Charles sat there for a while, silent, assessing, smoking his cigarillo. He felt no urgency, even though their surroundings were entirely unknown to him, and danger could have been waiting around the trunk of any tree.

A Brit. He was barely that. He'd never really been a Brit; he'd never known a life like so many others had, like Jack had, like Flint had. He definitely had no love for the Crown.

"Wrong," Charles eventually said. "I'm my own man, I don't answer to any King. I don't answer to any man but myself."