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PART III
JUNE, 1780
THE PANTHEON
LONDON, ENGLAND
“PICK UP YOUR FEET, Raxham,” Celia hissed in Milly’s ear as she dragged her out of the ballroom and down the stairs as quickly as she could. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Stays,” Milly gasped. “Can’t—breathe.”
“Goddammit,” Celia hissed. “Leftenant!” she barked at Papadakos, who was already almost out the door. “Catch.”
Her scream, when Celia swept her up and threw her over the railing into Papadakos’s arms, was real.
“CAPTAIN!”
Celia looked up and over her shoulder at Lord Macaroni, who burst through throngs of petrified people at the top of the stairs and began down them after her. He halted when she turned and pointed her pistol at him. “Back off, Lord Traitor. I may be your country’s enemy, but I have little tolerance for your kind.”
“You only have one shot in that pistol, Madam,” he purred as he slowly took another step.
She took one step backward down the staircase and then another. “But I’m an excellent marksman and I have a sword, neither of which you have. Where is the marquess, by the way. He’s no coward.”
“I’m right here, Captain,” Rathbone snarled from the top of the stairs. “Choose one of us and the other will still kill you.” It was when he began to clip down them that Celia stuffed her pistol in her breeches and vaulted over the railing, landing on her feet on the foyer floor with a thud that shook her body.
“Haven’t done that in a while,” she muttered as she pulled her pistol and her dagger, then broke toward the front door.
“STOP HER!” Rathbone bellowed.
One footman who attempted to detain her gurgled when she slashed his throat. The other crumpled to the floor after she put a ball through his heart.
Celia was the last one out of the building, as planned, and she had every confidence Elliott would make sure to somehow delay Rathbone long enough for her to dart between the long lines of coaches and lose herself in the darkness.
“THAT WAY!” Elliott bellowed.
Celia began to panic when she could not find the particular coach she was to have hidden in, men’s running footsteps and shouting getting closer and closer.
She bit back a scream when a coach door slammed open right in front of her, so that she barely avoided running into it. She panicked when she was jerked into it and her mouth covered.
Then she recognized the scent.
“Bataar,” she breathed. “You’re here!”
“Sorry about that, Jack,” she muttered as she released her. “Had some last-minute changes.”
“Where’s Lady Soph—”
A horse in full thundering gallop passed by, heading for the wharf.
“There,” Bataar said dryly.
Men’s shouts were now relatively far away and getting fainter.
“GET ME A HORSE!”
Celia released a pent-up breath at Elliott’s bellow and soon, another set of hooves thundered off into the distance, chasing—so they thought—Captain Fury.
“Rum?”
“God, that’s lovely,” Celia breathed. “Many thanks.” They touched their bottles together in a toast and drank deeply.
“Lord Judas,” Bataar said snidely, “had a basket made for you in case you were yet hungry.” She eyed Celia dubiously. “You are horrible. I have not seen your bones suchlike since Smitty brought you out of the Carnivale’s hold.”
“Aye, I know, and this is after a fortnight of concerted effort to stuff me to my gills. Imagine me before that.”
Bataar grunted as she dropped the basket at Celia’s feet. “Well,” she said matter-of-factly, “I took advantage of the food, as I was too nervous to dine before leaving the Thunderstorm. I may have left you a crust.”
Celia laughed and reached down to find a chunk of bread, a wedge of cheese, and three oranges. “Never mind. I ate well before I left. Camille and Phoebe?”
“In the coach behind us with Mary. Rathbone’s staff was particularly difficult to subdue, which is why we are late. Woman put up a ruckus, but ultimately her wailing assisted us.”
“Of course she would,” Celia said dryly. “Well, you’re here and everyone accounted for.”
“Aye.”
“Now we have time to rest before we make Blackwall, which is all to the better. We’ve a long night ahead of us.”
• • •
CELIA AND BATAAR left their coach one mile from the Blackwall wharf covered head to toe in black, their hair braided and pinned and covered with scarves and tricorns, their legs wrapped in leather and their feet in the tar-soled moccasins Celia favored.
Both Phoebe and Camille were dressed similarly, but stumbled from the coach reluctantly, painfully prodded by a furious Mary and exasperated Papadakos. Camille was further hampered by her lack of stays.
Celia glared at both the girls. “You,” she barked at Phoebe, “agreed to this. And you—” She punched her finger in Camille’s forehead. She flinched. “—begged for it. Do not think your brother will save you from my temper or discipline do your actions cause our scheme to go awry, for he is a far harsher taskmaster than I. That is, if he survives. Elliott’s life depends upon your willing obedience.”
Camille whimpered and nodded.
“Papadakos,” Celia snapped. “You will tend your duties and allow Mary to tend our new crewmen. There will be time for wooing once we are out to sea, and I will not tolerate any leniency or favoritism toward your skirt. Is that understood?”
Lady Camille choked, but Papadakos saluted smartly.
“Officer Mary, report.”
Celia’s mother merely growled.
“So I gather.” Celia looked over her and Elliott’s crew to ascertain that all nineteen were present. “Let us off.”
Once they reached the wharf, they found the two longboats her crew had arrived in, guarded by three of Elliott’s men. Without a word, each girl was trundled into a boat, pushed to the bottom and covered with a tarp to give the appearance of cargo.
Though it was night, lanterns from the many vessels and its reflection off the water lit their path down the Thames. Likewise, the noise from the merrymaking aboard all these ships and taverns along the wharves served to cover the faint sound of the boats passing through their midst and the commands she and her lieutenant gave their respective crews.
They might as well have been invisible, in fact. Even if they were spotted, they were amongst many like vessels, those of the wherrymen and lightermen who plied the Thames with goods and passengers at all hours of day and night.
She and Papadakos stood at the prows of the respective boats, glasses to their eyes to navigate the congested waterway.
Here, an East India Company frigate. There, an Irish fishing boat. Alongside, a sixth-rate Navy patrol sloop, Swan class, just like the Thunderstorm.
Celia studied it for longer than she should, though, for at the very sight of it, she was startled by a wave of homesickness for the Thunderstorm. She turned as they passed to see its stern. The HMS Rose.
Her mouth pursed. That might present a problem.
But it was of no matter. With any luck, she would be aboard her home and on her way to Rotterdam in a matter of hours.
home
in the wild
with Elliott
Living out her life at his side and in their own bed, with freedom from war and governments and enemies, having goals—and snow.
At the moment, though, she just wanted her own bed and her cat.
It was nigh two of the morning and the tide was rolling out, taking them with it just as they had planned.
Another hour passed and Celia spotted the Thunderstorm, quiet and refitted to look like a Navy patrol, Rose painted over the blacked-out raised lettering of her true name. It pained her to see her vessel thusly, but she was a pirate and Dunham had taught her well the value of stealth and disguise.
The longboats soon hit the side of the Thunderstorm and were taken up quickly. Its occupants shot to their stations. Mary bustled Camille and Phoebe belowdecks. Celia hied to her cabin and her cat and her officers gathered around her chart-strewn table.
She threw herself on her bunk and groaned. “Lord, it’s good to be home.”
“Good to have ye back, Jack.”
There was an odd note in Smitty’s voice and she looked to him. In the brightly lit cabin, she saw an almost fatherly expression on his face, worried and relieved at once. They had lived and worked and commanded together for six years, two of those under Skirrow. He loved her, she realized, the way he had loved Talaat, and had feared her loss as well as Talaat’s. “I missed you, too, mate,” she said softly.
He cleared his throat. “The Penance passed an hour ago and sent the signal. Rathbone’s aboard, though not the admiral. Nineteen hands, all from the Silver Shilling, Judas at the helm. The Hollander and Bridge await in the Channel.”
Celia started. “Bridge? That was a quick voyage.”
“He had a bit of luck halfway to Sint Eustatius and returned to Rotterdam with a full hold nigh a sennight ago.”
Then from the galley: “Captain Jack’s here?!”
Celia grinned at the delighted squeal and sound of feet running toward her cabin. The door slammed open to admit George, an excited grin on her face. “Thank God you’re back.”
“Don’t bam me, George. You’re just grateful I’m fucking your fiancé for you.”
“You’ve no idea!” she breathed, so happy she was bouncing on her toes and clapping.
Celia laughed. “Aye, well, he wants you no more than you want him. Get me food and lemonade.”
The girl vanished with a spate of giggles.
Celia looked at her officers then. “Weigh anchor, raise the Union Jack, and don the uniforms. We should catch the Penance just beyond the mouth of the Thames.”
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!
Glad the cat lady’s back with her, but the cuddle’s for another. “Beyond the mouth,” indeed.
“…Rose painted over the blacked-out raised lettering of her true name. It pained her to see her vessel thusly, but she was a pirate and Dunham had taught her well the value of stealth and disguise.”
I think that’d be kinda fun. Knowing it’s ‘hiding’ in plain sight. Under-the-surface sneakery feels best.
I assume everybody is watching the soccer along with me. 🙂
I think I dislike the corporations pushing the Fifa shit more than I do the rainbow shit.
Bro. They are the same.
People around here tend to not like when I call soccer for gays/commies so I avoid it.
It’s a foreign sport to me and I’ve just felt like for years certain people have been pushing it as an alternative to the traditional American sports. You know, the corporations and their little progressive lackeys. Soccer is civilized because it’s not really a contact sport and certainly not like American football (in reality it’s because it’s a foreign sport and they detest American culture).
Does the Paraguayan guy who own-goaled get murdered in a bar in a couple of months? I can’t remember the futbol rules down south.
The ‘Mericans look decent. What the hell.
Decent is a bit of an understatement. And bless my soul, the crowd appears to be both knowledgeable and partisan.
I don’t want to jinx it.
I… got nothing.
Best I have seen them play in a long, long time.
I appreciate the basketball gods not scheduling another post-game riot on the same night that USMNT plays.
That was good of them.
I watched three minutes of the Korea Czechia game. First pitch Cubs in 20. Soccer isn’t fun to watch. It just isn’t. Hockey is good soccer. In almost every way, the exact same game. The goal’s smaller. They skate and wield spears to move the object towards the other team’s goal. Men with spears try to stop you, and they want to do the same.
Get over that, and it’s the same damn sport. Only much better. Actually fun. Exciting. Still, move object back n forth. Don’t be offside. Score past the goalie. Every difference in between is irrelevant to the game’s objective. And no fucking 138-119 scores. Stupid. Stupid.
Baseball’s all together different, and I proffer one can only love it if you’ve played. It’s pretty nonsensical. (To the Unaware.)
Just say no to sportsball.
Especially eurotrash soortsball.
I’m listening to Eddie Trunk’s Friday night radio show.
S.O.S. Band – Take your time (Do it right)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs8dp2ofgyo
The bass player…
Also the phat keyboard…
S.O.S. ruf’ mich an!
Maybe the dumbest “feminist” (I don’t think you can fairly call the dopey white women posting on the criminally underreported on woomansphere feminists, they’re intellectually bankrupt even by the standard of actual academic feminists) argument I’ve seen yet.
Some men argue that there should be mandatory DNA testing at birth of a baby to determine paternity. Her gotcha was that oh sure maybe you aren’t the father of THIS child, but then there’s going to be a database that finds you ARE the father of three other children you didn’t know about! And owe back child support now.
That says a whole lot more about this women and her sexual activity than it does anything against the argument for mandatory paternity testing.
If you were the father of anything, that would be a first.
I actually agree with this, and I’m pretty sure there are a lot of other women who also agree. What women of good character do NOT want is for her husband to even HINT he wants a paternity test. Pragmatism aside, there is no way you can spin, “I just want to make sure” to not say what it actually says.
Making it mandatory would solve a lot of problems.
I get why a women would be offended by the question.
I’m not particularly advocating for another healthcare reg myself. Don’t sleep with whores as a dude. Don’t be a whore as a women. Or vice versa if that’s more PC. It was just a really dumb attempt at a gotcha.
No, I’m not either, but what I am doing is weighing the ROI on government expenditure down the line in the family court system, which is not going to go away and is only going to get more clogged up.
With very few (unsuccessful) exceptions, society is patriarchal and cultures are built on a bedrock of if the boy-child is the dude married to his mother. This has been a problem since dirt.
I don’t know if I’d call what we have a patriarchy at this point. We have kind of the worst of everything. Women with the entitlement and accountability of children but wanting to be treated like men, and weak men who want to be coddled.
I just think most people of both genders suck. Only difference is I don’t want to stick my dick in men and take less interest in their failings I suppose.
I’ve also seen no shortage of women in my life who view men who take care of them as weak and to be used and selfish pricks as “confident.” The men I look at as overgrown man children guided by ego tend to do fine with women. So what do I know?
I don’t see a link. Are you watching a Maury or Jerry Springer rerun?
OMG that muppet Almiron will get punished for diving. SWEET.
Technology FTW.
No dog update at the moment. Life is a lot smoother with the dog staying away from asshole. Asshole lives in fear of the dog now which is a nice change of pace.
I cant get the little fucker to take to a harness. I’m going with a prong collar at some point strictly for training, though I have doubts that I’ll actually get him to stop pulling without it present. We’ll see.
The harness would be a compromise so at least he isn’t choking himself constantly when I take him in public, but everything has proven fruitless. Dog trainer spent just shy of a hour trying to get it on him and I never heard back from her.
It’s a leg sprenger prong collar and just compared to the cheap shit at pet stores I can tell there’s a difference. Cost about a hundred when I add the extra links I had to buy because of his bulbous fucking head and thick neck.
Prong collars are illegal in Duloot. Because there is no aspect of animal husbandry that the city doesn’t know better than you.
I put it on my arm and yanked on it. I know that’s not exactly the same as a neck, but it wasn’t painful at all. I don’t think I’d mess with the cheap junk I see for sale and I didn’t even trust the stuff on Amazon advertised as hermsprenger collars.
I also wouldn’t leave it on him for anything but training. Or even in a stressful situation.
But yea that’s horseshit. I know people like my mother would look at it like it’s cruel because it looks scary, but when I hear professional trainers who do it day in and day out recommend it with caveats I don’t want to hear it from people who are just ignorant.
My dog is a stubborn SOB and he’s more likely to hurt himself pulling when over excited than he is with the prong collar if used responsibly. That’s how I see it.
I don’t even like dogs but two minutes of lazy research tells me that that stance appears to be BS.
It is very true.
A friend of mine took at least some of her dogs through this training. (She had Akitas and a Chow Chow.) It may smack of “credentialism,” but it’s at least a way to cover your ass if your landlord or homeowners insurance company freaks out about the breed of dog you have. And it might just work.
The breed thing is going to be interesting. I want to train him, but my attempt at using a trainer kind of failed and the stuff isn’t cheap on top of everything else going on. And the dog isn’t cheap. He has expensive tastes.
One thing I’m hoping comes in handy is the pound labeled him as an American bulldog which isn’t viewed with as much hostility as a pit.
So the pup’s away, but you still live with the asshole? And the asshole’s still afraid of it? (Pussy.)
Or you’re having a Fight Club duality moment with yourself. The only thing for certain, here, is that you remain an asshole.
*ponders*
The dog just stays with me, but goes into kill mode on sight with them now. The trainer I spoke to said at this point the dog will just pick up where he left off each time. They could be re-introduced, but I have no interest in even attempting that even if asshole wanted to. So dog isn’t gone at all.
Dog spends stretches alone while I’m at work. It’s amazing. He’d pee within minutes of me leaving before only to now go 9+ hours without no incidences and perfect behavior outside his kennel. It’s almost as if they were stressed because asshole was going to be involved like I said for months, ya know?
Good to know asshole is a they/them.
I have a Satdee off! Been working 6 x 10’s.
Enjoy the Sabbath.
Austin Metcalf’s father just had to go and call Anthony a “watermelon felon.” Let’s just fuel the social media stupidity and give the race grifters what they need. And, oh yea, another grounds for him to appeal.
Nope… I am not giving that story any more attention. Sorry.
+1
People same stupid shit when they’re angry, and having one of your kids get murdered is about the most enraging thing there is.
Maybe it came up in the trial, but I wonder about the following:
-Why was Karmelo there in the first place? To cheer on friends from his school? He wasn’t one of the athletes.
-Why did he go to Austin’s tent instead of another? Who was he planning to watch the track meet with?
-How were his grades and discipline in school? I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that already, but it’d be nice to know anyway.
-Why did Austin ask him to leave? Also, Austin was a football player, not a runner, so not sure why he was there either.
I think there was a lot of shit talk online that lead up to this, and because that would embarrass too many people, it has been ignored.
The memes online claim that Anthony had a 3.7 GPA and was a good student/kid. No disciplinary issues. HIs school let him graduate despite the charges hanging over his head and the controversy. I don’t know how true any of that is and I don’t really want to equate GPA with being a good or bad person. Also, people online lie. To be blunt especially the black-o-sphere as I call it these days. A whole lot of nonsense coming out from some people there.
My understanding is that while Metcalf was on the football team, he was also running track.
Basically, each school had their own tent. Anthony for whatever reason went to that one, I think he knew some people from both schools. Metcalf and his friends objected knowing at least roughly who he was or that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
I’m not going to condemn the father on a moral level for the language he used. When I hate someone, I’ve been known to get colorful and throw anything out there that I want to. Anthony killed his son. I will say that what he said was still dumb from a legal as well as a PR standpoint.
And I do struggle with the idea that Metcalf was 100% innocent. I’m not even remotely saying he should have died, but he started shit over something really fucking dumb. The sort of shit high school boys (and some adults who never grow up) would care about to some extent, but which is utterly meaningless. He allowed himself to be baited into a physical confrontation over it rather than just walk away. And he started a physical confrontation.
One of the things people are missing on this is that a lot of people have been involved in or seen school fights. Even with size disparities. It was a school tent at a track meet. Dumb shit can happen, but it’s real hard to sell people that this was a life or death struggle that called for stabbing someone in the chest.
I still really despise the argument that he shouldn’t have had a knife or that he shouldn’t even have been there. It’s not like he broke into a home here.
IIRC the facility said no knives were allowed. He could have chosen to stab his victim outside the facility.
There’s separate charges for that, but regardless it’s all trumped by the constitution in my book which says “shall not be infringed” and that doesn’t just refer to guns at the end of the day. The point is you have a right to defend yourself. If the building/property doesn’t allow for knives, then hey we can litigate that in court. Charge him with that.
It changes nothing about whether it was or wasn’t self-defense.
It’s also the exact same bullshit the left tried to use against Rittenhouse at the end of the day. He shouldn’t have been there/he had a gun! He was looking for trouble! So ignore the left wing mob that initiated violence and threatened his life or some such bullshit.
Obviously I don’t think the threat level posed to Anthony was the same and justified stabbing someone in the chest, but I just consider it to be an irrelevant argument with regards to whether it was or wasn’t murder or self-defense.
Arthur C Clarke said something like “dolphins can learn and understand 50 English words, but no one has learned a single word of dolphinese.”
***
Herman is using language comprehension to help map out that intelligence. He has demonstrated that dolphins can understand not only a complex vocabulary but also syntax, or word order-a basic rule of sentence formation that constitutes language as humans define the term. Two dolphins have learned a vocabulary of about 50 words, which Herman and his staff use to construct more than 1,000 different commands given in sentences with as many as five words. Each command produces an unrehearsed response, involving the animals’ understanding of word order.
“Syntax is what tells us that a venetian blind is not a blind Venetian,” says Herman. In the tests he administers, the dolphins have to take into account both word meaning and word sequence. And almost without fail, the animals have demonstrated consistently that they can distinguish between such commands as “get the Frisbee and take it to the surfboard” and “get the surfboard and take it to the Frisbee.”
***
The vowels of sperm whale language:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L59pNqxvFdw
Researchers have 20-minute “talk” with whale in the wild
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMSW9Zmp3-Q
Animal rights activists were angry about the treatment of the whales in Star Trek IV. Leonard Nimoy had to take them on set and show them that the animatronic whales were not alive.
I hope the activists were embarrassed. The practical effects were good but not that good.
Spock mind melds with whales:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoS1eAVNXWU
“…the animatronic whales were not alive.” GLOBAL WARMING STRIKES AGAIN!
(First, their AWFL overlords would have a “community meeting” to discuss if they could get more funding by focusing on the animatronic union rights lost. (Both’d prevail.))
They were right about that. It’s an invasion of privacy!
The democrat strategy on Elon Musk and the SpaceX IPO has emerged. Demand that his wealth be confiscated. Nobody deserves a trillion dollars.
This is an important moment. Perhaps a teachable moment for some. Ro Khanna makes the argument that government is much better at allocating those resources and “investing” them in things like Healthcare and helping the homeless… while Republicans think the wealthy should just be able to spend their money however they like.
This ridiculous strawmaning actually gives an opportunity to explain economics and opportunity cost.
Back in 1999 Elon Musk sold Zip2 and made $22 million.
They want to confiscate “excess wealth”.
So lets give them this one. Nobody needs $22 million, after all.
So, what would government do with that $22 million?? Commission a study on how to spend the next $22 million? Buy 1 year of insurance for 500 people and some administrators to hand it out?
All gone in a year or less.
Now, what did Elon Musk do with thar $22 million?
He founded Tesla, SpaceX, etc. His companies employ more than 160k people with high paying jobs. Those companies support over a million more jobs indirectly.
Plus Elon nets out a trillion dollars to the good. Which will be taxable. As it the billions in salary every year that his employees receive.
Plus we now have a global internet system. Launch costs are down an order of magnitude. And about to drop another 2 orders of magnitude. And self driving electric cars. And brain interfaces for handicapped people. And solar systems. And battery systems for power backup and management.
Not to mention free speech. We were way down the road to 1984. Then Elon blew a fortune on Twitter.
Maybe we don’t mention that one.
Still, the point remains.
Their idea would have stopped all of that from happening. We would be measurable worse off. Like, all of humanity would be worse off.
And I think we all know that nothing at all would have been built with that $22 million if the government had it.
I actually just responded to some rant on the Derpbook complaining about Musk’s wealth. Simply pointed out that the US alone spends trillions every year and that people grossly overestimate how much private wealth the ultra rich possess and underestimate how much our governments across the world waste.
I’ll definitely incorporate that into my next snarky response to this shit.
The (actual) Nazis were right. International law is just victors justice.
https://x.com/usattypirro/status/2065528282955849849
I mean that’s kind of blatantly and painfully obvious. International law is the same as any other law. It’s predicated on force and an even more ridiculous concept than normal law and order because at least the state has the ability to actually police its decisions. Hypocrisy is the norm in international affairs. Optics matter for American politicians, but mainly because of what the internal audience will think. Morals and ethics do not.
The nice weather has brought out the meat crayons. I miss cold wet weather. Like last weekend when I had the wood stove running.
Love the passive language in this story:
Was it an Audi?
Happy birthday Richard Thomas (John-Boy)!
🤓🎂🎈
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ_1HMAGb4k
🎶🎶
suh’ fam
what’s goody yo
WAFFLE HOUSE!