Sawney nodded and smiled wryly through his wild white beard. "Not a … coincidence." He blew across the neck of his bottle again: hoot. "And any magically resurrected consciousness is damaged by proximity to cold iron. (Hoot.) A little at a time. (Hoot.) By the time I learned that, it was too late for me. It turns out that ever since I came out of that damned hole in Florida I should have been staying clear of iron—not wear it, not hold it, not even eat something that was cooked in an iron pot!
(Hoot.) High kings used to have to live that way in the Old World, before magic was quite all gone there. Hell. Salads and raw legumes and such you have to eat if you pursue it."
"No meat?" asked Shandy, who'd thought of something.
"Oh, aye, lots of meat, for magic power but also for plain strength, because sorcerors tend to get so pale and dizzy and weak. But of course it's got to be meat that wasn't killed or cleaned or cooked with anything iron. (Hoot.) But you know, I'm not sorry. I've had two hundred extra years of living like a normal man, doing what I please. I'd really be crazy if I'd lived the whole time like some damned bocor, worrying about every bite I ate and terrified to pound a nail into a board."
"So do you know any way, governor, that I could use cold iron to break a sorceror who's so fresh from the Fountain that he's still got the dust of Erebus in the creases of his boots?" Sawney stared at him for a long moment and then put the bottle down. "Maybe. Who?" Shandy decided to be honest with him. "Benjamin Hurwood. Or Ulysse Segundo, as he's apparently calling himself now. He's the—"
"Yo conozco, the one with the missing arm. The one who's grooming his daughter's body for his wife's ghost. Poor child—you notice she's fed only greens, and biscuits kept in wood casks? They want her to be conductive magically, but they don't want any strength of will in her, so no meat at all." Shandy nodded, having realized the significance of Beth Hurwood's odd diet a few moments ago.
"Sure, I'll tell you how to break him. Stab him with a sword."
"Governor," said Shandy in an agony of impatience, "I need something more than that. He—"
"You think I'm simple? Haven't you been listening? Link your blood to the cold iron of the sword. Make the atoms of blood and iron line up the way a compass needle lines up to face north. Or vice versa. It's all relative. A working magical force will add energy to it, to its own undoing. Or else the force is undone because the lined up iron system is so energetic, you see? If you don't like the idea of a penny falling to the ground, look at it as the ground rushing up to hit the motionless penny, right?
(Hoot.)"
"Great, so how do I do it?"
"(Hoot-hoot.)"
"Governor, how do I get the atoms to line up? How do I link blood and iron?" Sawney drained the bottle and then put it down and began to sing,
Bendita sea el alma,
Y el Senor que nos la manda; Bendita sea el did
Y el Senor que nos lo envid.
Again Shandy translated mentally: Blessed be the soul, and the Lord that keeps it in order; blessed be the day, and the Lord that drives away.
He tried for at least another minute to get a coherent answer to his question, but the rum had extinguished the brief spark of alertness in the old man's eyes, and eventually he gave up and got to his feet.
"So long, governor."
"Keep well, lad. No chickens."
"Right." Shandy started away, then paused and turned back. "Say … what's your name, governor?"
"Juan."
Shandy had heard several versions of the name the governor claimed, but it had always been something like Sawney or Ponsea or Gawnsey—he hadn't heard Juan before. "What's your full name, governor?"
The old man cackled and grubbed in the sand for a bit, then looked up at Shandy and said softly but distinctly, "Juan Ponce de Leon."
Shandy simply stood there for several seconds, feeling chilled in spite of the tropical sun that was raising wavering heat mirages over the white sand. At last he nodded, turned, and plodded away, hearing the hooting start up again behind him.
Only after he had crested the rise, and was winding his way through the tangle of tents and huts, did it occur to him that the derelict he'd left hooting into an empty rum bottle really was, or had been, at least, governor of this island—as well as of every other island between here and Florida. He was striding along between the tents, mentally calculating how much of Davies' money he still had after three months of spending it lavishly on rum, and wondering how long a voyage he could afford—of course it wouldn't have to be very long, Christmas was less than two weeks away, and Hurwood had said that he'd consummate the eviction of Beth from her body "come Yule"—when a figure stepped in front of him. He looked up, and recognized Ann Bonny. He remembered that she had started up a romance with another pardoned pirate, Calico Jack Rackam, very shortly after Shandy had sailed for Haiti, and that the two of them had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Ann a divorceby-sale.
"Hello, Ann," he said, pausing, for he felt he owed her the opportunity to revile him a little.
"Well, well," said Ann, "if it ain't the cook! Crawled out o' the rum cask for once, eh?" She looked both leaner and older—not surprisingly, for Governor Rogers had chosen to view the time-honored English common law custom of divorce-by-sale as the height of lewdness, and had promised to have her publicly stripped and flogged if she ever raised the subject again, and a couple of monstrously vulgar songs about that imagined punishment had sprung up and become very popular — but she still had the hot aura of sexuality in the way she stood and canted her head. Shandy smiled cautiously. "That's right."
"And how long do you think it'll be before you crawl right back in?"
"I'm sure it'll be at least two weeks."
"I'm not. I give you … half an hour. You're going to die here, Shandy, after a few years of being Governor Sawney's apprentice. Well I'm not going to—Jack and I are getting out of here, damned soon. I finally found a man who's not scared of women."
"I'm glad. I've got to admit they often scare me. I hope you and Rackam are happy." Ann seemed disconcerted, and stepped back. "Huh. So where are you going?"
"Somewhere north of Jamaica. A ship's been seen there that I think is the old Vociferous Carmichael." She grinned and seemed to relax, though at the same time she was shaking her head sadly. "My God, it's that girl, still, isn't it? Hurley?"
"Hurwood." He shrugged. "Yeah, it is."
"So will this trip be violating your pardon?"
"I don't know. Will Rackam's involve violating his?"
She smirked. "Just between you and me, Shandy—of course it will. But my Jack's got a girl that don't mind living with an outlaw. Do you?"
"I don't know that either."
She hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed him—very lightly.
"What was that for?" he asked, startled.
Her eyes were very bright. "For? For luck, man."
She turned and walked away, and he strode on toward the shore. Some children were playing with a couple of puppets he'd made once, and as they scrambled out of his way he noticed that they were using strings now to move the little jointed figures. Learn a trade, youngsters, he thought. I don't think your generation will have Mate Care-For to take care of them.
Someone was walking ponderously behind him. He stopped and turned, and then flinched a little to see Woefully Fat staring incuriously down at him. For once remembering that the man was deaf, Shandy just nodded.