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When Madi was a young girl, her mother told her a story. They sat on a balcony, wrapped in blankets, and watched the waves of the sea.
Madi was young enough to still be enveloped in the warmth of childhood: she did not fear, she did not worry, she only loved her mother and knew that her father was gone. She did not think of pirates or understand her people’s struggles.
Months before, her father had sent them to the island for their protection.
Madi does not remember much, from before. She remembers her friend Eleanor, who was strong and brave and beautiful. She wanted to be exactly like Eleanor. She remembers wandering the cobblestoned streets, seeing the trees sway in the wind, how the air smelled like tobacco. She remembers her father kissing her forehead every night, before she went to sleep.
“Madi,” her mother said, “do you see the people below?”
Madi looked down over the rusted fence. Below, were a million tiny people, who looked like ants. People that she recognized -- people that her mother called sister, grandmother, aunt, brother, friend. They were hanging up clothes to dry. They were chopping down wood for kindling. They were carrying their babies in their arms and ordering food at market stalls.
“There’s Aunty Ifeoma,” Madi said. Aunty Ifeoma was not in fact Madi’s aunt. She was her mother’s best friend, and so Madi called her aunty.
“Yes,” her mother said. “Who else do you see?”
Madi pointed down below. “There is Ekwefi,” she said, pointing at a mother with her children. “There is Kambili, sewing clothes. There is Jaja, cutting down wood. There is Amadi, reading.”
“Yes,” her mother said.
Madi pointed out every single person below, from Ekwefi and her three children to Amadi reading his book beside the trees to Kambili, sewing clothes to sell in the marketplace. And when she finished, she grinned and said, “Mama, that’s everyone!”
Her mother smiled, and wrapped an arm around her daughter. “You know that I am the leader here,” she said.
“You’re the queen,” Madi said. Because she has heard people call her mother by that name. The Maroon Queen, they call her. Her father calls her mother Moshidi, when they are alone.
“Yes,” her mother said. “I am the queen. Do you know what that means?”
“You protect everyone,” Madi said. “Like Ekwefi and Kambili and Papa.”
“I do,” her mother said. “My responsibility is to make sure the people of this land stay safe. That we are protected from dangers. That we keep one another safe and help each other’s families. It is a very important responsibility. Someday, Madi, you will be the queen.”
“Me?” Madi said, eager. She imagined wearing a crown. She imagined being powerful. Mama is powerful . “But you are the best queen in the whole wide world.”
Mama smiled. She kissed the top of Madi’s head. “Thank you, my child,” she said. “But someday I will be too old to be the queen anymore. Someone will need to take my place. And I hope that it will be you. Madi, you will be the greatest queen this world has ever seen.”
“I will be the greatest queen in the whole wide world,” Madi announced.
And she never forgot.
***
It is beginning to turn to spring on the island. The weather is crisp and cool; the plants grown in her mother’s garden have blossomed; the fruits hanging from the peach trees have come alight.
Madi is fourteen, almost fifteen (her birthday is in midsummer, and she feels as though her legs and heart are too large for her body). She loves this island with her entire heart. She barely remembers Nassau. This island is her home, with its chirping cockatoos and people who are her family regardless of blood. Madi loves the way that the fog shines over the sea and how in the summer, the stars stretch for miles beyond the horizon. She cannot imagine being anywhere else.
She sits in the kitchen, where sun is beginning to shine through the windows, and reads. Whenever her father visits, he always brings books for Madi to read from Nassau.
“You need to keep your mind strong,” he’ll tell her.
And so Madi reads anything she can get her hands on. She reads books of poetry, and books written about philosophy from hundreds of years ago, and books about war and romance. Her favorites are the adventure stories, about heroes who save the day and change the world.
That will be her responsibility, someday.
Today Madi rereads The Iliad , for the thousandth time. She loves the stories about the Greeks and the Trojans, warriors who lived long ago. She has entire passages memorized and the spine is falling to pieces.
Madi thinks that she would not be a Helen or a Penelope, helpless and in need of a savior. Instead, she is an Odysseus, on a journey to lead.
She drinks tea and reads while wind blows through the kitchen, until there is a knock on the door. Madi turns to see her mother and Aunty Ifeoma standing there with smiles on their faces. Madi drops the book onto the table.
“Is he here?”
“Yes,” Aunty Ifeoma says, and in an instant, Madi is running. She runs past her mother and aunt, past the living room and her mother’s bedroom and her own bedroom until she reaches the street. Madi’s barefoot feet kick against the grass, and her heart leaps when she sees him.
Her father is standing outside, talking to a group of his men. Madi stands and watches the way that every man in the group hangs onto her father’s words. They way they listen. That is the type of leader she would like to be, someday.
Her father turns, and when he sees Madi, his entire face turns alight. Madi runs towards her father and he wraps her in a warm hug. No matter how many times her father returns home, each homecoming is a stark, profound relief.
Madi holds on tight, feeling tears run down her cheeks. He’s home. He’s home. Her father kisses the top of her head and says, “Madi, my precious daughter.”
“I missed you,” she whispers.
“I missed you, too,” her father whispers back. They let go. Madi wipes her eyes.
“This is my daughter, Madi,” her father explains to the business partners. Some of them are new, and Madi does not recognize them. “She will be a warrior queen someday. We are very proud of her.”
Madi has only seen her father for a few weeks at a time for the majority of her life. He helps support her family and brings in food and supplies to keep the community running. But he can only stay on the island for a weeks, a month at most, before he has to return to protecting New Providence Island. He comes a few times a year, but tries to visit as often as he can and around his wife and daughter’s birthdays.
Madi will admit, she’s jealous of the pirates sometimes. They get to have her father for the entire year, not just in stolen pockets of time. He hasn’t been able to watch her grow up, because he’s always leaving. Her father is a brilliant man, one of the most brilliant men in the world, and she would never ask him to give up the power he holds. But Madi misses him, and is deeply jealous that the pirates and Eleanor can steal him away.
Later that evening they eat dinner, just Madi and her parents. Her mother makes a callaloo stew and slices fresh peaches sprinkled with sugar, and they sit in the kitchen and eat. Outside, the birds are singing their nightly symphony.
“How long will you stay?” Mama asks.
“Two weeks,” her father says. He stirs his spoon around the callaloo. “Then I must return before the Walrus heads on its next voyage to Martinique.”
Madi wants to say, can you stay longer? She stopped asking that question long ago. The answer was always the same. Instead, she eats a peach and savors the sweet scent.
“Madi, how are your studies?” her father asks. “Your mother tells me you study Homer.”
“Yes,” Madi says, and she can feel herself grinning. “I have been rereading the Iliad. I love stories about the heroes fighting for what they believe in. That is what is most important in this world.”
“She does not only read,” her mother says, interjecting with a proud expression. “She also helps run the merchant stalls, makes certain that the currency is counted correctly. Madi is the smartest girl on this island.”
“I am very proud of you, my dearest daughter,” her father says. Madi grins. Nothing makes her happier than her father’s praise.
“How are relations here?” her father asks, scooping up more callaloo. “Have relations remained strong, no interfighting or issues among our peoples?”
“Yes,” her mother says. “I feel though our community is strong and self-functioning. We have had squabbles, issues of payment and negotiation. Overall, everything is well here. We have not had any acts of violence lately.”
“What about when Kambili and Jaja argued over the peaches?” Madi says. “They nearly came to blows.”
Her mother laughs, and her father says: “Madi is the true peacekeeper on this island, isn’t she?” which makes Madi happy.
They talk about Nassau, and how the island is becoming safer. They talk of Madi’s mother’s duties, and how Ikemefuna and Ezinma are getting married in August, and the books that Madi reads.
Then her mother asks: “How is Eleanor?”
Madi feels her body tense. Her father sets down his glass. It is uncomfortable, to think of her father’s life in this faraway island. To think about the woman he sees as another daughter. Madi cannot stand to think of Eleanor, the perfect girl who has everything and all the power in the world. Does her father trust Eleanor? Does he love her more? Are Madi and her mother and their island always going to be left behind?
“She is well,” her father says after a prolonged silence. “She says that we should focus on expanding the pirate empire.”
“Of course she does,” her mother says with barely disguised sarcasm. “Of course Eleanor Guthrie thinks she knows what is best for our world. Have you told her about us? About the way the pirates claim to pillage our land?”
“Moshidi,” her father says.
“You should mistrust her,” her mother says, “and every single one of these pirates claiming a better future on stolen land.”
“I am doing this in order to protect you,” her father says. His voice is louder but modulated. “To protect you and to protect Madi. We all must make sacrifices.”
“Some sacrifices are greater than others,” her mother says.
Madi looks between her parents, at the way anger crosses both of their faces, and feels afraid. She has always admired her parents’ relationship: they have loved each other for nearly twenty years. It has always been a beautiful, selfless love. Her mother and father protect each other.
Now for the first time Madi realizes the impact her father’s absences have had on her mother.
“Moshidi, we should speak,” her father says finally. “In private.” Her mother stares at her husband for a moment, and then looks towards her daughter: “Madi, take the plates.”
Madi stands and begins to clear the table. Her parents stand up and walk into the living room; her father closes the door behind his wife. Madi cleans the table, and listens to the sound of their voices.
She hears her mother say, We miss you.
She hears her father say, I know. But this is what is best for our family. For Madi. So she can have the future she deserves.
Later, Madi does not tell her parents what she overheard of their conversation. Instead, she remembers. Instead, she makes a promise: that she will fulfill the future her father has sacrificed for.
That time, her father stays on the island for two weeks and not a day more. They go swimming, pick wild peaches, and visit family. Her father gives her new books (this time, a collection of Euripides and a copy of Don Quixote ) as presents.
On the day her father leaves, Madi cries. They are standing in a grove of trees, and his boat is docked in the water. The family business has been completed, and Scott’s business partners are eager to return to Nassau. Above, the sky is a crisp blue that masks the turmoil inside Madi’s stormy heart.
“Madi, my darling,” her father says, “I am very proud of you.”
Madi does not respond; she simply sobs and holds onto him for dear life. “I know,” she manages to say.
“You are such a beautiful woman,” her father says. “Madi, you are everything I ever dreamed of. Strong, smart, brave, kind. You will make an incredible queen someday. I love you.”
“I love you,” Madi says.
They stay like that for a long time, until finally her father must leave. “I love you, Madi,” her father says. He gets into the boat with his business partners, and Madi remains on the shoreline. She waves until the boat descends into fog, and then she waits until she cannot see the outline of the boat beyond the sea anymore.
This is how Madi grows up: always watching her father leave.
Always knowing that she must protect her island to honor her parents’ sacrifices.
***
“There is a problem,” Ezinma tells her one morning. “We need your help, Madi.”
They are walking through the marketplace. It is the sort of morning on the island where one can feel winter in the air. Winter means a loss of humidity and a gathering of rain, though the temperatures remain warm.
Madi nods at Capheus and Zakia as they pass by, and then turns her head towards Ezinma. “What is the problem? How may I help you?”
They continue walking. Madi greets her people, every single one, as they pass market stalls selling food and handwoven clothing and tools made from bark and steel. The birds chirp.
Madi is nineteen now, a woman grown and respected among her people. She is not yet a queen. But she will soon become the Maroon Queen, and the time has come for her to begin preparing. Now she helps her people with their problems, and sits in on council meetings beside her mother in order to learn leadership skills for an uncertain future.
“Yesterday, Nakia and Amaya had a disagreement,” Ezinma says as they continue to walk through rows of tents. The air smells like burning meats and Madi can hear the clink of coins and smell the scent of opium as they pass. “Nakia claims that Amaya stole coins from her store. Amaya says that Nakia is lying and instead wants her to be punished for past indiscretions.”
“What indiscretions?” Madi asks.
“Stealing,” Ezinma says, “and disrespecting her family.”
Madi nods and sighs. She has known Nakia and Amaya for years. Nakia serves on the council beside her mother, and has a heart and mind filled with fortitude. Amaya is a few years older than Madi at twenty-two, and as children they used to play games. She married Amadi last spring.
They reach the tent of Nakia’s store, which smells like cinnamon and honey. Nakia sells spices that she grinds herself and stores inside beautiful jars. The instant Madi steps inside, she is overcome with blinding scents from every direction.
Nakia sits at a table in the corner, arms crossed. Amaya, who is shorter and younger, sits beside her.
“Madi,” Nakia says when they enter. “Praise be. I am so thankful that you have come. This is a crisis and we must solve it immediately.”
Amaya stands up and says, “Madi, Nakia refuses to see any hint of the truth. She is simply trying to punish me, because she disrespected my family last week and has not made any attempts at forgiveness. This is payback.”
“Madi,” Nakia says, voice rising, “you must understand that I never disrespected Amaya’s family. She is too emotional and convinced that if anyone even bothers to raise their voice they are insulting the dignity of her mother.”
They continue talking over one another, until Madi raises a hand and both women fall silent.
“This is enough,” Madi says. “I do not care. I do not have time to be dealing with petty trivialities such as these. Both of you need to get over yourself. Nakia, you need to protect your shop more closely and not focus on such insults. Amaya, you need to stop letting your emotions rule your decisions. Now if you’ll excuse me, there are more important issues to address.”
“Madi,” Ezinma says quickly, but Madi ignores her.
“I will be your queen someday, and being a queen means making difficult decisions,” Madi says. “This is a decision you will need to solve amongst each other.” She walks out of the tent, hearing the three women arguing in the distance. She does not turn around.
Being queen is about making difficult decisions and allowing people to solve their own mistakes.
***
Madi does not worry about pirates, until the day Captain Flint’s men arrive. There have been pirates on the island before, groups of men who have arrived seeking treasure from their shores. The Maroons have always captured and tortured any rebellious pirates, and her mother says the best solution is to remove all pirates from their island.
And then Captain Flint’s men, bloody and bruised and damaged, arrive.
But most importantly, so does John Silver. Or more importantly: John Silver tries to manipulate her, and Madi does not fall for his schemes. She is a stronger woman than he believes.
John Silver finds her in her office one evening. It is dusk outside and Madi looks out the window towards the sea. She understands that sacrifices must be made, that an alliance with Captain Flint and his men provides the strongest future for their people. Her father would say that nothing else matters except the safety and protection of this island and its citizens.
Madi is uncertain. Captain Flint speaks of war and justice and peace, but can his dreams ever come to fruition? And Silver, the right-hand man who manipulates everyone while maintaining no real truths of his own. She worries that they are the wrong people to trust, that instead they will attempt to slaughter her people rather than bring back prizes of gold.
“Madi,” a voice says.
Madi turns, and there is John Silver. She must admit to herself at least that he is attractive. Tall, broad-shouldered, bearded, with the longest hair she has ever seen on a man. She does not trust him. She has absolutely no reason to trust him besides the fact that he holds her people’s fates in the balance.
“What do you want?”
“That’s rather direct,” John Silver, no-good pirate, right-hand man of the most notorious killer in Nassau (or a partner to the only pirate that Madi’s father trusts), says.
“It is a fair question when you enter my office for no reason,” Madi says. She rises to her feet because Madi Scott is not the kind of woman who can be easily manipulated by charlatan pirates. And she is a stronger queen than any of these pirates believe. Strength comes in many different forms.
“Fine, if we’re going to be direct,” John Silver says. They stare at each other across the room, and there’s a sense of electricity. “I want to know if you actually believe in this plan.”
“Do I believe in this plan?” Madi says. “There are different answers to this question. If you ask, do I believe in this plan because it is the best decision for my people, the answer is yes. If you ask do I believe in this plan because I trust a group of bloodthirsty pirates, the answer is unquestionably no.”
“I could say the same thing,” Silver says, “that your people plan to manipulate our crew in order to destroy any chance of us retrieving the Urca gold.”
“We will simply have to mistrust each other,” Madi says. She does not look away. He does not, either. Silver walks towards the window, looks out over the sea. The skies are windy tonight, and the waves lap back and forth against the shore in hurried currents.
“How long have you lived here?” he says.
“My entire life,” Madi says, because her years on Nassau are long forgotten.
“Does it get lonely?” Silver asks.
“No,” Madi says. “It is peaceful. The way that the waves always remain the same.”
“You don’t feel trapped here, with the same people?” Silver asks. Madi wonders where he is from, because Nassau is a place people escape to, not an island where they grow up.
“No, because they are my people,” Madi says, “and one day I will rule.” Being a part of a community gives her strength, not loneliness; this island gives her pride, not weakness. Silver looks at her with a raised eyebrow, as though he doesn’t entirely understand.
“What does that even mean?” Silver asks. “The people here just agree that you become a queen? Seems a bit unfair to me.”
“It is not unfair,” Madi says, “it is how we protect our people.”
“Do you fight?”
“What?” Madi says.
“Can you fight to protect your people,” Silver says, “or are you too focused on using words to manipulate your people to one cause or another? What would happen if one day a true invasion happened here? It seems to me as though you would all be simply wiped out.”
“I can fight,” Madi says, “though not with sword. Instead I fight with diplomacy. It is something you will never understand.”
“Diplomacy is the only fucking reason pirate crews don’t murder one another,” Silver says, “and considering that I am a quartermaster I’d say it’s a trait I handle well.”
Madi sighs. “You do not understand anything about this island though you act as if you do. We are a stronger people than you believe, and our people do know how to fight. I would be more concerned for your own safety, John Silver.”
He does not answer, and instead says: “Someday you will be queen of this place.”
“Yes,” Madi says.
“The British Empire will come anyway,” Silver says. “We have always known that. Civilization does not like to be reshaped. Whether that is Nassau or this island, they will come to take our lands. Madi, you must be ready to fight.”
“Uneasy is the head that wears the crown,” Madi says, because she spent the entire winter the year she was sixteen reading Shakespeare’s Henriad. “I have answered all of your questions. If you do not wish to disturb me further, I ask that you would leave.”
Silver looks at her. Madi feels as though he is examining her soul, for a moment. Then he says, “I only hope that we both make decisions that are best for our own people. That is what our people, pirates and Maroons alike, deserve.”
Madi watches him leave on that leg of his that is damaged beyond repair. She watches him cross down the stairs outside of her home, and walk towards the beach. Silver’s face is struggling; she sees how his cane slides against the sand.
She thinks, He is someone who will need to be watched. Perhaps he can become a strong ally.
***
Madi has never been on the open sea before. She has watched trade ships enter the harbor, and her father’s ships sail away, and seen the sails of pirate flags cresting towards their island.
But there is no way to describe what it truly feels like to be in the ocean. Being at sea means that you see unending water from all directions and no land ahead, and if the Walrus collapses they will be stranded without hope. Being at sea means seeing different birds than the ones at home: seagulls chirping, frigatebirds calling to one another, royal terns swooping over the sails.
Being at sea means hearing men yell to one another at all hours:
Get your head out of your ass and come to starboard, shitheads
It’s his fault that he’s such a fucking pussy
Flint’s fucked if he think’s this plan’s even going to work
Her mother would be offended, but Madi gets used to hearing the men’s constant tirades peppered with swears and the way that all of them smell like brine and dirt and the ocean. She spends most of the voyage watching: the men aboard, the sky above, listening to the nautical terms called out from belowdecks.
Madi waits, and watches, and listens. Every leader needs to understand just exactly who they are allying with. The men of the Walrus are tough, they are tired, and they are afraid -- of the British Empire and their captain in turn.
“Are you enjoying the view?” a man’s voice, unfamiliar, says behind her. Madi turns to see Captain Flint standing there, his beard closely-shaven and his head shaved. His clothes are pristine, without a drop of blood.
“Yes,” Madi says.
“I hope that no one is disturbing you,” Flint says, “because these men are all too focused on achieving any sense of petty revenge. If they are bothering you, let me know. Your safety is of our utmost concern, both your mother and I agree.”
“No, no problems,” Madi says. In the distance, she sees a small island, and feels homesick. She looks at Flint and says, “You know my father.”
“Your father is the smartest man on Nassau,” Flint says. “He is a military tactician with an incredible business mind.”
Madi has to ask, she has to, so she says, “Does he ever talk of me?”
“He does not speak of his personal life,” Flint says. “Pirates, we shed our families and our histories in order to fight. But you are the spitting image of your father, Madi. You have your mother’s strength.”
“Do you think we can win?” Madi asks. The British Empire is powerful, despite their best efforts.
“Yes,” Flint says with a surprising amount of confidence. “I believe that we can win, because civilization cannot outlast people willing to fight against its confines. Civilization destroys; we simply wish to live outside of it.”
“That is ambitious,” Madi says. She recognizes that ambition in herself.
“England has taken important things from me,” Flint says, “and from your people. We have a common goal, a common ally. War is not easy but with our powers combined we have half a chance at a fight.”
“Yes,” Madi says. She nods, and she can see herself in Flint: they are both ambitious people, willing to protect their people at all costs, who want to destroy a civilization that would hurt their communities. “Thank you, Captain Flint.”
“You have your mother’s heart,” Flint says. Madi smiles, for the first time in days. Flint smiles back, and the smile crossing his face is so strange: he never looks happy. Madi wonders if he is happy, or is instead faking it now.
A man approaches Flint, and he turns away to begin speaking with one of the riggers. Madi watches the sea for a few moments, and then hears the tell-tale sound of a cane clicking against the hull. She wonders who John Silver was before he lost a leg and any chance of remaining incognito.
“Silver,” Madi says.
Silver pushes his way to the other side of the aft deck balcony. “Are you enjoying the journey?”
“Yes,” she says. “I have not been seasick once.”
“You are lucky,” Silver says. “On my first ship, I spent the first weeks of the voyage throwing up over the aft decks every day. Not even the scent of butchered pigs could make me as ill as the goddamn waves.”
In spite of herself, Madi laughs. “The fiercest pirate in the Caribbean cannot even handle the sea,” she says with a smile, “what a ridiculous story.”
Silver is smiling at her. Madi smiles back. She feels….happy? Light-hearted? She will have to trust Silver, first, and perhaps that means becoming his friend. “How many ships have you sailed on?”
“Oh, a few,” Silver says. “Every few months one of these ships gets blown up and then we’re stuck fixing it on a stranded island or getting a new one.”
Madi smiles. “Do you like the sea?”
“It is a home, in a way,” Silver says. “These men are my brothers. I would lay my life down beside them.”
Madi nods, because she understands. “Do you know any sea shanties?” she says with a mischievous smile. “ Yo ho ho and a bottle of ”--
“Now you’re just trying to embarrass me,” Silver says, and Madi snorts out a laugh. “Unless you want to hear all the sea shanties about men being devoured by sharks or keelhauled against the sides of ships.”
“I don’t mind the darker stories,” Madi says. “Pirates are not angels, after all.”
“Ah,” Silver says.
“And I grew up on a deserted island,” Madi says with a wry grin, “what kind of stories do you think I made up to entertain myself? They certainly weren’t about nymphs and faeries.” That time, Silver laughs, and the sound of his laughter makes Madi feel alight with happiness.
He is looking at her with a small smile on his face, an unreadable expression that Madi can not understand.
But the way John Silver is looking at her makes Madi feel unbearably seen, as though he is peering into the depths of her soul.
She doesn’t understand what this means.
***
Madi spends her first few weeks on New Providence Island readjusting. The men are eager to be back home, and after they land the Walrus’s men busy themselves with whores and spending endless gold coins and drinking ale out of worn glasses. Flint and Silver spend most of their time devising plans to capture the British stronghold and remove the soldiers from the city.
They are not allowed to visit Nassau Town, because the British have decamped there. Madi sees soldiers, the Redcoats with their guns held to their chests like toys, and does not fear them. They are simply scared little boys pledging allegiance to a cause they do not understand but blindly follow. She sees the Union Jack hanging above Nassau and the way that the citizens are either afraid of or complicit in the empire’s schemes. Madi hears of Woodes Rogers, who is reviled by everyone but feared most by his own followers.
Once, she sees a blonde woman dressed in English petticoats surrounded by soldiers. The woman turns, and Madi hears a generals say, “Eleanor,” and her blood runs cold. This is Eleanor Guthrie. The woman who betrayed any hope of a pirate kingdom. Eleanor, her father’s protege and a queen that Madi has admired and despised in turn.
Madi hates her with the kind of fury that is unshakable. She walks away.
The rest of the time, Madi spends with Captain Flint and his quartermaster. She listens as they outline plans for an invasion, bicker back and forth over the best possible way to retake the mainland. Would an ambush be too costly? Should they send messages to the rebels in the interior? How should the slaves of Nassau and the Maroons become involved?
“We are all fighting for a common cause,” Madi says when they ask. “But they are distrustful, slaves and Maroons alike: we do not trust the people who oppress us to become our saviors.”
One day, after one of these endless meetings (that always end in Flint saying, “Empires are not defeated in a day”) Silver and Madi are walking along the road.
It is October on Nassau, the summer’s sweltering heats beginning to fade to more comfortable temperatures, and the road they walk along is simply a pile of sea-swept sand. Silver crouches down, pushing his cane through the flecks of dirt. Above, birds call in their neverending symphony and the palm trees sway.
“May I ask a question?” Madi says. “If it is too personal, I understand.”
“Once you’re plotting a treasonous rebellion with someone, no question is too personal,” Silver says.
“How did you lose your leg?”
Silver’s face collapses, indicating this is not a topic he wishes to discuss. But instead he says, “Amputation.”
“Amputation?” Madi asks, as they continue to walk.
“I was captured by a fucker who tortured me with an axe,” Silver says, “until he crushed every bone in my goddamn body.” His breathing is beginning to get heavier as he remembers. “There was nothing anyone could do except amputate the dead flesh. If they hadn’t, the infection would have killed me in hours.”
“I am sorry,” Madi says, and she means it.
“It has changed everything,” Silver says. “No longer can I sneak around without being discovered. No longer can I climb to great heights or walk without pain. Now I am just a poor cripple with a cane.”
“You are also a strong leader,” Madi says. “Your people follow and respect you. That is not simply because of the loss of your leg. They tell stories about your greatness.”
“It makes me weak,” Silver says with another heaved breath. “I do not like to appear weak.”
“Weakness is not inherently wrong,” Madi says. “All men -- all great leaders -- are in some way weak.”
They crest the top of the hill, and Silver stops for a moment due to the exertion. “I wish that you had met me before,” is all he says. Madi does not know what this means, but she feels as if John Silver has given her another piece of trust today. Another piece of his barbed-wire heart.
She admires Silver. And Madi has begun to feel….protectiveness and love towards him.
You are still strong.
***
Madi misses her mother, and wonders what her mother would say. About Flint’s plans for rebellion. About Silver, and the way that Madi’s heart leaps whenever she sees him now. About Eleanor Guthrie’s choices and the gallows set up in the streets, fresh with blood.
She misses her mother, but knows that the Maroon Queen would only want her daughter to become stronger.
She is very lonely, far away from home, and the presence of pirates only makes her lonelier.
***
It finally happens on the night watch.
In order to protect their territory, Flint has assigned a rotating group of men to watch over the beach. “In case of any sea attacks,” he announces to the groans of the Walrus crew, “we need to make certain that our camps are protected.”
Madi readily volunteered, and has spent the hours of midnight to three a.m two times a week watching the waves. There have been no attacks although she has learned to watch the horizon.
Tonight, Madi arrives early to her post. She has brought a book to read, an old copy of Doctor Faustus with a peeling spine, though it is too dark to read without straining her eyes. She sits on the dirt and waits.
He arrives a few minutes later, the sound of his cane a dead giveaway. Madi turns, and there is John Silver, her partner for the evening night watch. She feels herself smiling as she moves to allow Silver a space to sit.
“I see you’ve been assigned evening watch tonight,” Madi says.
Silver sighs. “Yes, we do all have to suffer sometimes.”
“Speak for yourself,” she says. “I don’t mind watching the sea.”
Silver looks at the worn book sitting beside her. “You like to watch the sea and read?”
“When I can,” Madi says, “usually later in the watch when the sun rises. Then there is enough light to read.”
Silver nods. “Do you enjoy Nassau?”
“I enjoy it,” Madi says, “though I will certainly enjoy it more once we are in control again.”
Silver smiles, one of his wry smiles that seems to occupy his entire face. “Indeed,” he says.
They sit there for a while in silence, watching the unending waves. Madi finds the sea peaceful, not terrifying; even in the darkness, where one can barely see beyond the edges of the beach. She looks at Silver. The way he is looking at her: with a soft smile and kindness in his eyes makes Madi feel helpless.
She leans over and laces his hands through hers. Silver looks surprised for a moment, but then grabs her hand in a comforting gesture.
“Madi,” Silver says in a soft voice.
“I have seen the way you look at me,” Madi says, “and I know that I look at you the same. I know that you are strong.”
He looks at her. Madi looks back, and there is a moment of charged electricity. She does not know who moves first, or how: only that all she desperately wants to do in this moment is kiss him.
“Madi,” Silver says, “you are the strongest woman I know.”
Madi smiles, and then they are leaning into each other. It is not a kiss of sadness, or passion, or anger: it is a kiss of discovery, Madi thinks. She thinks that she will remember every moment of this kiss: the way that Silver runs his hands through her hair, the way that she breathes in, the way that she can feel her heartbeat pounding against her chest. They stay like that for a long time, breathing into each other.
Finally, Madi lets go, and they begin to laugh. She leans against Silver, and he places a kiss to the top of her head.
They stay like that, leaning into one another like parentheses, and watch the horizon together.
***
Flint retakes Nassau, and everything changes.
Silver is given a new name and new stories are told.
Long John Silver, the bravest man in the West Indies, people say.
And then he disappears beneath the Walrus, lost to the watery sea, and Madi’s heart falls to the bottom of the ocean.
Even when he returns weeks later, her heart is still adrift at sea. That time, she kisses Silver for every moment they’ve lost, every sleepless night, every time that she remembered the way he said, Madi, in that soft voice the first evening they kissed.
Madi holds on for dear life, and feels as though she has just survived drowning.
***
Madi goes home.
Returning to the island is different. Now that she has left it behind, it seems smaller. Less important, in a way. The buildings seem more ramshackle, her mother’s power seems less certain, and the people seem so afraid.
Madi realizes now how close they always are to annihilation here. How every man and woman on this island is terrified but always hiding it. How sick her father looks, lying on his deathbed inside her childhood home.
She cannot bear to look at her father, the strongest man in Nassau, and to see him so weak. She understands now Silver’s fear of weakness: once you are weak, you are pitied. Her father’s skin is flushed, his hands shiver, he can barely speak more than a few words or drink water.
But when she enters the room, her father grins. His perfect smile makes Madi’s heart hurt as she sits beside his bed.
“Father,” she says.
“Madi, my darling girl,” he says, taking her hand. His skin is freezing, and Madi warms his hands.
“I missed you,” she says, not even bothering to pretend that she won’t cry. Madi wipes her eyes and her father kisses her hands.
“I hear you are a great ruler,” he says. “A strong woman. Just as your mother and I have always known.”
“Yes,” Madi says.
“I hear that you helped Captain Flint and his men retake Nassau,” her father says. Every word sounds pained, as though he must breathe in all the limited oxygen that remains before speaking.
“Yes,” Madi says.
“Madi, you are everything your mother and I ever dreamed of. You will be the best queen this place has ever known.”
She begins to sob into his hands. This is not fair. Absolutely none of this is fair. Her father should be a leader, not a man confined to a sick bed. Her father didn’t get to see her grow up; now he will never see her adult life. Madi thinks of the books he has always given her, stacked carefully inside this house and inside her home on an island thousands of miles away, and cries.
“Madi,” her father says, “understand this: more than anything, I love you. I did this for you, for your mother, so that you two could survive and thrive. Know that I will always love you and be endlessly proud of you.”
“I know,” Madi says, sobbing. They stay there for a long time, each in their own silent grief. She remembers watching her father come in from the shore, and watching him leave. Her whole life has always been watching her father leave.
Now she must watch him leave for the final time.
Her father dies the next morning, surrounded by his family, who watch him take his last breaths. At the funeral, her mother does not cry, but instead holds her daughter as Madi’s sobs shake her entire body.
At the funeral, everyone Madi has ever known -- Kambili, Jaja, Ezinma, Nakia, Capheus, Amaya, Amadi, Ekwefi, and their families -- offer condolences. They hug her until she cannot breathe. They cry alongside her. They say, “Madi, we are so sorry.”
Madi is thankful for this community, the community that watched her grow up. These people are her family regardless of blood.
After the funeral, Aunty Ifeoma says, “Madi, we are grateful that you are home.” Madi says nothing, but instead hugs her aunt.
The days following her father’s funeral are one of chaos and reorganization. Madi’s mother calls her daughter into her office. She feels so numb, and has spent the last few days grieving because she has no energy for anything else.
She grieves for a father that she loves and never knew; a father that sacrificed everything to give her a better future.
“We need to talk about the succession,” Madi’s mother says. She is wearing mourning clothes, gold and black, and the lines underneath her eyes are pronounced. It looks as though her mother has aged decades in a matter of days. Madi watches as her mother twists her wedding ring around her finger, again and again, in a memorial. “You need to become Queen.”
Madi does not know what to say. She does not want to become queen, yet. The war has not been won -- Silver and Flint and the pirates are counting on her. But her mother is overcome with grief and she has always known this day would come.
And Madi would sacrifice anything to protect her people.
So she says, “Yes, Mother, I understand.”
Uneasy is the head that wears the crown.
***
The first time she sees Eleanor Guthrie in more than a decade, Madi is trapped inside of an abandoned house. This house was supposedly Captain Flint’s lover’s home, though Silver has told Madi the story of Thomas and Miranda Hamilton’s destruction.
(Madi remembers Flint saying to her on the deck of the Walrus: “England has taken important things from me.”)
She does not want to talk to Eleanor, the woman who betrayed their entire cause and has no principles or morals beyond wanting power. She does not want to talk to a woman who knew her father better than Madi ever did, who was his friend despite the fact that Mr. Scott was a Guthrie slave.
Eleanor is the one who speaks. Madi looks up from the book that she’s been reading (the woman who once lived here -- Miranda -- has excellent taste in literature). “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Eleanor says.
Outside, they can hear the sounds of guns firing and ensuing screams.
“For what?” Madi asks. “There are certainly many things you could apologize for.”
“For not asking about you,” Eleanor says in a soft voice. Her hair is tied into a beautiful knot, the vibrant dress she wears is made of fabric that costs more than a fleet of ships, and her wedding band shines against her finger. “For not worrying about you and your mother.”
“My father made his choices,” Madi says. “The reason he did not talk about my mother and me was because he needed to protect us. If you had known where we were, what’s to say you would not have attempted to attack our island, Eleanor?”
Eleanor looks at her. Then she says, “Do you remember when we were little girls?”
Madi can barely remember. She remembers playing with Eleanor, her friend. “I remember that you were my friend,” she says.
“Is that enough?”
“No, it is not enough that you betrayed our entire cause just because we were friends once,” Madi says.
“Your father trusted me.”
“My father only trusted you out of necessity,” Madi says.
Eleanor sighs. They are standing in a divide they will never be able to reach. Madi continues to read her book, and then Eleanor says: “When we were younger, we used to play games. I pretended to be the princess, and you pretended to be the queen. Look at where we ended up.”
“I do not remember much about when we were children,” Madi says. “I remember thinking that you were beautiful. That I wanted to be exactly like you. Brave, smart, strong Eleanor.”
“I remember that you were so quiet,” Eleanor says. “You were always hiding in your mother’s skirts. You seemed practically afraid of your own shadow. And look at you now! A queen.”
“Do you think everything would have changed if I had grown up in Nassau?” Madi asks.
Eleanor nods. But they cannot change the past, they are stuck in the futures their choices have built.
“I wish we could be little girls again,” Eleanor says, looking out the window.
And for the first time, Madi agrees with her.
Except they aren’t little girls anymore.
***
Madi has heard stories about her family. Stories about how they overcame oppression and chains and beatings by masters in order to survive and thrive. These stories were always told as warnings, as promises, as victory.
The slave quarters of Woodes Rogers fortress are dusty and dirty. Within hours, Madi’s hands are coated with dirt and her face has become streaked with white. She is in a hollow room with nameless other slaves and has nothing to do except think.
She does not know where Eleanor is. The last she saw the proprietess of the Guthrie empire and the sole member of Nassau’s aristocratic class, Eleanor had been burning. She had been fighting with all of her might, using every weapon to her advantage. Her face had been full of pain and fury.
Madi does not think Eleanor is still alive. The house was burning from the inside out by the time Madi was dragged out of the living room, put onto a carriage, and driven here to rot alongside the empire’s slaves.
She died fighting. That is a fitting ending to Eleanor’s story, Madi thinks.
She does not know where Captain Flint is. If he is safe, if he even knows that Madi is alive. She knows that Flint will mourn her but he will also understand: war breeds casualties. Madi knew from the day she agreed to this war that the only ending is either freedom or death.
The war cannot be sacrificed for Madi. She understands that her death will be a symbol, a martyr for the resistance. She knows that her mother would be very proud and her father would understand.
If her death is what it will take to save her people, Madi will walk to the gallows herself. All she has ever wanted is to protect her people, and that is the role she has been raised for.
When the shadows against the walls grow longer, Madi lets herself think of Silver. She wonders if he misses her, selfishly, and then just as selfishly wonders if he will come save her. She wonders if he will run into the room and slaughter a dozen soldiers in her name.
But she cannot worry about that. Madi is not a Penelope, meant to be coddled and saved. She is an Odysseus, and she is the hero in her own story.
Still, Madi misses him. She wonders if they have told John that she is dead. She wonders if he is upset, if he is angry, if he does not care at all about her disappearance. It is strange, missing someone you saw only hours earlier.
But Madi understands the role she must play in this war. She will not sacrifice this war for the man she loves, for herself, for anything except the people that she is sworn to protect.
****
And then John Silver sacrifices their war.
***
Madi does not talk to him. She does not do anything except sit on the banks of the beach and watch the river.
She thinks of Captain Flint, lost and alone, trapped inside of a prison camp. John claims that he is safe and happy. That he is with Thomas Hamilton again. Madi does not think a prison camp is a safe or happy place, and regardless of the fact that Flint is with his lover imprisonment is a form of torture.
She never got to say goodbye. She never got to thank him, for teaching her what being a leader really means.
Madi thinks of Eleanor, burning. She thinks of the pirates who died on the gallows. She thinks of her father dying in his bed. She thinks of everyone who sacrificed their lives in the hope of a better future that never came, all of the lives that were sacrificed for nothing.
Above, they are writing treaties. Above, they are calling for forgiveness. The Maroons are agreeing to a treaty that will surely be broken one day, and this is a victory march.
Nassau has new leaders, and the pirate operation works undercover on the island now.
Madi cannot accept forgiveness. She cannot forget the brave souls who were lost in this war.
She cannot forgive the man she loves, who sacrificed everything for her without considering her own decisions.
She loves him, but there are some choices that are unforgivable. Her mother used to say, no forgiveness without bloodshed.
And so Madi sits and watches the waves.
***
“Madi,” Silver says when she returns that evening. “Please listen to me”--
Madi walks past him and begins to look through food supplies. “I do not wish to talk right now.”
“Do you wish to talk soon?” he asks.
“No.” Madi does not wish to talk ever, preferably, because she knows any conversation that they have will not end well.
“Madi, you understand why I made the decision I made.” John’s voice sounds so desperate, so longing. It does not matter. He should feel sorry for the choices he made. That is not Madi’s responsibility.
“I understand, but that does not mean I need to forgive you,” Madi says. John looks at her, and his eyes are so soft and kind, and Madi remembers: that night along the sea, the way he said her name before they kissed for the first time.
She turns away.
“Madi, please listen,” John says, “I understand”--
“No, you don’t.” Madi walks out of the room. She does not turn around.
***
Madi finds Julius and asks him to train her. “I would like to learn to swordfight,” she tells him.
Julius looks up from where he has been sharpening blades. He seems tired, now. Everyone is tired now, the way that war is etched across their faces. “You wish to learn to swordfight,” he says.
“Yes,” Madi says. This is the best way she can think to let out all of her anger. Otherwise, she will begin to scream, begin to let out all of the anger that is hidden inside of her. Otherwise she will need to hurt someone or something, and first on that list is the man that she loves and hates in equal measure.
Once upon a time, John Silver asked if she knew how to fight. Once upon a time, he told her that she would need to know how to fight in order to win the war.
Julius raises an eyebrow and leads her to the practice fields. For the first few lessons, they focus on technique: which way to hold the sword, how to avoid hurting your combat partner, the different ways of deflecting an attack.
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry.
“Good,” Julius says. Madi breathes in and focuses only on the movements, the way the sword feels in her hand, the different points in time she must watch. “Your technique is strong.”
Next, they focus on responding to attacks, making certain that Madi can deflect Julius’s movements. She stands strong, keeps her feet steady, and thinks only of the sound of blades clinking against each other.
For a few hours every day, Madi forgets. And they are blissful hours.
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry.
“Have you talked to him?” Julius says, swiftly deflecting an attack. Madi jumps to the side to ready herself for the next round, and avoids Julius’s sword beneath her chin by inches.
“No,” she says.
“Have you considered that talking to him is the only way you will solve this problem?” Julius says. “He has been seen on the cliffs, spending all of his time alone.”
Madi says, “Your thrusts are too low,” and knocks the sword out of Julius’s hands.
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry.
After weeks of training, Madi feels strong and confident. She imagines Silver standing beside her, lifting up a sword; she imagines either pushing it into his heart or showing him what a swordfighter she has become.
After she beats Julius three times in a row, he raises his hands in defeat. “You are a strong fighter,” he says.
“We are not done yet,” Madi says.
Julius looks at her. “You are a strong fighter, Madi. You have completed all the training you need.”
Madi looks at the swords on the ground and imagines Silver standing, alone, against the cliffs.
Has she shed enough blood to begin to understand forgiveness?
****
Finally, Madi goes to see her mother. The Maroon Queen -- because that is still her title, officially -- spends her days alone inside of Madi’s childhood home. They cleaned out her father’s bedroom, found his books and his journals and old drawings from Madi’s girlhood days.
Her mother threw most of it away, said she could not bear the memories anymore. She kept his wedding ring, wears it around her neck in a chain. Madi wonders if the ring is an albatross instead.
“Mama,” Madi says, coming into the room. It is early morning, and nearly midsummer; Madi turns twenty-eight in a matter of weeks. This year her birthday will not be a celebration, but a memorial: of the things she has had and lost (love, her father, a hope of freedom).
“Madi,” her mother says, “I miss you. I am glad you came to visit.”
Her mother makes baba ghanoush and they sit on the porch and watch the waves. Madi remembers what it felt like to be in the middle of the ocean, so far adrift from any signs of land.
“Mama,” Madi says, “I do not know what to do. I do not know how to forgive.”
Her mother looks at her, and says, “He loves you.”
“He does not,” Madi says. “He betrayed me.”
“When they thought you were dead,” her mother says, “he came to me and said that he loved you. That he thought you loved him, too. That he was devastated that you were gone. That is not the kind of love that disappears.”
“I do not know if betrayal is forgivable,” Madi says.
“Tell me the story,” her mother says. And so Madi does: from those first days she met John Silver, to the bitter end, when he stood in her home and pronounced that he had unmade Captain Flint.
When Madi finishes, her mother says: “Have you fallen out of love with him?”
Madi shakes her head. She still loves him: his confidence, his arrogance, how he can lead a group of men towards an unwinnable victory.
“The thing about love,” her mother says, “is that the question becomes not do I forgive you, but you must forgive each other over and over again. No forgiveness without bloodshed does not mean that forgiveness is impossible, it simply means that you must work towards a better future.”
Madi misses him. She does not know if betrayal is forgivable, but perhaps they can work towards a better future.
“Thank you, Mama,” Madi says. Her mother smiles with tears in her eyes and gives her daughter a hug.
“My beautiful girl,” she says, “I am so proud of you.”
***
Madi writes Captain Flint a letter that she will never send. She promises him that she is okay, that Silver is okay, that all she hopes for him and his lover is that they have a better future. She promises to visit.
She writes:
Thank you for everything. Our fight was not in vain. It was not for a cause that was unwinnable.
***
Then she finds Silver, sitting on the edges of the cliffs. His head is buried in his knees, his long hair draped over his boots. He looks so small, so far from the man Long John Silver was proclaimed to be.
There is a difference between John Silver and Long John Silver, and one is a hero and one is not. Madi cannot be Long John Silver’s wife, but perhaps she can marry John Silver, the man who is not a hero but tries anyway.
“John,” she says quietly.
He looks up, and for a moment fear crosses his face, followed by relief. A stark, bitter relief. “Madi,” he says, the same way he said her name before.
“I am sorry that I could not talk before,” Madi says, sitting down beside him. She lifts up her skirts to make certain they stay clean. “I was angry. I did not know what to do. So I had to be alone.”
“I am sorry,” Silver says.
“I do not want apologies.” Madi reaches inside of her skirt pockets and pulls out two swords. “Once you told me that I would need to know how to fight in order to survive. I have learned.”
Silver looks at her, then at the swords, and finally seems to decide this is the best course of action. He takes her hand, and they stand up. Madi hands him a sword, and they begin to fight.
John Silver is a good swordsman, with more experience, better than Madi will ever be. He has a weakness; his leg, which forces him to position his body towards one angle. Madi has strength on her side.
They fight: thrust, thrust, parry, parry.
“I understand why you made the choice you did,” Madi says. “It is not the decision I would have ever made.”
“I know,” says John.
They keep fighting; he barely swipes her shoulder but Madi manages to duck seconds before. “I know you did it to protect me, but I can protect myself,” she says.
“I did it to save you,” John says, “but you always could save yourself.”
Madi thinks that is true. She has saved herself a thousand times over, from grief and pain. “But then I realized that I love you,” she says, and watches his expression change. “I love you more than I hated you. My mother told me once that you were angry when you thought I was dead.”
“I was willing to burn down the war for you,” Silver says, “even though that is not what you would have ever wanted.”
“I know,” says Madi. “She says that for love, we must forgive each other over and over again. Maybe I can never forgive you for the betrayal, but I can forgive you for the reasons that you made your decision: anger, fear, compassion, love.”
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry.
“I want to marry you,” Madi says, “but only as John Silver. That is the man I fell in love with.”
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry.
“I forgive you, but that does not mean all your sins are forgiven,” she says. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Silver says, and a smile is beginning to cross his face.
Thrust, thrust, parry, parry -- and then Madi drops, lets her sword clink against his. They stare at each other for a moment, and then she drops her sword to the ground. “I love you,” she says.
“I love you,” Silver says, and lets go of his own weapon.
Madi hugs him, hugs him tighter than she has ever hugged anyone before, lets herself breathe into his skin. No forgiveness without bloodshed does not mean no forgiveness at all. They stay like that for a long time.
Then he takes her hand and they sit beside the cliffs, holding hands. Madi leans her head against his shoulder, listens to the sound of Silver’s breathing.
“Look at us,” she whispers. “A pirate and a queen.”
“The best queen in the world,” John whispers back.
They stay together, hand in hand, and watch the horizon.