“Trinidad’s too close to us here at the South Cays. The Spaniards keep their pieces of eight hidden, and a sharp lookout.”
“What say we attack Santa Cruz?”
“It is too close to Havana,” said Erik. “The capital’s troops would be there before we could get away.”
There was a lull. Morgan drew on his seegar, looking from one dangerous face to the other.
“All right, ye’ve all spoken, and now it’s my turn.” He stood and walked the deck. “Ye can be wise and follow me to the likes of treasure such as ye’ve never laid eyes on before, or ye can return with empty holds to Tortuga, preying on fishing boats and gatherin’ rusty coins and allowin’ the Spaniards to mock us!”
He had their full attention.
“And what do you promise, Monsieur?” asked Levasseur.
“Promise?” scoffed Morgan. “Ye know better than that, Rafael. ‘No prey, no pay’ But there were will be gold doubloons enough for us all.”
“And where will we attack?”
“Ye’ve all got stout hearts, or I wouldn’t suggest it. Ye’ve seen what they did to Old Providence. Ye all know, better than most, the fate of any man brought to a Spanish dungeon. We’ll sack Porto Bello.”
Silence encircled the deck as the buccaneer captains looked at each other.
“Ye jest, Colonel darlin’,” said an Irishman. “Ye’ll nae get in the harbor. An’ there’s three forts with cannon to blast our boats from here back to Tortuga.”
Morgan smiled. “Aye, me lad, but who says we need to attack the Spaniards the way they expect us to?”
“Ye’ve got other plans?”
“Now would I be laying it all out in front of ye? Aye, we’ve plans, all right. An’ we’re not foolish enough to go sailin’ into the harbor to confront the fortresses and guns. The Spaniards will have a few unexpected visitors.”
A cheer arose. They would teach the Spaniards a lesson. “To Porto Bello!”
While the laughing and jeering went up, Baret looked at Erik. They smiled.
18
A VOW TO CHERISH
The Regale was far out at sea, alone, and free, the wind in her sails as a spectacular sunset exploded in crimson and gold. Twilight followed in the sun’s setting trail and softly enveloped the broad Caribbean sky. A slice of the young moon appeared above the rippling water, and the horizon came awash with deep turquoise and ruby.
Emerald Harwick, born on Tortuga, was about to become Lady Emerald Buckington, and the ruby pendant about her throat undulated with passionate color. As she stood before Baret on the lofty quarterdeck of the Regale, her betrothal dress shimmered like pearl in the mild breeze. The silky hem of her gown brushed lightly against Baret’s buccaneer boots.
Their eyes held as her father read the marriage vows from the Calvin prayer book. As Sir Karlton paused, Baret placed the Buckington ring on her finger and held it in place while he confessed his vows of faithfulness before the canopy of heaven, sighing with stars.
Emerald whispered her own promise, then grew still as her eyes lifted to his, and a breathless expectancy settled over them. Full with promise, the warm scented wind blew in from the coastline of the Main.
“Then I have me the honor of announcing to one an’ all that ye are bride and groom,” said Sir Karlton in a husky voice. His own eyes were moist with tears. “And may the Almighty aid thee. And may He enable ye both to be faithful and true to one another. So be it.”
Baret smiled. “At last.” He drew her into his arms.
Emerald raised her lips toward his and was swept away in a long moment of bliss.
He looked down at her face, touched by the moonlight.
“You are exceedingly beautiful,” he whispered.
Her eyes whispered her own devotion to the man before her.
Baret lifted her and carried her away.
19
THE ATTACK ON PORTO BELLO
A row of conical gray-green mountains, typical of the Isthmus, rose above the sea. According to Hob’s veteran calculations, Emerald learned that almost directly abeam should lie the little fishing village of Puerto de Naos in the province of Panama, called La Castillo del Oro. She stood with Hob at the rail, cautiously swaying to the ship’s mild pitching.
Hob handed her the battered telescope that he’d had “since I stole ’em.”
“Hob!” she said, affecting shock.
He rubbed his chin. “Them was the days aboard me first pirate bark. I were, methinks, all of ten.” His eyes twinkled. “I repented since then, Miss. Sir Mathias and Sir Cecil, and especially his lordship, done sceered the wits outa me so I was afraid to die. But me sins be all forgiven is the Lord’s good promise. This spyglass be sanctified now.”
She smiled and focused it on the ships ahead. There were two. “Whose are they, can you tell?”
“Oh, aye, that be Morgan’s Golden Future, to be sure. And that be Captain Morris’s Dolphin. An’ behind us—” he gestured “—be Captain Farrow’s Warspite. An’ the others follow. An’ that—” he waved his hat toward shore “—be what the yellow-livered Spaniards call the Tierra Firma, or the Main, as we says. An’ they thinks they owns it all ‘cause Rome made an edict sayin’ so.” He chuckled. “England and France and Holland don’t be agreein’. An’ the buccaneers be out to prove it to Madrid. Think we been doin’ a fair thing of it, says I.
“Time ol’ Morgan and his buccaneers get done attackin’ and robbin’ the treasure cities, ol’ Spain’ll be on its back like a dead turtle.
“Europe owes a lot to the buccaneers and pirates, but ye won’t be hearing ’em say so. By the time we sacks Porto Bello, Panama, and the other towns, they’ll be busted and won’t be able to pay their Inquisition armies.” He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “Been waiting for this day a long time, Miss.”
Emerald lowered the spyglass and looked at him, troubled. “I can’t say I approve of the bloodshed, Hob. Not all Spaniards are cruel.”
“No? I be disagreein’.”
“Hob!”
He jutted out his chin defensively. “Nae, the Main be full of blood, and it ain’t all from pirates like L’Ollonais and his evil ways, neither, but the Spaniards. I can tell ye this, when the guarda costa takes prisoners—‘heretics’ they calls us—they has their ways. Had me friends that was pulled limb from limb on the racks of the Holy Inquisition, and I not be exaggeratin’. Others was made to swallow boiling lead, or they was roasted alive in stone ovens. Me, I got away.
“I tell ye, I be worried about his lordship’s father. Can’t see how he lived all these years. Afraid what he’ll find there, Miss. Had one friend set free, but ol’ Tom had empty sockets ‘stead of eyes. His lordship be saying his father’s alive, but I ain’t so sure. Who can tell him he’s wrong? I hate to wound his heart.”
Emerald sighed. She knew all this about Spain, of course, and the cruelty was something one didn’t like to think about. But truth was truth even when it was unpleasant to hear. As for Viscount Royce Buckington, she knew Baret remained convinced he was alive. She stared silently ahead. “How far?” she whispered at last, “to Porto Bello?”
Hob drew in a breath. “’Bout twenty leagues, mebbe, southward. ‘Tis one of the richest cities on the Main. Belongs in what the Spaniards call the Viceroyalty o’ Lima, Peru.”
She turned her head to watch a flock of dark brown booby birds sweep up and away from their resting places upon a lime-streaked reef.
“They feeds on sardines,” Hob said. “Good sweetings when soaked in turtle oil, sardines.”
“And what is Porto Bello like? You say you’ve been there?”
“Aye,” he said darkly. “I was there once, long ago.”
“The name sounds lovely.”
“Aye, it do, and the port be uncommon pert. ‘Bout two miles in length it is an’ half a mile across. The town be another thing. Rests at the bottom o’ the harbor, curvin’ the shore like the moon was lookin’ the other night. Them tall galleons o’ Spain, lik
e the San Pedro, they find good ridin’ there while waitin’ for the silver ingots from Peru to be hauled over the mule team road. Ye’ve heard o’ Sir Francis Drake and how he took that great mule train of silver? Well, the old road we’re like to march on be the one. It’s called the Camino Real—the ‘Royal Road.’ Me? I calls it ‘Blood Road,’ ‘cause thousands of Indians, Africans, and Europeans was the prisoners who dug all that silver! Spain stole it all and shipped it to Madrid. And then King Philip used it for his armies. Still using it in Holland and France, too.”
Baret had told her this as well. She grew uncomfortable. How could Morgan and the buccaneers possibly take Porto Bello, such a great city?
She asked again, more of herself than of Hob, but he answered.
“Har, ye don’t know Captain Henry Morgan—an’ he has the best of the buccaneers with him.”
She left Hob cooking supper and returned to the great cabin. She went in quietly, not wishing to disturb Baret. He’d been at the desk working at charts and maps for the last day. He was studying his father’s journal and making painstaking calculations of distances on another map that he’d drawn from the information given by Don Miguel Vasquez, who, as far as she knew, was a prisoner in one of the cabins below. Baret wouldn’t tell her.
Emerald walked up and set his coffee mug on the desk and placed her arms around his neck. She kissed him, then peered over his shoulder to see what he was doing.
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Yes. With you around I can’t keep my mind on my work.”
He reached to pull her into his lap, but she slipped away, smiling.
“I’ll go talk to Hob again,” she said. “He’s been telling me all about Porto Bello.”
She turned, but his hand on her wrist pulled her back. “I like to be disturbed. Sit down, and I’ll show you Morgan’s plans if you promise not to breathe a word.”
Emerald sat on his lap as he traced the route on the map.
“This is the harbor. It’s defended by three fortresses. They cover the entrance and anchorage with more than sixty cannons. It’s the third most strongly defended port in the Indies.”
“Havana being the first?”
“And Cartagena. The castles have regular garrisons. This fort guards the entrance to the harbor. It’s the San Felipe de Todo Fierro, the Iron Fort. If we sought to fight using ships, they’d soon blow us away.”
She shuddered. “Then how is attack possible? Are you sure Morgan knows what he’s doing?”
A brief confident smile was his only answer. “And this is Triana. It’s environed with houses. This is where the dons live, some of them anyway. The governor is the same Don Jose Sanchez Ximenez who recaptured Old Providence and did not honor the surrender terms. We hope to teach him a lesson.”
“And the third one on the west end?”
His gaze hardened. “Ah! That, my dear, is Fort Castillo de San Geronimo, large and strong. It may be that the prisoners from Old Providence are being held there in chains.”
“How do you know all this? Through Don Miguel Vasquez?”
“Yes. I now know my father is in a dungeon beneath Governor Sanchez’s castle. Miguel will be used as ransom. Miguel’s life in exchange for my father’s. I’ve little doubt the governor will choose his nephew.”
“What if Miguel is lying?” she asked uneasily. “What if your father was moved to Peru and the silver mines?”
“If he’s lying, Miguel will never set foot in Porto Bello to see his family alive. He knows that.”
She glanced at him through lowered lashes. “Somehow I don’t think you’d kill him even then.”
“He thinks I will. And if it’s a trap—meaning our own imprisonment—then, yes. I will kill him.”
Her eyes searched his. She felt a chill and looked back at the map. “But he wouldn’t lie. Not if he wishes to live. Does he know how Carlotta ran away with Sir Jasper?”
“If I told him that, he wouldn’t cooperate. I confess, I don’t know which man is worse. I’d prefer she didn’t marry either of them. But by now she’s Mrs. Jasper Ridley.”
“I wonder where they went?”
“Barbados.”
She handed him the coffee mug and studied the map while he drank, frowning to himself.
“I still don’t understand,” she said. “If it’s suicide to enter the harbor and face the bristling cannon, how does Morgan expect to take the city? How will you get inside?”
“That, my sweet, is the brilliance of Henry Morgan—and your ever-loving husband. We’ll fight on land, not at sea. We’re attacking as soldiers.”
Emerald turned to search his face.
Under her worried gaze his expression grew enigmatic, as though he was musing over his new role as husband. He had told her last night that he knew he no longer had only himself to consider. Daring and bold behavior must be carefully considered.
“And what will you fight with? You have no muskets! No horses!” she protested.
“Muskets!” He stood and swung her up into his arms. “Who wants them?”
“All soldiers fight with—”
“We’re armed with a variety of weapons, but muskets would be unpopular even if we had them. Whether matchlock or wheel-lock, they’re too heavy for a long overland march through the jungle. Both are cumbersome and frustratingly slow to load.”
He set her lightly on her feet. “The wheel-lock mechanisms are unreliable. The spring of the lock gives us trouble—and the pyrites often don’t spark. It’s the humid weather.” He looked toward the window as the sudden sound of pouring rain again filled her ears. “It’s heavy along this part of the Main. Once the powder gets damp, it’s useless. Pistols are more convenient in open boats or walking through jungle. And sword and cutlass are always dependable.”
Emerald felt anything but relieved. Even if they did take Porto Bello, at what loss of life?
She placed her palm at the back of his neck, her eyes searching his. “Have I married the only man I’ll ever love only to become a young widow?”
“No, I expect to keep you a good many years,” he said lightly.
“Then I’ll come with you on the march.”
He laughed at her, and she fumed. “Why not? If anything happens to you, I want to die with you.”
“Sweet, but unrealistic.”
“Better to die than live without you!”
“Emerald,” he said swiftly and drew her head against his chest, soothingly. “Nothing is going to happen to me.”
“You can’t say that. You don’t know what a day will bring forth. Weren’t those the very words we read this morning from James?”
“Yes, and if it comes to that, if my life is to be cut short, then it can happen anywhere. We’ll trust God to keep us.”
“I won’t stay!”
“Yes, you will,” he said airily.
She stared at him.
He met her challenging gaze evenly. “If anything did happen—” he began.
“You see? Even you think so.”
“No, but if it did, I don’t want you captured by the Spaniards!”
“And—and what if Rafael is planning to sneak aboard while everyone is gone and take me a prisoner again? When you get back, I could be aboard the Venture!”
“Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Levasseur and Lex are marching with Morgan. But I’m leaving some of my best swordsmen as your guards. And your father will be here with you as well—and Ty.”
“Ty? He’ll die if you don’t take him with you.”
“He stays. And so do you. And when I get back, darling, if God so wills, I’ll have your father-in-law to introduce to you. And now,” he said gently, “no more fears. I’ve been waiting for this hour most of my life, it seems. It’s finally here. And with the Lord’s help, I’ll find him.”
She held him as though he would be torn from her arms forever. “Oh, Baret, I hope so—for your sake.”
He kissed her, and the sound of the drumming rain filled the ca
bin.
After the fleet had been many days at sea, the coast of the Spanish Main was sighted ahead. It included a single, isolated mountain rearing up like a flattened sugarloaf. Emerald could tell that the buccaneers recognized it.
“Pilon de Miguel de la Borda,” Baret informed her in his clear Castilian. “It’s nearly seventeen hundred feet high and is close to the Chagres River.”
Emerald guessed they were getting close to Morgan’s choice of last anchorages before reaching Porto Bello.
Standing on the quarterdeck toward late afternoon, she shaded her eyes and saw Morgan’s flagship abruptly alter course. Then she heard Baret fling an order to his own quartermaster. She looked up at the creaking yards of slatting sails and listened to the screeching of running gear as the Regale heeled over and set a new course, to be followed in succession by the other vessels, including Levasseur’s Venture. She still did not trust her cousin.
She watched the blue, white, and red Union Jack snap and pull in the sea breeze. At least this time Baret was sailing under a legally authorized commission from King Charles.
She had learned that since Baret was British, he was considered a “privateer”; but because he belonged to the Tortuga Brotherhood, he was also a “buccaneer.” The French and Dutch carried the same legal commissions from Governor Modyford through Morgan, but they were only rated as “buccaneers.” It was all somewhat confusing.
Baret had smiled and hinted that it was intended to be confusing. “Even the legal commission granted Morgan did not authorize an attack on the Main but rather against shipping—and taking Spanish prisoners to learn whether or not Madrid intended to attack Jamaica. Of course, Morgan had only to explain away his attack as being ‘needful.”’
She watched the afternoon sunlight give off richer tones, bringing the canvas to a golden luster as Morgan sailed toward Naos Bay on the northern end of Panama and then into an inlet formed by some small islands. There he signaled his fleet to anchor close to Longa de Mos.
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