Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel

by Mark Keating

  ‘The South Sea Company is the most heavily speculated. It is the cornerstone. It cannot possibly return on its investment. There is not enough coin in the whole of Europe for it to do so.’

  Devlin was unmoved. ‘And none of you foresaw this would happen? Did you not profit? So a few rich men lose some guineas. What matter? That may teach the dogs a thing or two.’

  Townshend’s eyes boiled. ‘No, no, sir! You do not understand the world!’

  Another insult to pocket.

  ‘Whom you perceive to be a rich man loses some of his backing. No matter, you say. But then he cannot afford to pay his tailor’s bill. What then, sir, what then? The tailor cannot pay the merchant trader for his cloth. The merchant cannot pay his sailors for their lading. The sailors cannot buy food for their children’s mouths. And so it goes on, sir. The companies do not have the money to pay back their loans to the banks that helped them form; the banks then do not have the money to lend to new companies or pay back that which they borrow from each other, until the whole kingdom falters under a mountain of debt and dishonour! A mountain of promise has given birth to only a tiny mouse!’

  ‘Hold, Townshend!’ The prince snapped. He had heard enough. He had heard it all for months now, since first Walpole had brought the matter to his happy rooms and suggested the pirate to their cause. This was a time of action not discourse. Townshend bowed his head.

  The prince stood and everyone stood with him as always.

  ‘This fellow has been courteous enough to travel half the world at our request. He escaped from gaol mere hours ago only to come here so and listen to you trouts! He holds a sword, not a pen, for us! You wish him to save you all and yet you treat him like a schoolboy!’ He came and stood next to Devlin; placed a white hand upon the pirate’s shoulder. ‘I will tell him what he needs to know. Enough of your paper and wash!’

  He took Devlin by his arm like a bride and led the awkward pirate away to his private rooms beyond the table. Devlin looked at Albany Holmes, the gentleman he had marooned two years ago and had never expected to see again. The hate-filled look he returned suggested that Albany had long hoped their first encounter was not their last.

  The next room was as large as the first, with a simpler fireplace but the same grand windows from floor to ceiling with black velvet curtains beneath gilt pelmets. Stools, loungers, cushions and small tables suggested some kind of drawing room. Doors in every corner suggested yet further rooms. The only occupant was the skinny black form of Timms, seated at a small desk in the centre. At the door’s closing, secretary Timms stood to attention, carefully lifting his chair rather than pushing it back over the enormous Asian rug. After the chamber of strangers the familiar if hostile sight of Timms lifted Devlin’s spirits.

  The prince moved towards the light of the windows and signalled with a hand for Devlin to follow. ‘That is better.’ His tone was relieved. ‘Such bores these politicians are. Not fighting men like you or I. Save for Stanhope of course. He has blood. As you and I. The Spanish war. The Jacobite problem.’ No further word was necessary. George had led the Allied cavalry at the battle of Oudenarde during the Spanish wars. His horse was shot from under him but still he fought on. He was twenty-five years old then. Twenty-three years later he would be the last British king to lead his army into battle.

  Devlin joined him by the window, for the purpose it seemed of George showing him a porcelain vase of red and blue tulips sitting in the light. George cradled and weighed the bowl of one in his hand. ‘Perfect, Captain! An allusion straight from God.’

  Devlin watched the prince caress the flower. This day was quickly becoming one of Devlin’s more memorable experiences. He felt no threat or animosity from the Whigs or the royalty smiling amiably at him. But the splendour, the remoteness from his world – he felt the tethers binding him to his men growing thinner with each piece of gilt and opulence, so far removed from his wooden sparsity of ship and tools, mire and blood. He was a servant again, quiet and respectful. As shy as when the butcher appraised him up and down and bartered with his father for his price.

  The prince’s attention stayed focussed on his flower. ‘These are expensive decorations, Captain. Two guineas’ worth. Yet one can buy a nosegay for a penny that smells sweeter. Last century, Captain, the price for one bulb could fetch two hundred and twenty-five pounds. The Dutch did little else but trade in tulips. They stopped making things or growing anything else for their people. Tulips became everything.’ He peeled a petal and popped it into his mouth. ‘I could even be imprisoned for such an act as that.’ He placed the flower back with a ridiculous chortle. ‘Yet it is just a flower. But if one man – the right man – says one thing is valuable, it becomes so. And men go mad for it.’ He moved away and Devlin followed a step behind. ‘The diamond has the same power. In the world they are often found at one’s feet; washed up in rivers, picked like potatoes.’ He spun to Devlin with a raised finger. ‘But they are not found here. As the tulip, they are exotic, absent. That makes them rare. They are on the other side of the world. And one man tells another man that they are valuable and they become so.’

  Devlin had a piece to add, and scaled his voice as politely as he could. ‘I have some experience of porcelain along those lines.’ He could not bring himself, even deliberately, to inject any title in his address to his companion. The prince did not appear to notice but Timms flashed a violent eye at Devlin.

  ‘Exactly!’ George beamed. ‘Once the myth is broken it is like a fairy tale outgrown.’ He picked out the remainder of the petal from his teeth and dropped it to the floor. ‘But it is just a flower after all.’

  The prince puffed out his chest. A hand on Devlin’s shoulder. He patted him like a favoured dog; almost a tear in his eye.

  ‘My father is the appointed head of the South Sea Company. Half his government sits on its board. Almost all of them have interests in its success. But it is finished. It will break.’ He moved to the table where Timms stood. ‘Come September, when the Company must pay its dividends, the pot will be empty. As much as I would enjoy my father experiencing such public embarrassment I do not wish it on his people.’ He gestured to Timms, his first acknowledgement of the black-coated presence. ‘Timms will explain. I ask, personally, for you to aid us. To aid me. Far beyond any monetary reward. A royal hand will be at your command.’ A tear truly welled in his eye now, as if emotion could move Devlin to action more than coin.

  Timms cleared his throat. ‘The plan, Captain, is that you will secure the “Regent” diamond – as the Duke of Orleans has christened it – secretly and without arousing suspicion. You will exchange it for the replica so its absence is never missed. Once returned the diamond will be cut into smaller stones, the object of which is that the smaller gems will be enough security to keep the South Sea Company from collapsing. The diamonds will underwrite the debts. All will be well. The Company secured. Your reward given.’ He paused, swallowed, the final words given almost apologetically.

  ‘You have two weeks to turn the tide of fortune.’

  Devlin burst back into the main room, flinging wide the doors, and the men at the table started and ducked at the wild entrance. The prince and Timms stood behind.

  ‘Two weeks!’ He began to circle the table, a panther’s creep, stalking around the wigs and paunches, their heads following him like dogs watching their master’s plates. ‘Last night you were willing to have me rot in Newgate for a week if I had not taken matters into my own! What then? Would you have given me a week to snatch your gem?’

  Walpole stood. ‘Just so, Captain. Your resourcefulness has given us a wealth of time and we are honoured to you. The Company is to hold a general meeting on September 8th. We need the diamond – that is the new “diamonds” – to give a positive to that meeting; to claim that those diamonds represent merely a promise of the Company’s future. Of course if you had come to us sooner our time would not be so limited.’

  Devlin stopped. ‘I had guessed at some point the blame wou
ld fall at my feet. Though I hadn’t judged so soon.’

  Walpole, his statesmanship his mark, was unruffled. ‘Time is our enemy. The Company’s reports are due next month. Our intelligence informs that the diamond is to be sent for setting in a new crown in a matter of days. We are committed to not allowing that to happen.’

  ‘And why me!’ Devlin raised his arms. ‘You must have hundreds of agents more willing than I. More worthy than I.’

  ‘And more trustful,’ Walpole resumed his seat. ‘Do not presume in particular that we flatter you, Captain. Our task must be vouchsafed to as few souls as possible. To include our own agencies in this matter would be suffering to the end of it. You have your own ship, your own men and a talent for theft.’

  ‘But why me? You could lift a thousand pirates who might bow more. Why my head to risk?’

  Albany Holmes snarled from the back of his hand. ‘Parlez-vous français, Capitaine?’

  Devlin understood. That was it then. Not his competence or fortitude, although his history had no doubt played a part: his selection was due to his other life, his life before this one.

  Before becoming Coxon’s servant, before being whisked into this pirate life, he had lived for two years along the French coast in Brittany. He existed as a poor fisherman, hiding from injustice in London, whence he fled to avoid a murder charge but where he had originally run to, dodging a noose in his native Kilkenny – some shot had cracked the teeth of a magistrate’s wife as she bit into his poached game.

  It had been a good few months in London at an anchorsmith’s with a man named Kennedy, almost learning a trade until the old man’s murder, most likely by his dog of a son, took him to his feet again. Devlin was innocent, but an Irishman was wise to fear English justice.

  He had even spent some time in the Marine Royale, the French navy. Had been to Paris and seen the great privateer René Duguay-Trouin, now chef d’escardre of the Marine Royale.

  Devlin spoke French. Spoke it well. That was it then, nothing more.

  A conspiring chortle lifted around the table at Albany’s words. Walpole raised his voice above it. ‘Your knowledge of the language and the coast will be invaluable Captain, I am sure, but more important is your secrecy and subtlety.’

  Devlin turned away from the table and went to the window to look over the square.

  ‘I take it, Captain,’ Walpole pitched over to the window, ‘that you accept our proposal?’

  The prince and Timms crossed the threshold of the room, the others rising as they did so. All waited for the answer.

  Devlin, his eyes still on the square below, spoke slowly. ‘And what would happen if I did not? Now that I have heard all this, I wonder.’

  Walpole sighed. ‘Then I’m afraid I shouldn’t wonder – especially after your activities last night – that you may not get out of this city alive, sir.’

  Devlin turned. The evil on his face was the least of their expectations. Walpole especially shrank from it, while Albany again touched his sword.

  Devlin looked beyond the men at the table straight at Timms. ‘You’ve not told them?’

  Timms found himself blushing as all eyes fell upon him. He survived the stares by addressing himself only to his prince.

  ‘I’m afraid, Your Highness, that I have neglected to inform that the captain did not arrive at Falmouth as instructed. Nor come to London with just one other.’

  George’s smile vanished. The noble prince returned, his glare for Timms alone. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The captain informed me, last night in the gaol . . .’ the words stuck in his gullet and Timms looked at a point above his prince’s head, not wishing to meet his eye. ‘He has brought his ship with him. His whole crew apparent.’

  The table exploded with flung papers and cries of outrage and disgust. Devlin shattered the tableau, more suited to the hustings, with a shrill whistle.

  He crooked a finger at the prince and beckoned him to the window. Amused again both by the pirate’s flavour and the splutter of the Whigs, the prince went so and Devlin gave him room; showed him the game in the square.

  Devlin leant in close to the prince’s ear and pointed out those he had posted to watch the house. Obediently each seemed to turn and look up at the house. Each had a sword at his side, a brace of pistols hanging from his belt. Devlin tapped the glass with a dirty nail to draw the prince’s eye down to the front of the house. The two sentries were sharing a pipe with a big man in a long black coat, distinguished against the smarter set of the square by his bald head and red beard.

  ‘At my signal,’ Devlin whispered. ‘They come.’

  George backed away from the window. ‘What signal?’ he asked, but already his eyes had fallen to the small turn-off pistol, smaller than the hand it now sat in, which was pointed at his belly. The weapon had been hidden somewhere in the folds of the pirate’s clothes but was now revealed.

  For a moment Devlin enjoyed George’s revulsion then shifted the pistol harmlessly to the window. ‘I shoot the glass, perhaps.’

  The prince straightened and turned back to the table of shocked, frozen faces that had glimpsed the now-vanished pistol. He did not move away from the pirate.

  ‘It appears, Walpole, that perhaps it would be ourselves who would not leave alive. The pirate has men all about.’

  Walpole stood, his voice unperturbed, weary of the drama. ‘In that case, Your Highness, may you permit me to escort captain Devlin further. Set him on his task and meet the men he needs to know.’ He lowered his chin to Devlin. ‘That is if you will permit me safe passage, Captain?’

  Devlin nodded. ‘But they will follow.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Some in clandestine companies combine;

  Erect new stocks to trade beyond the line;

  With air and empty names beguile the town,

  And raise new credits first, then cry ’em down;

  Divide the empty nothing into shares,

  And set the crowd together by the ears.

  Daniel Defoe.

  The value of a diamond falls to but two points: its weight, which can be estimated in the rough by even the most common hand; and its water. The water is the diamond’s clarity, its caelestis property, the heavenly clarity and depth that beguiles and tempts even the gods to possess it.

  In the ancient world the diamond was revered for its supernatural aspects, its eerie nature, almost forgotten in modern times. Rubbed upon flesh a diamond will glow in a darkened room as well as when exposed for hours to the sun and then removed to the dark. The lapidaries, the artisans of precious stones for us simpler Europeans, examine their gems in the light; in India it is done at night.

  Steeped in hot water a diamond will also glow, and brushed with silk the same occurs – magic in a world where the new science was pushing back the old mysteries. And where the diamond is, there too is gold. It was no coincidence that the hunt for alluvial gold in the South Americas and the Indies first brought diamonds to the surface, the two linked forever with wealth and avarice, sharing the same properties of portable wealth and the same power to make even the most sordid hand beautiful.

  The Pitt Diamond held a water quality of the highest level, a true transparency. After cutting, it weighed just over one-hundred and thirty-six carats and when tossed in the hand, no greater description befits the magnificence of the most valuable diamond in the world than that it shared the size and weight of a small plum.

  It was supposed that Pitt had settled for a third of the diamond’s true worth, perhaps in the same sweat of dread that persuaded the merchant Jamchund to lower his price to be rid of it.

  Between the murdered slave who gouged a hole in his own leg to hide the stone and the captain who murdered him before taking his own life in remorse, one can suppose in a more fanciful age that it was more than the diamond’s eternal beauty that haunted its owner’s dreams.

  So Pitt accepted a sale for a third of its value to the ruler of France. To be rid perhaps. After expenses he still came awa
y with at least one hundred thousand pounds, four times the yearly income of the King. The cutting of the diamond into smaller stones might make ten times that – enough to warrant enlisting a pirate to steal it back.

  First, Change Alley in Cornhill then on to Jonathan’s Coffee house, an area of London unfamiliar to Devlin although the narrowness of the ways and the shadow from the crowd of buildings was very much recalled. The London streets of his memory had looked much the same, but their trading of purse for the flash of a knife perhaps had more honesty than the financial chimeras lurking in this quarter.

  A two mile walk meant nothing to Devlin’s boots, but the thinness of Walpole’s soles meant his black coach was called. Devlin had never been in a coach. Alighting, he took the step down daintily, as if afraid to fall, and hoped that his men, shadowing them, did not see.

  He had almost sailed the world, met almost every foreigner in it and was knowledgeable in all its coin and politics that ended at the point of a sword. But he stepped down gingerly like a child before Walpole’s smirk.

  ‘Have you ever had tea, Captain?’ Walpole pointed his cane to the alley.

  ‘Daily, Minister. Coffee too. Never paid a penny for it.’

  ‘That’s my boy!’ He slapped Devlin’s back. ‘If they ever bill me I’ll be broke!’

  Small-paned windows made up the frontage, revealing the crowd within. A single door opened into a large hall that reason insisted should not have been inside such a narrow alley.

  The room was full. Fawn and white coats under black hats and candle chandeliers. The high ceiling echoed with laughter and clouds of blue tobacco hovered. A pendulum clock hung on one wall, its face as big as a table, and oil paintings covered every other.

  Devlin spoke quietly, hushed by the atmosphere of power and possibility. ‘What goes on here?’

  Walpole breathed the room in, nodding greeting to certain coats. ‘Everything, Captain. Everything. I have a back room for us.’ He pulled Devlin closer. ‘London always has a back room.’