He tried not think about food, but his stomach groaned like a hull fit to burst. He knew Sharkey would be grilling mackerel right about now. Without coin, it was knowledge he could do without. So, instead, he concentrated on the row boat headed for the wharf. Two men sat at the oars, pulling hearty, a third stood aft, braced and upright, hands behind his back. There was something about the man that nagged at Piss-Pike. He squinted into the morning mist, stared hard, forgot about his hunger for a moment. The passenger looked, at first glance, like any other wharf-rat or jack-tar. His hair, black as a Clergyman’s breeches, was tied back in a pig-tail. He wore knee-length trews of the sort popular with any good rope-monkey. Underneath his gentleman’s greatcoat he was bare-chested. Even from a distance he oozed the sort of command Piss-Pike expected from a captain not a crewman. It couldn’t be him could it? No, he wouldn’t be fool enough to come back to Freeport.
