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Previously: The Foe Hard Astern
The tide carried them out before most of the harbor had roused. A thin scrawl of dawn clung to the water while the Queen Anne’s Revenge moved with a quiet that felt rehearsed. Sails eased upward. Lines tightened. The crew shifted along the deck with the nervous discipline of men who knew trouble was close. Leo stayed near the rail and watched the dark outline of the shoreline fall away behind them.
He’d expected pursuit. He hadn’t expected it quite so soon.
The French ship came into view like a verdict. A pale shape rose behind the outer shoals, its sails trimmed tight, the hull angled to take the incoming wind. One look told Leo the truth. Leclerc had predicted their departure to the minute.
Ed stood beside him, jaw tight. For a moment he didn’t speak. Leo watched the way the captain’s eyes narrowed, reading angles and distance, rain squalls forming behind the French ship, and the way the current dragged across the channel mouth.
“He was waiting,” Leontios said.
“Seems so.” Edward didn’t sound surprised.
They gained speed as the tide pulled them clear of the harbor’s mouth. The French ship matched them, cutting across their wake with more precision than Leo liked. A man who could guide a vessel like that wouldn’t stay ignorant for long. Leo calculated their courses instinctively. Three vectors. Four outcomes. Only one ended in clean escape.
Ed gave a short, sharp order that sent the crew running to adjust the foremast sail. Leo noticed the timing. It didn’t match the current wind. It matched the wind Ed expected, the one that hadn’t arrived yet.
Izzy shot Ed a startled look, but obeyed.
The ship heeled hard as they cut toward deeper water. Spray scored the deck. The French prow rose out of the mist at a punishing angle, aiming for their starboard side. Leo braced and gripped the nearest rope, heart knocking once against his ribs.
Then the wind arrived.
It struck across their sails in the exact instant the Revenge needed it. The ship leapt forward with a burst of speed that felt almost violent. They slid past Leclerc’s bow with a margin so narrow Leo saw the whites of men’s eyes on the other deck.
It worked. Ed had counted on this shift, predicted it, and risked everything on a moment that couldn’t be rehearsed.
But it was still too close. Far too close. The kind of maneuver that reminded a man how thin the line between survival and disaster could be when set against another captain’s cunning.
Leo didn’t exhale until the French ship dropped behind them, reduced once more to a threat on the horizon rather than a blade against their throat.
---
They sailed fast enough that the inn and the tailor’s window vanished in minutes. Leo felt his stomach tighten recalling the clothes he had meant for Ed. Leo had chosen the fabrics himself, matching color to skin tone, weight to climate, lining to comfort. Ed had stood beside him with a quiet, unsure look, as if not convinced he deserved anything fine.
All of it was left behind as they fled, the trappings of the Edward who smiled replaced by those of Blackbeard.
Ed cursed when he realized what they’d abandoned. The disappointment flickered across his face before he pushed it down. Leo said nothing. The loss struck him harder than he expected, a clean cut delivered without ceremony. He’d wanted to see Ed wear the coat he’d chosen, dark and sharp, a color that brought out the warmth in his eyes. He’d wanted to see Ed stand a little straighter in clothing that fit him.
Instead the garments sat behind that window, untouched and waiting for a man who was now running for his life.
There were worse losses. Leontios told himself that more than once.
---
The first week stretched thin. Izzy grew sharper with every passing day. He made a point of glancing at the reinforced chest whenever Leo crossed the deck, as if expecting it to glow. Ed kept promising he’d speak to him. “Soon,” he said. “When tempers settle.” They didn’t settle. They churned.
Leclerc appeared again three days later, just near the horizon. The outline was hard to mistake. Leo watched it with the same unease he used to feel on siege towers, when the enemy revealed a little more of their plan with every shift of formation.
Ed shrugged off the sight. “He can’t catch us.”
Maybe. But he hadn’t lost them either.
By the second week the mood aboard the Revenge had changed. Not quite mutinous, but tense enough that Leo felt it every time he turned his back. Conversations paused when he passed. Men stared too long at the horizon and at him, weighing which threat stood closer.
Ed tried to stay steady, but the strain showed in the set of his mouth. He smoked more. Slept less. Whenever Izzy confronted him with that flat, demanding stare, Ed shifted away or changed the subject, promising a better moment later. That moment never arrived.
Leo asked him once why he kept delaying.
“I need the right time,” Ed said. “This isn’t it.”
Leo almost laughed. “It hasn’t been the right time for days.”
Ed didn’t answer. His jaw worked like he meant to speak and couldn’t.
The truth settled slowly beneath Leo’s skin. Ed was torn between two loyalties. Izzy wanted clarity. Leo wanted safety. Ed gave neither what they needed. A man could hold two ropes for a while, but not forever. Not at sea. Not under pursuit. Eventually one hand slipped.
Leclerc’s shadow returned again the next morning. Always at the same distance. Always steady. Leo began to suspect the Frenchman wasn’t tracking them by sight but by pattern. The Revenge was losing its unpredictability.
A hunted ship always did.
---
Leo turned to something he could control. Work steadied his mind. The brace design had evolved over nights of adjustments, small improvements to balance and pressure. He observed Ed’s gait each morning with the same care he used on faulty siege engines, noting where strain collected, where the joint resisted, where the leather wore.
He spent long hours bent over parchment, sketching refinements in tight, practical lines. A new hinge angle. A lighter brace bar. Better torque distribution so Ed wouldn’t have to compensate with his hip. He worked until his eyes burned and the world narrowed into brass, leather, and charcoal.
Fear stayed quiet when his hands were busy.
But every time a footstep sounded in the passage, he looked up. And every time he expected to see Izzy standing there.
---
Two weeks after they fled the harbor, the storm that had been building finally broke. Not in thunder, but in voices.
Leo was at the small table in Ed’s cabin, charcoal dragging across a clean page as he calculated the angle of a new joint. The ship rocked with the steady rhythm of open water, the timbers creaking like an animal settling into sleep.
Then he heard it.
A sharp voice cut through the wood. Izzy. Hard and cold and unmistakable.
Another voice answered. Ed’s. Low. Strained.
Leontios froze, hand hovering above the parchment. The tone rose again, louder this time. Boots scraped. A door slammed against a bulkhead. He set his charcoal down very slowly. The conversation he’d been waiting for had finally begun. And it was already too late to soften whatever blow was coming.
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