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Previously: All Hands, No Turning Back
Ed made a display of authority before they ever lowered the boat. He stood at the rail where the quay could see him clearly, coat dark against the glare of morning, one hand resting easy on the carved head of the rail as if the entire port were an inconvenience he had chosen to endure. Leo stood a pace behind him, wrists unbound but bare, coat removed, visible as property rather than partner.
“Get what I told you,” @Ed said, eyes still on the harbor. “And don’t return light.”
It was said for the dock, not for Leo.
Ivan moved to Leo’s left, close enough that any observer would read it as control. Fang lingered to the right with the purse, expression set in the long-suffering patience of a man who had seen too many clever ideas turn costly.
They took the longboat in under oars.
The port was loud and layered. French hulls under repair, Dutch traders exchanging manifests, an English brig half careened with her belly exposed like a carcass. Powder carts moved between warehouses under tarpaulin and suspicion. Merchants did not merely trade here. They counted. They compared. They remembered irregularities.
That was why this one had been chosen.
Inside the powder warehouse, the air held a dry sting that caught in the throat. Saltpeter stacked in pale sacks, sulfur in wrapped cones, charcoal bundled tight and black. The supplier glanced at Leo’s bare wrists first, then at Ivan.
“Blackbeard’s scholar,” he said, as though identifying a tool.
Ivan answered for him. “Captain wants refined stock.”
Leo stepped forward before Ivan could finish the figure. “He wants more than that.”
Ivan’s hand closed around his upper arm, a grip that was all steel and no show. “He told you what to buy.”
Leo did not turn. “He told me what he thinks he needs.”
The supplier watched that exchange with care. It was the kind of friction that made a story stick.
“How refined?” the man asked.
“Finer than standard issue,” Leo said. “The burn drifts at that granulation.”
He slit open a sack without waiting for permission and let the crystals spill into his palm. Too coarse. He ground them between finger and thumb, then let them fall back through his hand in a soft hiss.
“I need consistency,” he added.
“For what?” the supplier asked.
Leo hesitated long enough to imply reluctance. Ivan stepped in with a curt “What business is it of yours if we have coin?”
More saltpeter was measured out. More sulfur added. Leo requested improved fuse cord next. Not the common hemp twist that most pirates were content with. The tighter braid. Waxed. Resistant to damp.
“That’s naval grade,” the supplier said.
Leo inclined his head slightly. “Good.”
Fang paid in coin without bargaining, then added the one phrase guaranteed to make the story spread: “You keep this to yourself, you hear?”
Outside on the quay, the barrels were rolled into view deliberately. Not hidden beneath tarps. Not hurried aboard. One keg struck the gangplank harder than it should have, a dull thud that drew attention. A faint dust lifted from the seam and caught in the sunlight.
A stevedore took a step back.
“Careful,” Ivan muttered, not quietly.
“Is it volatile?” someone asked.
Leo answered without turning his head. “It can be unstable.”
Fang made a sound in his throat. “It’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
“You shut your mouth,” he growled and made like he was going to strike Leontios. Leo dutifully flinched.
A Dutch captain loading wool paused long enough to take in the sight: the open sack, the extra fuse, the scholar contradicting his own captain’s man. He would not need embellishment later.
That evening, in a tavern where privateers drank alongside neutral traders, the performance widened just enough.
Leo sat with his back to the room and his cup untouched. Ivan leaned forward across the table, voice lowered but not low enough.
“You’re pushing it too hot.”
“It has to carry farther,” Leo replied.
“It’ll split hulls,” Ivan said with a grin.
“It’ll split ours first if he rushes it,” Fang added, and didn't elaborate.
The men at the next table stopped mid-conversation. One of them subtly shifted his stool closer.
Leo glared at his captors but kept silent after that.
By the time they returned to the ship, the first layer had been laid. Merchants would sail within days. Clerks would note unusual quantities and mention them over wine. Privateers would repeat what they had overheard, trimming nothing, adding little. It didn't need embellishment.
Blackbeard’s Greek was mixing something hotter than regulation powder.
