“This is a savage, heart-pounding novel 'by one of the Canon’s great villains and full, as Silver himself says “of treasure, as there is such pleasure in the telling of it, like nipping from a glass of brandy in the eventide, a long eventide made of odds and chances with a red dawn in the the reckoning. And, he should be sure not to leave out the blood.'” -- MacMillan Library, SMP Winter 2008   There is a strong belief by many that people are born good.  Are they?  Others believe that people come into this world with sin.  What drives us to perform acts of kindness and what propels us to do evil?  These are the questions that I raise in SILVER.    Long John Silver is funny, strong, charming and handsome. He rose from abject poverty to great power and wealth.  He finds the woman of his dreams.  But, does he ever truly rise above his humble beginnings?  Is he happy?  Mary is the love of his life, and yet he spends most of his life solving ciphers and clues, searching for the answer to a profound mystery that goes back hundreds of years.   Why do we like this villain so much?  Why are we attracted to him and his band of pirates, each one more nefarious than the next?   Silver tells the story of his life in my novel, but can we trust him?  We find him, when the novel begins, locked in his cabin by a captain that he knows but refuses to name.  Why?  What does this captain know about Mary, the love of Silver's life?  Is there really a treasure or is it just dust that falls through their hands?   These are the questions that I raise in SILVER, as we walk through Londontown of old, plunder, roam the high seas, find love and search for the answers to a great mystery.

I am Silver, and there is no other pirate like me on these waters. No other. Not you and not Kwik, not Smith and not Gunn, not Bones nor Black John. Not damned Pew. Not Bloody Bill. Not Solomon. And not Jim Hawkins, that son of a slattern.

You mustered Smollet and my hearties to blazes. That was considerate of you, as they would have died from the fever by now if you had not murdered them first.

I know what you will tell your Georgey, that middling monarch that now pays your blood wages. You will tell him that you captured me in paradise. You will not tell him that Smollet fell into a faint and was well on his way to the pintles when he, snagged in the ratlines, spied your ship sailing toward us. Smollet was turvy and saw your First Rate skimming the sky, upturned, its hull breaching the heavens whilst its topsail fathomed below. We grounded on a reef. Georgey likes his romances. Tell him that Smollet glimpsed a phantom ship. That will please the wretch.

This ain’t paradise. This is the South Seas. Paradise is a gale that rocks the planks and tears the timbers and blows rime in your eyes. Paradise is a ruthless place. The rain hammers you into bits and casts you for your life. The lanyard runs through your hands and cleaves them. You laveer through the wind and gybe the sails until your arms cramp. You hang on to the gunwale so as not to end in the soundings. There ain’t a bit of paradise down there in them soundings, but only Old Nick and his halters with their whips and brands and sloth-eyed children.

Tell me of a better life than climbing the cordage or riding the forefoot. Any snotty or tar worth his earring would go weatherly to oblivion rather than remain on land.

I have consulted my charts and you may be interested to know that the Linda Maria was stranded on the Rose Atoll when you appeared to us from out of the vapour and the rain. You will want to cite the name of the reef in your logbook when you provide your account to King George. I give all the glory to the reef and not to you, my sir. The month, by the by, is January and the year is 1715. It has no meaning to me, but it surely does to you. You have been searching for me for so long now, but not as long as we searched for Treasure Island.

Aye, the Bible. I should write about the Bible first. What would this tale be without that Bible that young Edward brought aboard my ship? It marked our course, and we followed that book from our youth to our dog years, trying to solve the secrets inside it.

I knew that Edward’s Bible held a secret as soon as I opened it and seen the word “Blood” spilled on the first page, just ’neath the headpiece. It takes a singular creature to write the word “Blood” in a Bible, and mind you to write it in crimson. The rest of the ciphers were written in ink as black as the scribe’s soul, a fine fellow by my reckoning all in all.

I weighed that book in my hand, taking it from Edward before he claimed it back, and though it could fit in the palm of my hand, it was heavy with deception and double-dealing. It had a back and front of leather and a sturdy binding, the better to keep its secrets. It was an old book, some worn, some tired from all its trickery, mayhap hundreds of years old, that Bible.

I ain’t given to sentiment, but if I had never resolved them ciphers, I still would have held that book to my heart for the sake of the deceit in it. “Blood,” the master brigand wrote in it. “Blood” he inscribed as his legacy. “Blood” he planted like a weed in the Garden of Eden. “Blood” he scratched out as neatly as his own epitaph.

I AM SICK with the fever and almost blind. My hide is blistered. My bones ache. I coughed so hard that I almost blustered my head off. Do not be vexed on account of my health though, my sweet. I will not faint nor fail. I will not keel over until I kill you. Stand me plumb so that I may take a drink of rum on account of my impending betterment.

I hate Englishmen.

I hate Englishmen, though I hate the Portuguese more. I despise the Spaniards most of all.

I claim no country but the North Sea, for I am Silver, Long John Silver. I set forth here my true adventures, the good, the evil, the blessed, and the cursed of my life at sea, I Silver.

The bottom of the sea is the right place for me, but you would bring your dear captain to Newgate Square to swing by the twine.

I would rather be hanged by the French. At least they would give me a last meal that would be better than biscuits. It is true that I was born an Englishman, but I would expire a Frenchman.

I am not your prisoner.

I have dashed captains from the Tortugas to Pimlico Sound. I have eaten the bread and fruit of every land and downed it all with Spanish wine. Good wine is the only attribute of Spain, by the by, as it has no other attribute except fast horses, and I assign all the credit for that to the horses.

You will not hold me here. I do not keep company with pink-livered Englishmen.

Old Nick flung hard seas and storms against me, but I never gave in to Nick or his crew. Who are you compared to Nick and his gibbets and demons? Nick tried to sentence me under his swells, but I always cut his lines. I aim to trip up Nick by his hooves. My plan is simple. The day that I go under I will challenge him to a duel. I will cheat. Nick will gallop at me, and I will, all atremble, lope at him. Just when Nick is about to grip me, I will tip my cane. Nick will tumble and his halters will all bow down before me. I will condemn Nick, I will, to a seven master. I will make him shine its deck from bulkhead to bow every day. Or, I might set him up in Londontown as a chimney sweep and fix him in the top of a flue out of pure mischief, so that Nick could glimpse but never get close to the flames. Or, I might put him in Parliament. Nick could do some damage there. But that would be a form of benevolence, and so it ain’t much likely.

The Linda Maria is my ship. The men that sail on her call her mother, for she is no less to them. Who are you to hold her wheel? Have you scrubbed her pine like I done, day after day, on Black John’s orders? You have not, sir. Have you mended her like I done, tied and twisted her bits of hemp twelve times by twelve times until her ropes were sturdy enough for a younker to swing by them? Have you scraped her free of all barnacles of honesty and integrity that she may have picked up in port? No, sir. I have seen to her best interests. Have you steered her clear of the rocks and floes that would do her harm? Have you brought her into harbour by night, by moonlight, so that she might show herself to her highest advantage? No, you have not. I have minded her from the day that I first come aboard her when I was a lad, to the day that I become her captain, and even now whilst you tramp her deck. Her timbers creak and moan. She knows that you are not worthy of her.

This is my history, and if I write it laggardly, it is only for the enjoyment that it brings me to recount it. My plume is from a ship, one of your King’s ships, that I caught off Arcadia. I skirted Newfoundland and found her beached in foul weather. I made her brief acquaintance and killed most of her crew. I detained some of the crew in the hold and sold them to the Caribs for nuts and sugar and such. The Caribs ate the Englishmen. The Caribs have peculiar tastes and apparently enjoy their stew stringy with Englishmen. This plume is made from a peacock feather. My parchment is from that same ship, and if it is worthy of Georgey and his decrees, it is good enough for me. I do not know the origin of the ink. I have no doubt that it is exceptional. The ink runs some, like English blood, but the blame must be placed on the scribe.

I have charts of all the seas that I sailed and of all the lands that I afflicted. I am pleased to tell you that I stole every one of these charts. I took this cross-staff that I am holding from one of your fellow compatriots this past season, and may he rot where I left him, which is just off Barbary in the event that you are looking for him. You will find him in the tuck of his ship, on account of his rank, and his mates well below there. I am unable to navigate with the cross-staff in my cabin, but that is all the same with me, as I shall use it soon enough when I escape. I shall not need it to navigate your horizons. They are marly and bleak, my hearty. Marly and bleak.

This is a tale of time and distance.

Some captains gauge time by observing the run of the tide, whilst others watch the wash in the waves. They tally the speed of the ship against the markings on their charts. I prefer to throw seaweed, or preferably a man, or preferably a Spaniard, in the water, as the science is the same. The hard cases, like Black John, threw a knotted line into the water and determined the ship’s speed and so the distance traveled in that manner. That is too much work for my hearties and me. We use a sundial or an hourglass to reckon time. If we forget to turn the hourglass or look at the sundial then, as far as we are concerned, time has stopped. No one is particularly concerned about it. We are never late to a murder.

Now, distance. Some captains measure distance by the Pole Star and the sun. Some send their tars into the nest to ken from point to point. Some captains sail along coasts and mark the landfalls. I mark distance with my right hand. My forefinger, held high to the heavens, marks two degrees. My wrist, so held, marks eight degrees. My murdering hand marks eighteen degrees. I hold it up to the blue and the black and sail. My hand has never failed me except in a fog, or now, in this fever. I say that distance is of no importance either. It runs through your fingers like the buntline but does not attach itself to anything. You cannot tie it to the square sail or pull it up the yard.

Aye, and this is a tale of that Bible and of gold too. And of treasure. Aye, and of treachery too.

I began writing my history this very day, my hearty, for this is the day that you locked me in my cabin. I hold my plume in my starboard hand and my dagger in my lee hand. I will damn you with these words, I will. I will damn you.

You did not speak a word to me after you killed my men. Not a word, and after all these years too.

You shut me in my cabin, but I have reckoned every day that I have been here. Aye, and I will pin my dagger to your heart for each day that I am here. I marked the exact time that your tar turned the key in this lock.

You should fear me.

I will come for you. I will. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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