shadows across the rear of the girl’s house.  Bleating and cursing, we ducked under the low lintel of the yard door and tramped into the kitchen.  In the distance, voices screamed for water and a fire engine.

“We must be away, madam!”  Oblivious to the girl’s stony expression and pistols, Nathaniel blustered on, his authoritative demeanour undermined by the stench of the piss-pot and his dishevelled clothing.  “We are in pursuit of some bonny rascals indeed!  You must take to your chamber for there are wicked men at loose in the city tonight!”

“Indeed, Senhor Broadbank?  They must be very wicked men for you to take up with these…” she waved a pistol at us, “Criaturas.” 

“You know of me?” 

“Who does not know the black coated pimp of the fortress, Senhor?  Many women of the town speak most highly of your coin, and your want of honouring it.”

She held the pistols in such a way as one could not doubt her aptitude in their use.  Firm and steady, the muzzles wavered not one inch, their muzzles gaping, thrown into a stark relief from the flickering of the hearth.  One pointed directly at Jack, the boy and I, the other at Nathaniel’s forehead.

“You must not delay us, madam; we are about the King’s business!” 

 “Oho!  So the King’s business means that piratas can burn my neighbour’s houses, eh?  Upset the goats and walk shit into my house?”  She glared at Nathaniel and because her attention was upon him, the rest of us were able to ogle her with freedom.  My God but she could turn an Oxford cleric’s predilection for fornication from the bestial to the seraphic.  If she had courted the magisters of that town then a very great number of my fellows need not have made sure of their locks at night.  The very sight of her stirred a man’s blood to a furious tumult.  “If these are your men, Senhor Broadbank, then please ask them to stop licking at my buntlings or I shall have to…how you say…kill one.”

“Stop that, you fools!  She could blow your heads off!”

“Or yours,” said Jack with a grin, “Or your little lad!”

“Ay, ay, ay!” she laughed and winked at Jack. “A very tiny babe, or so say the doxies! It must be suckled hard before it comes to manhood!”

We could not help but laugh and our mirth was only the more so when we perceived Nathaniel’s face twisted with displeasure.

Without shifting her aim, the girl shifted slightly and regarded Jack with interest.  Just as we had admired her whilst her attention was elsewhere, she now, in turn, let her eyes linger on his taut form.  She licked her full lips.  “Now, my merry rover, I think you should not hang.   Soldados will come.  You hide in there!”  She pointed the muzzle of one of the pistols at the floor and in the growing light of day I could see the outline of a trapdoor cut there.

“G-g-go in th-there?”  Ramsbottom . “Why should I?  There’s four of us, my duckie. Think you can take us all with t-two pistols?”

“Não, little boy, but minha irmã can shoot too.”

A cough from the kitchen doorway announced the unseen arrival of another member of the household.  We turned as one and beheld a creature as captivating as Maria.   She too directed a brace of pistols our way, the aim of which were unflinching in their exactitude.  The only difference between the two she-devils that I could see was that the latest arrival wore shoes, an embroidered robe over her linen shift, and her face was smeared with soot.

“Who are these men, Maria?  The garrison is out in the streets after some pirates and Master Fletcher’s house is on fire!”

“Piratas!” Maria spat.  “But I think we will hold them awhile, sim?  We will wait for minha mãe santíssima e pai.  They will know what to do.  For now, we put them below in case soldados come.”

“I do not like the young one, Maria.  He has a craven, hungry look to him.  I think he has hurt women before.”

Ramsbottom leered and hitched up his breeches in what could only be described as an insulting manner.  Truly, I have never come across a man who was more deserving of a whipping than Ramsbottom.  However, it would not do for us to squabble amongst ourselves.  We needed to work together to free ourselves from our captors if we were to evade the garrison this night.

“If he does that again, Senhor Broadbank, he will have three balls not two.”  Maria lowered her pistol and pointed it at Ramsbottom’s crotch.

The boy yelped and stepped back, most uncomfortably aware of the precariousness of his future fertility, hands shielding his cods in a fashion that could only be described as optimistic.

“We have no choice but to do as these ladies ask us,” I said and inclined my head to the two girls in what I hoped was a courtly manner. “If they wished us harm, then they could easily have forced us out of their house.  We will be safer here than in the streets and we would be better placed to clear things up later, rather than hanged for pirates now.”

“Yes, yes!”  Nathaniel added, eyeing the pistols warily, like a mouse before a serpent.  “We must do as they ask, gentlemen!”

Jack grinned and cast his shirt over one shoulder.  “Aye, I’ve a mind to see a little more of these ladies.”  He made a leg and bowed at Maria and then again at her sister.  Maria smiled but her sister scowled.

“I do not like this, Maria.” she said.  “We should turn them out!”

“Peace, Natalia!  We will wait for our honoured parents!”

Natalia’s scowl only deepened but she nodded her assent.  With a flick of her pistols, and a pleasing, answering quiver from her bust, she indicated the trapdoor. 

Ramsbottom snatched at the iron ring set in the floor and pulled the trap open.  A set of steps disappeared down into the darkness below, unpleasantly reminiscent of a crypt.

“A taper?”  Nathaniel hesitated on the first step.  “It is very dark, madam.”

Maria sniffed. “I will not waste good light on evil-doers, Senhor.  You must make do with darkness.  Now get below!”

First Nathaniel and Ramsbottom shuffled down into the pit.  I began to follow, noticing for the first time that Ramsbottom’s scalp was beginning to show through his lank hair, just before his head was shrouded by gloom.  So like a skull, I mused, testing each step with my toe before alighting upon it, and he’ll be bald before too long.  Despite my fears, I smiled on reaching the foot of the steps.  I turned back to assist Jack, who was behind me.

“Wait!”  Maria ordered, interrupting our progress.  She walked across to Jack, who was paused at top, and pressed a pistol to his naked chest. “I think we talk with this one, Natalia.” The pistol languidly traced over his breast and came to rest under his chin.  “I think he will be most …obliging.  He will tell us more of this night’s work for a measure of rum.”

“Maria?  Are you sure about this?”  Natalia’s voice sounded a little peevish from the depths of the cellar, or at least so I believed.

“Oh, I think so.”  Jack and Maria said at almost exactly the same time. 

Jack turned to me, his perfect form outlined in the square of the trap, grinned, reached past the edge and pulled the door shut, plunging the rest of us into darkness.

“Bastard!” Ramsbottom groaned.

Maria’s voice, muffled by the trap, called down to us through the floor, “Keep your voices down, ingleses!  There may be soldiers about!”  Someone must have said something to her then because she laughed in a high, trilling and, frankly, seductive tone.

“Bastard!”

Hours must have passed in the cellar.  It was not uncomfortable but it was miserably dull sat with two men I had no desire to be in close proximity to.  A little light filtered through the cracks in the floorboards but it did little other than illuminate drifting dust motes that hung in the still, cool air.  There was one moment of panic between us when loud voices were heard above.  I could hear Maria’s voice raised in strident protest but these must have been brushed aside.  Orders to search the house were followed by the thundering of heavy bootfalls that crashed over the kitchen floor, shaking the boards and shedding even more dust down into our dark abode in swirling billows.   My hands gripped spasmodically at my coat, sweat that had little to do with the temperature beaded my face and hung from my nose.  I was not sure what I would do when the trap was thrown back but I could not imagine fighting.  Would I be shot on sight, or would the soldiers bayonet us where we sat?  I could hear Nathaniel breathing in short quick rasps.  Perhaps he’s pissed himself again? Satisfied with that thought I raised my eyes to the trap and waited for our inevitable capture.

However, the search was perfunctory in its application and our panic soon passed when it became clear that the soldiers had left with as much alacrity as they had arrived.

I expected that our captors would return to us soon after but it was not so.  It may have been an hour later when Ramsbottom’s resolve snapped.

“I’m not waiting here to be g-g-gutted by that bitch! I’m g-getting out!” he snarled in the darkness and launched himself up the steps. 

I think he expected to throw open the trap with his body but this was not something that Maria wanted.  Ramsbottom struck the underside of the door with some force.  It shook, disturbing more dust, but it did not open.  Ramsbottom, on the other hand, rebounded down the steps and landed by my feet. 

“Christ!  Sweet C-Christ, I’ve broken my nose!” 

“There are more ways to count you an idiot than there are hairs in Noah’s beard!” I said.  “I’ll go up.  Nathaniel, would you see to the fool?”

Ignoring the groaning and Nathaniel’s less than tender browbeating, I made my way to the top and tested the trap.  From its resistance to my push, I deduced that it had been locked. I considered returning to the foot of the steps but the moaning and mithering below persuaded me otherwise.  I took a seat on the steps and waited.

Hours passed?  I cannot say how many but I must have drifted off to sleep because I was awoken by a scraping noise from above.  Lifting my head from my knees, I could perceive little light through the gaps in the boards.  Was it night again?  How long had we been here?

The trap creaked and opened above me, fresh air bathing my face in a pleasing gust.

“Time to meet the parents, boys!”  Jack called down.

“Jack!” I was overjoyed to see him.  I was full of questions and pumped him for answers.  Where had he been?  How did he avoid the soldiers?  How were we going to get away?  Where were the girls?

“Here, ingles!  We are here and Jack will tell you all after you have spoken to meu pai.”  Maria stood on the other side of the room, her pistols gripped firmly, her delicious form sadly concealed by more formal clothing than her shift. 

I had at first taken her for a maid on first meeting in the goat pen, but it was clear to me now, from the evidence of her embroidered petticoats, stomacher and bodice, that Maria was no household slattern.

Ramsbottom and Nathaniel soon joined us.  Crusted blood decorated the lower half of Ramsbottom’s face and Jack looked at me strangely on seeing it.  He raised an eyebrow at which I shook my head.  “Not me,” I mouthed.

“Come with me, lads.  It’s all right.  Maria’s got her cannons out to remind young Mr Ramsbottom of his manners.  Now come along.”

Something must have happened during our incarceration that we were not party to.  Jack was in high spirits and Maria seemed less hostile towards the rest of us, even Ramsbottom.  She led us from the kitchen, hips swaying, skirts brushing the floor and kept giggling over her shoulder at Jack, who had thankfully put his shirt back on.

We were lead to an entrance hall lit with a modest number of candles and paused outside a heavy door to the right of a staircase.  Maria knocked and then opened the door on hearing an answering reply.

Jack ushered us in, laughing with Maria at some unspoken jest. 

Sat at two chairs placed either side of the fireplace were two unexpected figures.  Both chairs were turned to face the door, slightly away from the fire so I could see plainly who my hosts were. 

“Boa noite, Senhors!” said the first, rising from his seat and striding towards us, his arm outstretched.  Da Silva, our pilot who had so vexed Solomon Jones, grinned at me. “I am so very fucking happy to have so many miserable heretics crawling around in the dirt under my house!  May I say how happy that I am that you English lice have caused so much fucking trouble to that miserable shit-eater, Governor Cholmeley?”

We were taken aback to say the least but I shook Da Silva’s hand all the same.  I turned to greet the lady of the house, for the other figure was clearly that – a stolid matron of advancing years, black veil draped over the high headdress that papists adore so, screening her face from her husband’s guests.  A long clay pipe was thrust through the veil and smoke issued from it in pleasing puffs.

The pipe was a surprise.  It was reason enough for me to allow my eyes to linger over Da Silva’s wife.  After all, at her advanced years it was hardly likely that this happened often so it could only be taken for a compliment, surely?  Her clothing was plain but rich, the lace of the veil must have cost the equivalent of a labourer’s wage for a month alone.  Thankfully, she had modestly covered her bust but I could see that she had a weakness for the flamboyant.  An opulent chopine poked from beneath her skirts.  Red velvet and gold sequins flashed in the firelight.  Intrigued, I looked for the other. 

Where the other foot should have been was the worn end of a carved ivory leg that I knew well.  It took a few moments for me to understand what I was seeing but when I did my stomach lurched and I felt an urgent need to piss.

“If you’ve stopped fucking ogling my legs, West, you rum-soaked bastard, then perhaps you can tell me where Jones has taken all the fucking money?”

Da Silva’s wife drew back her veil, revealing not the seamed face of a respectable woman of middling years but the bloated jowls of a complete shit.

Mr Mandrake blew a smoke ring up towards the ceiling and glared at us.  “Now how about starting at the beginning?”

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