by Mark Keating
‘What about it?’
‘I gather there was some talk below deck that I was not a party to last night. I wondered if this meeting could explain such.’ He sat back easily. ‘If we are to be partners I would hope that your men would accord me equal respect.’
‘I’m sure it is not your presence that vexes. More this fool path we are on. And as for us being partners, Albany, I wouldn’t swear to that if I were you. Get in my way or my men’s and it’ll only come hard for you.’ He picked up his hat and turned to leave but jumped on Albany’s final words that he sensed were coming. ‘Don’t think I gave you this cabin out of respect or for your privilege. It is for your safety only.’ He squared his hat and went toward the coach, his words spinning back over his shoulder. ‘They might not kill you if they think I like you.’
Outside, the deck ran with water to the scuppers with every pitch and Devlin’s boots were splashing now as Peter Sam loomed over him.
‘Tonight then?’ he asked.
Devlin looked back to the closed cabin door. ‘Aye. If that’s what the men want. After supper. I’ll not have him lord it over me.’ He slapped Peter Sam on his shoulder. ‘Watch our head in these crosswinds.’
Devlin gripped a manrope and swayed with his ship. He watched the grey coast to their larboard creep along with them. The last time he had seen it he had been a Frenchman in white tunic, starved into the Marine Royale. ‘The world turns and revolves us back,’ he thought, and then thought of the darkness ahead.
From across the ship Dandon watched his friend frown at the spray and stare out over the waves as if he could see beyond the horizon and tomorrow. He caught his eye and waved as best he could without losing his balance. Devlin, his mind elsewhere, looked through him and went below.
That evening the Shadow sailed with the blue and white stripes of a French merchant from her backstay, and a white flag on the mizzen to indicate freedom from plague. The weather stayed with them, damp and ugly, which was for the good, as every ship would keep to themselves around such an ironbound coast.
Bacon and eggs for those who wanted to help themselves; for the rest, patience and the wait for Dog-Leg Harry’s pots and skillets to be served up. Dog-Leg was the old ship’s cook, formerly of the late Seth Toombs when Devlin had first turned pirate. In the navy old Dog-Leg would have been turned ashore with the wound that had cost him his hand, but here, with the pirate’s rules that made up their narrow view of democracy, he would be compensated in pieces of eight, each limb its own set price, and given an easier day’s work. He was still paid – only a half-share like that of the few black Spanish slaves that had begged to come aboard a year ago, but better than what the rest of the civilised world offered any of them.
So boiled shark, pressed dry, then stewed with peppers and vinegar, with fresh cobbles of bread and olive oil for all the men; for Devlin too, for the captain would eat no better than his men. It was a tradition that the gentler stomach of Albany Holmes had yet to become accustomed to and Devlin and Peter Sam found him knelt on the lockers leaning out of the stern windows of the cabin. His blue face turned weakly to the crash of the cabin door that slammed behind the pirates as they entered the room.
‘What do you want?’ Albany slurred, wiping his chin. He paid no attention to the two-foot long belaying pin in Peter Sam’s hand, the furniture of ships a dull enough topic to Albany’s refined mind.
‘We’ve been a-talking, Albany,’ Devlin said. ‘Close my window: that’s how accidents happen.’
Albany pulled the casement to. He was not bothered about anything except keeping his supper down. ‘Talking about what?’
Devlin stepped from Peter’s side. ‘We want the diamond. No sense in you holding it.’
‘We? Oh, yes of course, you all decide “together” don’t you. I take it you refer to the replica, not the prospect of you keeping the real gem for yourself . . . ah, sorry, for yourselves I should say.’ He straightened up painfully. ‘I am to hold the diamond until the exchange is made. It is in my keeping. And it is also I who will hold the actual diamond until we return it to London. That is Walpole’s instruction.’
Peter Sam slammed the wooden club against the bulkhead, the crack of the wood enough to make Albany’s bones jump. He twisted the wood in his hands and came closer. ‘We wants the diamond!’ He repeated for his captain.
Devlin put a hand to Peter’s shoulder. ‘There ain’t a choice in the matter, Albany.’
Albany rose unperturbed. ‘I have been entrusted on my country’s and the Company’s oaths, Captain, to safeguard both the diamond and its replica and ensure no deviance from the plan as given. I see no reason for you to possess the replica until the moment of exchange.’
Devlin went to the rack that held his drink. His hands pushed back his coat-tails to rest on his belt and show the massive left-locked pistol at his right hip. Then he turned his back and spoke as he poured.
‘I know that your trust is greater than mine, Albany. But I want the diamond. I want to show it to my men, who will help me take the real one,’ he held out a glass of watery rum. ‘And as you’ll not be coming to Paris with me I see no sense in you holding it.’
He watched Albany’s face pale even further and nodded to him to take the drink offered. Albany found an exigent need to wet his suddenly dry throat.‘I am not to come to Paris? We are partners, Captain. Where you go, where the gem goes, there go I.’ He drank before continuing, the odd compulsion to both know his fate and shrink from the answer overwhelming. ‘Unless you have some other plans for me that is? Aware as you are that I will be obliged to inform Walpole of your actions?’
Devlin raised his own glass and passed the bottle to Peter Sam. ‘I don’t want to cause you harm, Albany.’
He waved them all to the table. Peter Sam tucked his club in his belt, his cold eye set to Albany.
‘Give up the replica to the table, and I’ll tell you what goes on.’
Albany stood his ground. ‘And if I refuse?’
‘Don’t.’ Devlin’s voice was level enough to be no more threatening than as if written in a letter. He pulled from inside his shirt his own map of Paris, drawn from the memory of Law’s, and placed it open on the table. It only showed the triangle of the three palaces and the river alongside. The other acres of the city were meaningless. This would be his small world now.
‘The stone. If you please,’ Devlin said and waited.
Albany went to his effects, took out a small black velvet bag and conceded it to Devlin’s open palm which rested on the conference table. ‘On your honour,’ he demanded.
Devlin coaxed the soft velvet and the stone slipped into his hand like running water; his fingers at once alight with its brilliance as if a star had fallen into his grasp. Even the stoic and mighty Peter Sam softened, gazing into its deep mystery, sure that every violent act of his life would be wiped clean from his soul as long as he stared upon it. And this the replica, he thought. What heaven could make the real thing if this is but its mirror?
Devlin placed the stone on its flat side, its table, where it danced in its release. The stone sucked the light from the lantern overhead to coruscate between all their faces.
‘Good man. For both of us.’ Devlin directed Albany and Peter’s eyes back to the map.
‘For your own mind, and so you can tell Walpole that I kept nothing from you, Law’s intention was for me alone to travel with him to Paris,’ he touched the map where the Palais Royale stood. ‘The regent has the diamond here. Law would have us steal it when it reaches the royal lapidary. I intend to take it from the palace itself.’
Albany looked down at the pirate’s dirty finger tapping on the square of the building. ‘Why? Surely that is a greater risk? Why deviate from the plan suggested by wiser men?’
Devlin let the insult pass. ‘Because time has some essence here. And neither Law nor Walpole have any notion of when the jewel is to be sent to the lapidary, only that it is to be set into a crown for the boy king any day. That could
be tomorrow or it could be a month from now, and who’s to feed my men while we wait, or while your bubbles burst all around you? Easier for me to take it where I know it is now.’
Albany sneered, ‘I also take it that it does you no favour to sail a pirate ship around these waters for too long.’
Devlin could only agree. The Channel – La Manche, as the French knew it – was one of the busiest trading lanes in the world. The Shadow’s disguise would not last, for she would be less a cat amongst pigeons than a pigeon measuredly becoming encircled by tigers. ‘I have been given two weeks. I intend to be back in England in six days and then on my way back to the Indies.’
‘Six days! Are you mad? Have you ever been to Paris, sir? It will take us half that time just to get there!’
Devlin put away his map. ‘I have been there. Up the Seine it will take me two days. That gives me one day to meet Law and plan and three to get back to Walpole.’
‘Oh, that’s it, is it? One whole day to plan and steal the most famous diamond in the world from the pocket of the man who rules France! How I have underestimated your genius, sir!’
Peter Sam rushed forward to get at Albany’s throat. Devlin held him back with just his palm across Peter’s leather-wrapped chest.
‘Six days,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be on my way.’ He picked up the fake gem. ‘Watch me.’ He turned to leave, Albany’s voice holding him back.
‘In which case I insist on accompanying. I’ll not wait on this ship with your men in fear of my throat being cut every night.’
Devlin looked Albany up and down. A fine strong gentleman. A few years younger but with that born-and-bred confidence of his kind that was as ageless as it was sickening to men like Devlin. And for that he probably would not live too long without Devlin’s protection amongst a ship of men who shaved others’ necks more than their own beards.
‘All right, Albany. You may come. But you’ll do as I say. And pack for the dawn. We’ll take a fishing boat on the tide.’
‘Take a boat?’ Albany queried.
Peter Sam grinned through his red beard and followed Devlin to the cabin door.
‘You’re about to become a pirate, Albany. Look lively now.’
Chapter Fourteen
Thursday
Jean Minot, captain of the Vendeen, had convinced his crew that to report the presence of a plague ship could only go in their favour, and that it would certainly go against them if it was discovered they had spied the ship of death and ignored its potential threat. The reality, however, of sitting deep inside the Citadel of Calais awaiting an audience with the chef d’escardre, the commodore of the Marine Royale, had produced a black ring of sweat that stained his steinkerk.
Minot wiped his forehead constantly, pointlessly, as rivulets of perspiration ran out of his hair and down his cheeks. Merchant traders and the austere navy rarely liked to mix. To deliberately approach now seemed ludicrous when at any time a white uniform could requisition your ship just because it looked pretty.
He began to look to the door and think of escape, and his mind was almost made up when the loneliness of the anteroom was cracked by the opening of another door and well-polished shoes rang across the stone floor.
‘Captain Minot? The commodore will see you now.’
Minot shambled up, humbly thanked the man, put his hat on his head and then quickly removed it again as he followed the officer in white.
For the sake of his courage he tried not to think of the man he was meeting as he was led through one stone room after another. His heart still banged against his chest when his journey ended abruptly before a table at which the great René Duguay-Trouin, in shirt and tucked cuffs, busily masticated his way through a boiled hen. A brief, disinterested look rose over the leg of the bird working through his hands. Minot visibly shivered at the glance.
To a Frenchman, any Frenchman, not just those Malouines from his Brittany homeland, Trouin was a god amongst men.
He had begun as a young corsair of St Malo, the proud sea-wolves who answered to no king yet served their country in every war in defence of their beloved Brittany. Hundreds of British, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch ships had fallen to his guns over the decades. Now, at forty-seven, the peace of February and the honour of chef d’escardre drowned him in paper and audits. The only resemblance to the Lion of Breton of old was the wig that curled and tumbled over his shoulders.
‘Who have you brought me, Fossart?’ he asked his clerk with his mouth full, as if Minot were dessert.
‘A Captain Minot, Commodore. He wishes to report that he has seen a quarantined ship nearby.’
Trouin wiped his hands and chin as he spoke. ‘Ah, good, good.’ He reached for a glass of wine. ‘When did you see this vessel, Captain? What was its course?’ He indicated his clerk for paper and pen and pushed away his charger.
Minot held his hat close to him like a shield, twisting it through his sweaty hands. ‘Yesterday, Your Grace. I thought it prudent to report such an incident, Your Grace.’
‘Indeed,’ Trouin began to ink in the details, feigning gratitude. Just more useless paper to be filed and ignored, but it would not hurt to show the gallant captain that he valued his sagacity. ‘Describe the ship for me if you would be so kind, Captain.’
Here Minot grew braver, for he was sure that the ship had some significance out of the ordinary and he was proud of this assertion.
‘That is the thing, Your Grace,’ he took a step closer. ‘It was a large ship. Square rigged. Three masts. And even in the fog I could see she carried many guns.’
Trouin looked up. ‘Guns?’
‘Yes. More than a merchant, Your Grace. Many swivels too. Perhaps twenty or more guns altogether.’
‘You could see that? Or a guess?’
Minot shook his head. ‘It was easy: her wood was red, blood red and black. I could make out the gunports clearly.’
Trouin put down his quill. ‘A name? A flag?’ The old feeling crept over him like a teasing caress. Instinct and a thousand experiences suddenly filled him more than his simple dinner. The light that sparked in his eyes was not missed by Minot and he courted it lavishly.
‘None but the yellow. But she was as a frigate. A fighting ship I am sure. Or trying to be, Your Grace.’
‘Or trying not to be,’ Trouin spoke only to himself. He sat back, his eye to the window thoughtfully. ‘Black and red you say? You are sure of this, Minot?’ He graced the captain with his name. Jean Minot would tell his grandchildren of this moment.
‘Yes. With grey sails, Your Grace. A dark ship. I gave five Hail Marys when I left her.’
Trouin nodded, scratched his quill across the paper. A black-and-red frigate. Armed to the gunwales according to the sweating merchant in front of him. Some memory of a black-and-red ship drifted in and out of fog in his mind. Some crime against the crown. He bit his lip in thought – the fog was lifting, the memory almost there. Minot shuffled his feet and coughed politely. Trouin looked up from his reverie.
‘You have done well, Captain Minot. Return to your work. We will keep watch for this plague ship. Good day to you, Captain.’
Minot bowed. His head was no longer sweating but glowing gloriously. ‘My honour, Your Grace.’ He left the room beaming like a butcher’s dog.
Fossart closed the door and waited for his commodore to speak. He knew the look on his commander’s face from long ago. Trouin did not make him wait long. He jolted up, his words firing out of him like a flowing broadside.
‘Records, Fossart! Bring me the commandant records for 1717.’ He quaffed his wine like water, a satisfied gleam across his face.
‘Commodore?’
Trouin laughed, a sound rarer in these days of slumber than a swallow’s walk. He poured more wine, a salute to himself. ‘I recall three years ago, Fossart, a black-and-red frigate with grey sails assaulted one of our islands in the Caribbean. Men – our brothers – killed, a fortune in gold stolen. Twice, I recall, orders have been signed against such a ship.
Confirm that with the orders you will bring me. I need to remind myself of her captain and crimes.’
‘Crimes, Commodore? She was not a ship of war, an enemy?’
Trouin looked hurriedly around his chambers searching for his coat and his red sash of office. He needed to ready himself. Here was an opportunity for action. ‘No Fossart, better! A pirate! I am sure of it – if memory serves – but we will confirm. Go, man! She will not hold long in these waters.’
Fossart backed from the room leaving Trouin to his tiger’s pacing. For thirty years he had been a warrior of the sea. A privateer captain at twenty, son of the great Luc Trouin, he had joined a vessel at sixteen and had fought almost every day of his life with the smut and stench of cannon all around and a cutlass forever in his fist.
The wars were his playground and he had trumped the blue-bloods who would have him remain beneath them with successes that could not be ignored. But at long last they had won. He had captured Rio de Janeiro and made his king rich again, but with the monarch’s death, five long, long, years now, his patronage had ended. And now the Breton boy was put back in his place, his glories forgotten by all but the people and those captains who served him.
His rank was honorary, perhaps, but still a rank, still with ships to command and none could say that he would be in error to chase a pirate from his coast, his citadel.
Others may have found such retirement welcoming. Bask in the sun by all means but do so from a lounge chair. Put away your sword in a box and lock your past shut.
His eyes locked on his own cutlass resting above his mantle. Not in a box. Not put away. He lifted it tenderly from its place, its gleam reflecting more than light across his face.
He had dozens of ceremonial swords presented to him by the king, the best his king could do next to granting him a captaincy when he had dragged home dozens of English ships. He had been a titan with a hawser chain over his shoulders pulling them into Brest and barely grunting with the effort.