The alley behind the Drowned Rat smelled of fish guts and old grease. Heat leaked from the kitchen through a propped-open door a few paces down the wall. Crates sat stacked against the brick. The packed dirt underfoot had gone soft from runoff nobody had bothered to drain away.

When the tavern door swung shut behind James, the noise from inside dropped to a muted murmur.

"Ye’ll come easy, or ye’ll come hard," the taller man said.

His posture had changed. Instead of bracing a hand against the wall beside Anne’s head, he now had hold of her arm.

That told James two things.

First, the man had decided intimidation wasn’t working.

Second, he was confident enough to escalate.

"Either way, ye’re comin’ wi’ us."

"Generous offer."

James stepped clear of the doorway. "I’d take it myself, if I were the sort who enjoyed bein’ dragged places."

Both men turned.

The taller one looked confused for a moment, as if trying to place him. Then annoyance pushed its way in. The shorter man’s hand drifted toward his belt and stalled there. Whatever he meant to grab, he seemed to be hoping inspiration would strike first.

"Who in the hell are you?" the short one demanded.

Anne didn’t look relieved to see him.

She looked furious.

"What are you doing here?"

The words were for a question. The tone made it an accusation.

"Followin’ my instincts, mostly." James kept his voice light. "They tend to point at trouble."

"I had this handled."

James glanced at the taller man’s hand wrapped around her arm.

"Looked handled to me. Had the whole thing lookin’ downright under control."

"I was about to break his fingers off one at a time before you started to play hero."

"I’m just standin’ here, lass."

"Standing here uninvited."

"I walked through a door. I don’t need an invitation to walk through a door."

Somehow, while they argued, they kept moving.

A step here. Another there.

By the time either noticed, James stood barely a yard from the taller man’s shoulder.

The short one looked between them. Confusion gave way to irritation.

"Are the pair of ye finished?"

"We’re not finished," James and Anne said at nearly the same moment.

The man’s face suggested he regretted asking.

"Enough," the taller man snapped.

He released Anne’s arm and reached toward his hip.

James hit him first.

His jab smashed into the man’s nose.

Blood sprayed.

The second punch landed before the man could stumble back, snapping his head up. James turned the third into a hook and drove it into his jaw.

The man crumpled into the dirt.

He didn’t get back up.

Beside him, Anne had already moved.

She ripped a bottle from a crate and cracked it across the shorter man’s skull.

The bottle exploded.

Rum, blood, and glass sprayed across the alley.

The man folded where he stood and slammed into the dirt.

The alley fell silent.

James looked down at the two men in the dirt.

One was definitely unconscious.

The other had a broken bottle sticking out of his scalp, which made the distinction harder to judge.

Then he looked at Anne.

She examined the broken neck of the bottle still clutched in her hand. Her expression held the mild disappointment of someone who had actually liked that bottle.

"I had it handled."

Her voice returned to the normal tone. The anger from before was gone, an act.

"Aye, you mentioned."

"You didn’t need you be here."

"Probably not." James shook some of the sting out of his hand. "Still glad I was."

Anne watched him.

The look seemed caught somewhere between gratitude and the urge to finish breaking the bottle over his skull.

"You’re playing the white knight, is that it?"

James blinked at that.

The question itself wasn’t important. The reason she was asking probably was.

"Can’t fault a man for bein’ curious."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the only one ye’re gettin’."

He nodded toward the two men sprawled on the ground.

"What was this actually about? They seemed awfully interested in Ireland and coin."

Anne’s face tightened.

For a moment, James thought she might refuse to answer.

Then she exhaled. "A man named Cormac Walsh arranged my passage from Cork. Charged me triple what the voyage was worth. Told me I’d be paying the rest off in Nassau one way or another."

There was enough bitterness in her voice to make the ending obvious before she reached it.

"I already paid the wanker. Every coin."

She jerked her chin toward the unconscious men. "He’s still sending collectors after me. Says I owe more. I don’t. There hasn’t been a debt for months. It’s just easier money than finding new fools to cheat."

The scheme made unpleasant sense.

A man who preyed on desperate immigrants wouldn’t stop after a single victim. Every ship arriving from Ireland represented a fresh group of people with nowhere to go and nobody to trust.

If Walsh had been running the racket for any length of time, he had to be sitting on a considerable pile of coin.

Coin that belonged to people he’d stolen it from.

Coin that could solve many of James’s current problems.

As for example, James happened to own a ship that needed exactly that sort of financial assistance.

"Do you know where to find him?"

"’Course I know."

The sharp edge in her voice suggested she’d spent a long time waiting for a reason to use that knowledge.

That sounded promising.

"Then I’m in."

⚔ [QUEST ISSUED]

Philanthropy with Expected Returns

Cormac Walsh has built a profitable enterprise around debts that no longer exist. His victims have already paid. He simply finds it inconvenient to stop collecting. Anne Bonny knows where Walsh operates and where the coin eventually arrives. Investigate the matter. Purely for moral reasons, obviously.

Reward: 10 Fate

Reward: ???

It is heartwarming to see you take a stand against exploitation. Especially once you learned there might be profit involved.

James read the notification once.

The voice had spent the afternoon dumping information on him. This joined the growing pile of facts he would need to sort through later.

For now, the important part was simple.

There was a target.

There was money.

And there was someone who knew where both could be found.

He looked back at Anne.

"Lead the way lass."

He reached for her arm, the gesture closer to an invitation than a command.

Then he turned toward the mouth of the alley.

The situation had started as curiosity.

Now it looked like an opportunity.

If things went well, it might solve more than one problem before the day was over.

That was the sort of coincidence James had learned not to ignore.