Europe in 1775 was as calm and oppressive as a coming storm.
In September, the New World Fleet of the Royal Navy of Great Britain entered rotation.
The new Governor, Elijah Drake, has been killed in a storm aboard his new flagship, the HMS Lion. Baron Drake, aboard his new flagship, the HMS Lion, the Royal Navy's newest third class ship, was killed in a storm on his way to his appointment.
Then six months flew by ...
Lorraine lay in a modest room with her eyes closed.
The brown wooden door was half-open and half-closed on the left-hand side, and the log-pieced bedpan settled across from the door.
There are streaks of mold on the walls.
Following the mold stains, at the end of the bed stood a half-used cabinet with a folio top and five drawers on the bottom.
The fine cracks in the wooden frame were the only pattern on it, and if one stared at them, one's mind would be uncontrollably tempted to guess when the cabinet had collapsed.
They were the only objects in this room, and this, in turn, was Lorraine's new home where she had been living at a snail's pace for six whole months.
Devon, the small town of Tavistock.
This place is less than two kilometers away from Drake's hereditary baron's noble estate, a field road connecting the two places, but for Lorraine, it is like a heavenly barrier.
He is the second youngest of the Drake family, or rather, was.
Six months ago, his doting father died on his way to the New World.
Four months ago, his older brother inherited the title and suddenly, as if he were a different man, threw him, a bastard, and his unnamed heathen mother out of the old house.
Half a month ago, Helena, who had been in poor health, became ill and died.
At that moment, the sixteen-year-old Lorraine finally disconnected completely from the world.
He was free, whether that freedom was what he wanted or not.
Lorraine opened her eyes, lifted the worn backpack hanging at the end of the bed, and walked out of the room with no expression on her face.
It was a momentous day, and his nominal lord, and nominal last guardian, Shaq. Francis Drake. Drake would tell him what the family had finally done with him.
What was the result?
Lorraine didn't care.
He walked into the living room with an icy smile, and when he looked up, he saw Shaq, who had been standing there pensively for a long time.
Shaq was dressed in a proper tuxedo and held a short staff inlaid with emeralds, his handsome face looked raw from his seriousness, and his sea-blue eyes gleamed, but he did not look at Lorraine.
Lorraine tugged the corners of her mouth dismissively, "Couldn't you find a place to stay in the hired farmer's room for a moment, my dear Master Drake?"
Shak still didn't bother to look at Lorraine.
His gaze swam, as if the moldy patches crisscrossing the wall were an aesthetically pleasing sea chart.
"Do not sneer, my foolish brother." He said, "You should remember that mockery is the false dignity of the weak; it is nothing else."
"But I've always felt that self-righteous arrogance is the hypocrisy." Lorraine walked over to herself, dragged her chair out of the way, and heaved her feet up on the table in front of Shaq, "Where is my judgment, noble lord?"
Shaq's brow furrowed imperceptibly.
He stomped his cane, and the butler, Forki, entered with a large leather case, saluting Lorraine before carefully lifting it up and setting it on the table where Lorraine had set her feet.
Lorraine inclined her head to look.
This is a very nice leather case, buffalo leather, 90% new, light brown leather printed with clear clover patches, one after the other, blooming with the Irish countryside.
Lorraine didn't ask what was in the chest, just nudged it toward Forki.
The chest quickly opened, revealing the well-organized grouping inside before Lorraine.
To the left and right were parchment instruments framed in glass and heather, and in the center were three hundred gold pounds tied up neatly in leather cords.
In England, three hundred pounds was a huge sum of money, and it would take a middle-class family about ten years to save that amount, even if they didn't eat or drink.
Lorraine couldn't help but laugh out loud, "You are a generous lord."
"As far as the family is concerned, you need to have a decent life even if you're banished, it represents the face of Drake."
"They run a pretty tight ship."
Lorraine stopped paying attention to the gold pounds and lowered her foot, her slender fingers sliding gently across the glass.
Two instruments ...
The paperwork on the left hand side is from the big-name Cambridge University Law School and consists of a formal permission to enter, while on the right hand side ...
[In the name of the King, I hereby grant Mr. Drake the right to defend his lawful interests on the seas against the enemies of the realm ... Elizabeth I, on March 27, 1571]
This was the privateering license that Lorraine had been looking forward to for a year.
Two hundred years ago, Elizabeth I awarded it to Francis Drake. Drake, and with it, the Dragon of the Seven Seas has traveled the world, from an insignificant, bankrupt merchant, to a legend of the sea.
Today, two hundred years later, it still has the force of sacred and inviolable law. With this thin piece of paper, the King of England authorized merchants to act as pirates at any time and legally, plundering enemy ships throughout the world in the name of the kingdom.
Seeing it, Lorraine laughed even more freely.
"Is that your final word, lawyer or businessman?"
"That is the family's verdict." Shaq still stood straight, "The family believes that an unworthy grandson's choice of demeaning work is a more appropriate reason for expulsion than having illegitimate children and heretics in the family."
"Sure enough it's Drake's face again."
Lorraine spat, pulled the privateer's license out of the case, flipped her hand and stuffed it into her backpack, whirled around, and headed out the door.
Moments after brushing shoulders with Shaq, he suddenly said, "You know what? I smell freedom."
"That's your mistake." Shaq responded coldly.
"It's not an illusion." Lorraine said with a single, decisive word, "When I come back and give it all back to you in front of my mother, you'll know that it's not an illusion."
Shaq laughed for the first time, "You're broke now, and you expect to come back before I die of old age?"
"I'll be back." Lorraine gently shook her head up, "Shaq, you are a descendant of the first Lord Drake, a traditional and proud noble lord of England ... but I am not."
"The blood of Francis Drake, the dragon of the Seven Seas, runs in my veins. Drake's blood, the blood of Yngg. Ynge Arnason, Lord of Iceland. The descendants of pirates never accept handouts; we prefer to take what we want ourselves."
...
Heavy rain came out of nowhere.
Pouring rain washed over the streets and hills of Tavistock, washing away the stains and dispelling the gloom.
On a sun-backed hillside stands a lone unnamed new monument without a cross, four-sided and slanting to the northwest.
It is topped with a dainty pansy flower, and below it an epitaph with exactly the same meaning is engraved in three languages: English, Viking and Simplified Chinese.
[Here lies a stupid woman]
[She was once a daughter of the sea]
[She gave up the sea for love, but failed to recover her sea after losing her beloved]
[She longs to smell the sea]
[She fails and her body dissolves into bubbles in this valley where the sea is nowhere to be seen.]
[May Nyold not forget her, and be able to whip up a storm on the sea and sweep through the dry valleys.]
[May she find her way back to the ship city of Nooton and not float in the sky forever]
[May her soul rest in peace]
[May her lover not go to heaven]
[They first met at sea, and they should end up together at sea.]
[A Ghost That Doesn't Exist in the World, Jung Anhak, Engraved in C.E. 1776]