Mark Read sits on the deck of a ship and contemplates the solitude of being at sea, observes his hands, strong hands, aware that a calm often precedes a storm. He remembers how, when he was a child, the crew warned him away from the quay in case he got caught and put aboard a ship, but that was what he wanted, to escape, for him prison was the land. They told him stories about great wealth plundered at sea. There is a party below, and Anne Bonny comes up to invite him to join them. He says he may come later, not now, he wants to continue observing the solitude, to make up his mind, to find the right words if he can. He remembers when, on New Providence Island, he first set eyes on Anne. They were in a tavern, and Mark had gone there to drink, not because he liked to drink, but because it was a good way to observe what was happening and pass unnoticed. Anne was outspoken and almost got into a fight with another woman, but her enthusiasm was curtailed by a certain Madame Ebony, who seemed to be able to read Mark’s mind and anticipate his desires. He was disturbed when he saw Anne plant a kiss on the lips of the woman she almost had a fight with, but declined to dance with her and hid beneath his hat.
Some of the pirates reminisce about Edward Teach, ‘Blackbeard’, and the Blockade of Charleston. Anne says she was there, and this taught her the need to be free. Mark also wants to be free, free of the prison of serving the King, free of the prison of having to do what he’s told. Mark recalls how he fought for the King in Flanders with a soldier named John Fleming, who believed in his country. Mark, on the other hand, fought for himself, so that he could take his own decisions. He remembers how, in New Providence, he shared with Anne a desire for freedom, the will not to be trapped in his own body, and first met the pirate Jack Rackham, rumoured to be Anne’s lover. Madame Ebony had seen how Mark looked at Anne, but was more concerned with how Anne looked at Mark. That was why Jack left him on land. She encouraged Mark to follow Anne wherever she went and talked to him about tribades. She then took off her clothes so that Mark could touch her naked body and learn who he really was, touch his own freedom. Life is short, and he doesn’t want to be a silence. When Anne returns to deck from the party, he takes a decision and gives her a kiss. Anne invites him down to the captain’s cabin. Mark hesitates for a moment, begins to say something. Anne replies that she already knows. Mark Read – Mary Read – is really a woman. This is the end of the first part of the novel, ‘Blue’.
The second part, ‘Red’, is divided into six separate chapters. In the first, after boarding a ship that puts up no resistance, Mark and Anne come together again, search out each other’s bodies, but are caught by Jack, who is surprised to discover that Mark is actually a woman. Jack leaves them to sleep in the cabin. Mark remembers again his days as a cavalryman, alongside John Fleming, for whom he felt a strong attraction. What others thought was a wound turned out to be his period. He had to change the cloth he was using to soak up the blood, change his trousers. At night, he went into the forest to be on his own, to try to resist his attraction for Fleming. He is roused from his thoughts by a kiss from Anne. When he returns to where he should have been sleeping, another crew member tells him to be careful with Jack and assures him that he has the support of the rest of the crew. Mark wonders what it would be like to tell the crew he is a woman. He again remembers how the other soldiers in Flanders found him strange, the way he sought refuge in the forest at night. Fleming was worried that he had offended him in some way, until he went to him in the forest at night and Mark revealed his true self. Fleming and Read then got married and opened a tavern, but Mary could not get used to her new life as a married woman. On their wedding night, she didn’t bleed. Fleming asked if she had slept with another man. Mary replied that she couldn’t have, after all she’d only been a woman for a couple of months (it was Madame Ebony who told Mark about the hymen and how it could break for reasons other than sexual intercourse). The people in the village found her strange. She couldn’t get used to a woman’s clothing, to speaking with a woman’s voice. In the end, she ran away, went back to being Mark Read. That is why she is now afraid of becoming Mary again in front of the others.
In the second chapter, Mary reveals her true nature to the other members of the crew, who aren’t that interested. They spot a merchant ship in the distance and decide to play a joke by pretending to be a ghost ship. Travelling on the merchant ship is the author Charles Johnson, who is keen to write a book about pirates since everybody has been fascinated by them ever since the death of Blackbeard. When they board the merchant ship, Mary is frustrated that no one puts up a fight and goes about punching anyone she can find until another pirate tells her to calm down and taunts her for being a woman. Mary is not bothered, she now knows to keep an eye on this pirate, Richards. Meanwhile Johnson reveals to Jack his intention of writing a book about pirates. Jack is pleased and invites him to talk to all his boys… and girls. Johnson is surprised to discover that his best men are in fact two women. Anne and Johnson get off to a bad start. Anne suspects his motives in wanting to write a book, she thinks he has other interests, such as making money and becoming famous himself. Johnson, however, is more interested in Mary, who continues to dress as a man. Anne recalls her past as the daughter of a rich merchant, how men came to ask her father for her hand, but she wanted to follow her own path. Anne is convinced that men will always treat women as they want to, interpret them according to their own wishes. Mary, on the other hand, is keen to tell her story, not just to live in the moment, but through Johnson’s writing to live on in the future. When Anne is asleep, Mary comes to an agreement with Johnson to tell her story just as it is, including her love for Anne, their relationship. Johnson agrees, although he is not sure he will be able to stick to their agreement and feels he is duty-bound to save Mary from the unpredictable Anne.
In the third chapter, Mary Read tells her story, how she was born when her father was at sea, how her elder brother, Mark, died and, in order not to lose the money they were receiving from her paternal grandmother, Mary took Mark’s place and pretended to be a boy. She remembers their visits to her grandmother, for whom Mark, as a boy, was the apple of her eye, while her other granddaughter, Louise, was a good-for-nothing. When her grandmother died and there was no more money to be had, her mother told Mary to dress as a girl, to stop being a stable boy, which she had enjoyed, and to become a serving girl instead. Mary missed being a boy, wearing trousers, running around, talking in a loud voice. She didn’t want to be condemned to stay at home and get married. One day, when she was sent by her mother to buy some cloth in London, a young man on the coach offered to see her safely home, but tried to rape her instead. Mary fought him off, stole some male clothes from the neighbour, took what was left of the money for the cloth and ran away. At the age of thirteen, she worked on one of the King’s warships as a cannon boy, learned how to wield a sword and was introduced to the art of navigation by the captain. She then joined the King’s infantry in Flanders, went back to riding a horse in the cavalry and finally got married to Fleming. She missed the sea and joined a Dutch merchant ship travelling to the Indies, which was boarded by pirates, among them Jack Rackham. That was when she became a pirate, on board the sloop Ranger, whose captain was Charles Vane. When the pirates boarded another ship, Mary went first and came away with a stack of weapons. She enjoyed the camaraderie, the chaos, her share of the booty. On a trip to New Providence, known as the ‘pirates’ republic’, she met Madame Ebony. At one point, Johnson offends Mary by referring to Anne as an ‘anomaly’. As a result, Mary stops telling him her story, and Johnson begins to realize he misses her gestures, her presence, and may have fallen in love. He still wishes to save her from what he sees as the corruption of a pirate’s life and finds it impossible to accept that she can love another woman.
