The thought of Eleanor's head removed from her grave made her sick to her stomach. Despite last night's unfortunate event, Max was thankful for one small fortunate turn. One old lady she knew, who lived near the cemetery, had been unable to sleep and thus had noticed two men in the darkness, creeping between the graves. The poor woman had been too frightened to get out of her home and thus get a chance to see their faces, but Max was thankful for her report nonetheless. She could only imagine what would have awaited her if she wouldn't have told Rogers right away, if he would have discovered later and thought her complicit or, worse, useless.

The tavern had yet not opened and the only other people present were some women sweeping and washing tankards, so she would have to wait for a few hours before there'd be anybody around to ask about those two men. They were Bartholomew's men and they needed to be purged if she wanted to live the rest of her life peacefully. It also frightened her that he seemed to have some spies on the island that she did not know about. It frightened her that Bart might once rule over the island, even more than the prospect of Rogers winning. She had little power left, but she deemed it impossible for Bartholomew to succeed if she and Rogers put their minds and resources together.

"Good morning" she heard a voice behind her

She turned around to see Mark Read sitting merrily on a bench, with his feet up on the table, playing with a cigarette between his fingers.

"What in the world are you doing here?" she almost screamed

"Hiding" he nonchalantly replied

Though he surely came back with good news about Anne and Jack, she couldn't figure out why they had left him behind on shore.

"You are hiding by being in broad daylight in my tavern?"

"Plain sight's the best!"

She was startled by the nerve the boy had. He was so easy to recognise as one of Jack's crew members and having him seen in her tavern bore the gravest consequences. Of course … he did not even think there would be consequences.

"Tell me" she began scolding him "Tell me you had nothing to do with what happened last night!"

"Oh, but I did"

What?

"Oh, don't worry, Max" he continued before she could open her lips to speak again "I shot them both in the head!"

What? Why? How could this have happened without her knowing? No, that was not the right question … Why would Mark do these things without telling her first?

"I was sent by the Black Bart himself, you see" he went on, as if he already knew what she'd ask "My two companions came from Bart's crew and they were on that mission, while I was to come and check on you and to tell you that we are all alright"

"I don't understand … you have left Jack and Anne and you have joined Bartholomew?"

"Oh no, dear, we have all joined Bartholomew!"

The sickness of her stomach turned into a spasm in her throat. One of her greatest fears had come true.

"I know that Jack and Anne want to keep you safe" Mark went on, in a more serious tone "So I came here because I can disguise myself. We know that Rogers would persecute you if he thought you are still in contact with them"

He would, yes, but there was an odd little detail to it. She had expected Rogers to force her to lay some trap for Jack and Anne, or to betray them in some other way, yet he didn't. And as she heard a knock at the door, way too early for it to be some patron, she realised that this was the trap. She was left free and Rogers would suspect that she and Jack would try to talk contact each other and thus they would expose themselves. Someone had followed Mark!

"Follow me" she whispered to him

She pulled him up the stairs and into one of the empty rooms, and then listened as a girl opened the door outside.

She and Mark froze in place as they listened to the voices and the bootsteps.

"Bonjour" she heard a somewhat familiar male voice "Is the mistress Max here?"

"Yes sir, she is, who might I say is looking for her?"

"My name is Julian Byron"

She was stuck with Mark into a room and there was no way she could get him out. If she'd let him out the window, anybody outside could see it. If she pretended he was somebody else, surely the redcoats wouldn't have bought it. There was one awful, awful thing she could do … Yet as she heard the steps of the soldiers walking downstairs, Mark's calmness confused her.

She watched him unfold his bandana that hid a braided mohawk, as the steps she heard got closer and closer. She counted three sets of feet. She would have to … turn Mark in. Holy heavens, she would have to betray the man standing right next to her! He undid his braid with admirable speed, then parted the hair in the middle, over the shaved sides, leaving him with long wavy locks. Was this it? Changing his hairstyle? This would not fool anybody and if she attempted to defend his hasty disguise it would have been pitiful.

He unrolled the thick girdle from his hips to reveal that it was only a rolled up skirt that he then let down to cover his pants. The colorful skirt could distract attention from his face, yes, yet how much more could Mark do? Why did he have to be so cocky? She now heard the redcoats going up the stairs towards them, only a few yards away. She would have to turn him in … She barely could hold back the tears as she watched him reach under his shirt. What could she do?

Mark would end up in the hands of the authorities and he would not be let go until he would spill out Jack, Anne and Bartholomew's location... There was no stopping it, yet she could choose between trying to help Mark get away with his sorry disguise or outright betray him.. What were the odds that she could save them? … She almost broke into tears, yet then she saw that Mark undo some fastened fabric from under his shirt, revealing … breasts. Breasts! Max lost awareness over herself, her facial expression and her thoughts as she just looked at Mark undoing some buttons of his … her shirt and then tied it in a knot around … her slender waist.

"My name is Mary" she whispered, as the knock on the room door finally came

"Yes, come in!" she replied, trying to maintain her calm

"Bonjour, Madame" Byron replied as he stuck his smiling face through the door "We have been informed of a suspicious man coming here to your tavern"

Bonjour. The one word everybody knows, the one word all the men use to sound more friendly. As if showing her that they speak some of her language could mean that they would know something about her.

"We have not opened yet, perhaps he turned back?"

She watched Byron's gaze sweeping over the room, yet he did not seem to pay any extra attention to … Mary. Mary! How could she not have seen it? No beard, no mustache, only thin light hair on his … her arms. So many details betraying her womanhood, yet she had overlooked them all!

Byron took another sweep of the room, yet he was still frowning. Without asking for permission, he and his two men went on to open the closets, crouched to look under the bed and so on. Was it that obvious for them, from a single look, that Mark .. Mary … was unmistakably a woman? How could she not have seen it? She, out of all people, who had seen hundreds of men and women with and without clothes on. How much was it that she did not know? How could it be that anything slipped past her?

"Please" she said, as she realised that she had been keeping suspiciously quiet "Feel free to look around my tavern and its surroundings"

"We will"

She watched them turn and slowly head towards the door, with one of the soldiers throwing a look to Mary over his shoulder. She watched her discreetly bite her lip and then switching her gaze towards the floor, like any shy girl would ...

The redcoats shut the door behind them as Mary took all of her cockiness back and raised an eyebrow at her in pride.

"Mary … you need to go back and convince them to seek life elsewhere!"

"Hah! You want to turn their heads from something at which both Anne and Jack are of like mind?"

"Mary, if Bartholomew goes down, they will go down with him!"

"Well then, let's make sure that Bart won't go down, shall we?"

She stood there looking at the new Mary she had discovered and she realized that Rogers was right. She was afraid that Jack's ambition was greater than his.

She could not be on the side that would see her friends vanished off the face of the earth, yet neither could she help Bartholomew Roberts, a man whom she could not control in any way. She would have to do her best to play both sides and she was perfectly confident that she could do it again. She felt like she held a balance in her hand where both sides weighed equally to a degree in which a feather would tip the scales. She would need to side with the man who desecrated dear Eleanor's grave …. A madman who did not even know her. Solutions needed to be found.

"Mary, they have five ships and the governor has eight, not to mention the fort. What on earth are they planning?"

"I have no idea! Bart is the leader and he mostly keeps his plans to himself, but … I smelled something suspicious"

It was the first time that she saw Mark … Mary's voice turn low and her face without a smug smile.

"As I said" Mary went on "I was sent here with the two men who had the mission to dig up that woman's grave, but Bartholomew instructed me to shoot them and come back alone"

To shoot them? Truly, that seemed to serve no purpose, unless … they hid some secret.

"Then, among the things that we brought with us on the skiff I noticed something … One particular chest that I was not allowed to look at, a chest that they took with them when we arrived. Now putting those things together, I figured it must be-"

"- gold!"

The rumours estimated Bartholomew's fortune at two hundred thousand pounds. It made sense that he would not carry it with him to sea in the middle of conflict, yet why would he hide it in Nassau? Hiding in plain sight was a good strategy, yes, but there were so many questions about it.

"Now of course, I asked the men before I shot them, yet they did not tell me. So we got here at the sun set and before sun rose, they were back. Do you see something wrong in this?"

"Yes …. how could they have had the time to dig up six feet of dirt and hide a big chest?"

"Exactly … unless they had some help with it"

A third person whose moves she did not know and whose loyalties belonged to Bartholomew frightened her. Two hundred thousand pounds hidden away in the night, with no trace of it?

There was so much mystery, yet the explanation could have been simple, so simple, just like Mark's real identity. Bartholomew could have had unknown spies and hidden locations, or it could have been somebody she knew, somebody she would never suspect….

Elisabeth … No, no, that would have made her a double crosser! She was the woman she had welcomed one year ago, a runaway from Port Royal, she was the woman she had spared from the gallows… But Bartholomew did owe her … And two hundred thousand pounds were a fortune! And it would have explained so much …

"So, Max, I will leave and be back in about a week. Enough time for you to figure where that sweet sweet cache is. Then we will not depend on that madman for safety!"

She tucked away the thought in the back of her head, in the great pit of possibilities that she must always keep in mind. It was best if she did not tell anybody of her suspicion and let the players reveal their moves to her …