‘Why wait?’ he asked. ‘Why not before?’
‘Our lives were there.’ Jaques would look at him now. The shadows stirred in some kind of affirmation. ‘Everything we had built and worked for was in Rochelle, its ships, walls, our houses … We knew we would lose all that. But the main hoard, the wealth from the Company, all of it cached and hidden over twenty-five years, that we thought might still be saved, until François’ message. We had waited too long and now we had to run for our lives.’ Jaques stopped again and Lemprière saw the leader shift in the darkness. Vaucanson spoke.
‘There was a passage. Land and sea were denied us. There were only two ways out of Rochelle: by the air or through the earth. Beneath the citadel there was a kind of cavern, a tunnel which ran from the cellars under the foundations of the city to a subterranean lake. It was our own discovery, a vast lagoon and at its centre a tiny island which we used as our cache. The lake spread underground, north for two miles or more and on its far side a strip of gravel formed a kind of shore. A second tunnel led from that secret shore to the known coast of Point du Plombe.’
‘Where you unloaded your cargoes….’
‘We never meant to use it as the means of our escape but now our need was pressing. This would be our route and it would have been straightforward but for the Royal Camp.’
‘Up and down the coast for miles. Vast!’ Boffe unfurled his arms.
‘We knew there was a field hospital nearby and perhaps a barracks. We might emerge face to face with the King’s Dragoons, or they might have found the tunnel and the lake….’
‘And the gold.’
‘That was as good as lost in any case. We could not take it with us. Above all we needed a diversion, so we passed on François’ message to the survivors. Rumour of the impending massacre ran through the city like…. Almost as if people wanted to believe it. We convened a meeting in the citadel on the night of the thirtieth. They came in their thousands. Men, women, our own wives and children. We barred the doors….’ Jaques’ voice had dropped. ‘We believed François, we believed Rochelle and everyone in it was doomed.’ He stopped, as though some central obstacle had been reached and looked about him at the other members of the Cabbala. No-one spoke.
‘So you escaped, through the passage under the citadel….’
‘Yes!’ Jaques spoke quickly. ‘We escaped that night. Through the tunnel, over the lake in a row-boat, all eight of us sick with hunger. It took so long. It was almost dawn when we emerged at Point du Plombe. The Royal Camp was in chaos, strings of horses loose, soldiers running this way and that, leaderless brigades arguing and splitting into platoons, a happy rabble all cheering and pointing south to Rochelle. They would not have noticed if we had opened fire on them. We watched with them. A thick column of smoke stood in the dawn sky over the city, rising out of the citadel. Smoke and flames were pouring out of the windows. We watched in silence and we saw them begin to jump. Human fireballs plummeting out of sight. It went on for almost an hour. You could see quite clearly even from that distance. It was like a display of fireworks, but soundless of course. Every time a body fell the troops around us would cheer. They were moving in. They knew the city was finished. Then suddenly they fell silent….’
‘That is none of his concern.’ Casterleigh’s voice broke in harshly. Boffe looked anxiously from Jaques to the other. Jaques ignored the outburst.
‘They fell silent,’ he repeated, ‘and we looked back. We saw a fireball tumbling down from the window, a burning figure smaller than the others. Perhaps a child. Then we saw it dip and rise. It fell again, towards the sea this time and the sea water doused its fire.’
‘An illusion, a trick of the light,’ growled Casterleigh.
‘It rose again, a black point speeding away until it was no bigger than a gull, a fly, and then nothing at all.’
‘I know of it already,’ Lemprière said. ‘It was the Sprite, the flying man.’
‘Smaller than a man,’ Jaques murmured to himself, ‘as I saw it.’ The others shifted uneasily. ‘Afterwards, they would say its face was charred and it was winged, like an angel.’
‘A dark angel,’ said Lemprière. Jaques seemed to recover himself.
‘It was a survivor, like ourselves,’ he said. ‘Every other soul in the citadel either jumped or was consumed by the flames. Again he seemed to reach the same obstacle and came to a halt.
‘François had been … mistaken,’ he spoke carefully. ‘The city was not sacked. It was true no expedition was planned, he was right about that. But Rochelle was never going to be sacked. Neither Richelieu nor his King had any intention of reducing it to rubble. But we believed otherwise, you see? Our own wives and children, hundreds, thousands of others…. We believed it would happen in any case, that they had nothing to lose. The citadel, then the whole city. And if the Royal Army believed us dead too, why should they hunt for us? Why should we die too? We thought the Rochelais were as good as dead already.’
The realisation began to sink in. Lemprière watched Jaques stare at his own clasped hands, or the table.
‘You gathered the Rochelais in the citadel,’ he spoke deliberately. ‘You barred the doors. You escaped and you left them behind you. You emerged at Pointe du Plomb and you looked back and saw them jumping from the windows, a column of smoke rising.’ Jaques nodded slowly. Lemprière went on. ‘The city was not sacked, yet the citadel and the people you gathered within it were burning. The troops were still outside the walls, yet the fires had begun.’
It was Le Mara who spoke and Lemprière heard his voice for the first time. ‘We burned them,’ he said.
‘And for nothing,’ added Jaques.
Again he looked to Juliette and again her face gave away nothing. The eight candles burned steadily and their reflected flames fanned out over the surface of the great table. Jaques was mumbling, rambling about sacrifice and necessity, their own wives and children lost in the fire for the greater good.
‘And François’?’ he asked. As Jaques began to nod his confirmation, Monopole and Antithe shifted slightly behind the leader’s chair as though responding to some movement within it. Jaques was looking across the room at Juliette.
‘We made our escape,’ Vaucanson took up the story, ‘and by the end of November we were installed here in London, in these same caverns. We drained them and set about rebuilding our fortunes from nothing.’ But as Vaucanson spoke Lemprière’s thoughts were pulled back to the fire, to the last throes of the Rochelais as the atrocity in the citadel unfolded. Two miles distant, the eight could watch coolly, elated perhaps at their escape, and the ninth, François, would see nothing at all.
‘What of François?’ he asked, cutting Vaucanson in mid-sentence. No-one answered him. ‘Surely the fault was all his? It could hardly be your own. You were misled after all,’ he goaded them, but still no-one answered. Vaucanson looked to the leader and Lemprière heard him speak for the first time in an hour.
‘Tell him of François,’ he commanded.
‘We met François in London in late November,’ Vaucanson said. ‘His leg had been injured by the muskets at Rochelle and the wound had still not healed. We had not laid eyes on him in over a year, but from the first it was apparent he was changed, of a different disposition from before. We told him everything, the course of the siege, the plight of the Rochelais, the effect his message had had on us. He told us frankly that he had been in error, but that it was his last such mistake. Then we told him of our escape and we began to tell him of his own wife and children, and their fate.’ Vaucanson stopped.
‘Go on,’ the leader said. The tale seemed as much addressed to him as to Lemprière.
‘He grew wild. He shouted that he knew us now for mercenaries and murderers. He vowed then and there that the Lemprières would have their revenge.’
‘So it began,’ murmured Lemprière to himself.
‘After that he seemed to vanish into thin air. He was on Jersey of course, with his new family; your family Mister Lem
prière. There was a great deal to do at that time. The Company had drifted rudderless for the best part of two years. Our own arrangements were in disarray. Without Rochelle we had no base and if the profits were to flow again we needed new routes, new hoards. So far as we knew, our cache was still intact at Rochelle -indeed, we had passed it during our escape - but there was no means to recover it. In the midst of all this we ignored François and his talk of revenge. He had disappeared. We held his share in trust and thought no more of the matter. Then, in January of 1629, the first pamphlet appeared.’
‘Asiaticus,’ said Lemprière.
‘At first we did not guess its author, but in February a second appeared and we began to suspect. March brought a third and with that we were certain. Our antagonist was François. The pamphlets alluded to events which, outside ourselves, only he could know of: the buying of the Company, the agreements, the system of agents, the manner in which the profits were diverted, all these and more. You have seen them, you know how they were organised. The fourth would run from T to Z, it would be the last and it promised to expose us as the real masters of the Company and for good measure the butchers of Rochelle. We knew that he had met with Thomas de Vere in late March and, some days after that, we received word from him directly. He was coming for us, to settle the matter finally.’
Lemprière thought back to the dried corpse lying in the cavern far below them and tried to imagine the confrontation which had taken place before the killing. He saw François, the revenger, the true Sprite of Rochelle, crawling through the tunnels and galleries to reach the eight of them, who waited patiently as they had for himself. He would come in time. Everything would come in time. Then they met and the quick bloody flurry would end it, or was it more drawn out than that? Perhaps they had tried to reason with François, to enclose him once again inside the fold.
‘He was not the man we had known before.’ Jaques was speaking, choosing his words with exaggerated care. ‘He seemed to see only conflict, know only anger. We were the murderers of his wife and children. After that fact, there was nothing.’
‘But he knew the others would follow, that the Lemprières would go on throwing themselves into this pit until their bodies filled it….’
‘Yes,’ the leader’s voice brought Lemprière up short. ‘Yes, he did know that.’ His hands were turning the pages of the dictionary again. With more purpose this time. Lemprière watched as a folded sheet of parchment was taken from between the centre pages of his book and handed to Monopole, from him to Boffe, then Jaques, Le Mara and finally himself.
‘It was written shortly before the meeting. It is meant, I believe, for you.’ Lemprière unfolded the document and glanced down the close-written body of the text which filled much of the page. Above it was a legend, I, François Lemprière, merchant, to you my descendant, wherever you may read it, whosoever you may be. Welcome. He angled the yellowing parchment towards the candle light and began to read. Perhaps you are my son or grandson, but I think not. I fear this business will take many generations and many more years to reach its settlement but, should you read this, then that settlement will be close and writing to you here in this City of London, my refuge and my place of exile, I rejoice that you have come at last. Lemprière looked up from the testament.
‘He knew what he was about to do?’
‘He knew,’ the leader replied. Lemprière bent his head once more.
I ask myself how much will you know? More I think than I know myself. Tomorrow I go in search of them to take back what they took from me at Rochelle. Tomorrow too I begin my search for you. I left my first family at Rochelle, my six children and their mother pregnant with a seventh. Now I must leave my second family on Jersey to settle the account. I must leave you, my unborn descendant and now, while I write these words, I can only hope for your return.
Of my partners and our Company I will say little here. If you are reading this you know already how we took it from the Englanders. They were good years, when we stood firm together and fought our battles as one. But they are finished now, finished with the siege and forgotten with the dead at Rochelle. I will not lose my heirs a second time. Lemprière read further of the siege and François’ mission to England. The English had never broken through the mole. The Cabbala had escaped and the Rochelais died in the citadel, François’ wife and six children amongst them. François knew them for murderers and would have his due. The account did not seem to Lemprière the ravings of a madman. He read, Tomorrow will see the account begin to be squared. When you read this the final tally will be made. Then he found himself addressed directly again. You have travelled a strange road to read this, my message to you, strewn with the corpses of those who fell before you and trammelled with trials and hard labours. Most likely you have come from Jersey, perhaps the very house I built at Rozel. Like myself, you have left home and family and perhaps you have grieved for them as I do now. Now you have come to join me. Together we might still keep the promise I made. Together we may yet return to Rochelle as conquerors. Once again, to you my heir and successor, welcome.
Welcome to you too, Lemprière thought, remembering the corpse. He folded the parchment carefully. He felt the leader’s eyes upon him.
‘How do you come by this?’ he asked. François’ testament had touched him. It made few appeals, its confident hopes and anticipations appeared doomed with hindsight.
‘It was written the night before the meeting, the same one threatened in the last of the pamphlets. You read of it there, I believe.’
‘You led me to them, you placed the pamphlets there for me?’ Lemprière thought back to his discovery in the archive, something about the way they fell out…. Naturally. They had been stacked against the closed door, stacked from within. The disappearance of Casterleigh, Juliette and their companion grew a little clearer.
‘Of course,’ the leader answered. ‘You have not come this far unaided. In that respect you differ from your ancestor.’
‘He came for his wife and children. I come for my father, and for George, and for the others of my family….’
‘And the women, John. Remember the women.’ The tone was caustic, harder than before. ‘And all the other innocents who elect you their champion. Ask yourself why they are dead while you still live. Why is that, John? Why is George dead? Or your father? Or the women? You come for no-one. You were brought. You are not François. François came for recompense and we settled….’
‘And after that settlement he was never to leave this place,’ Lemprière rounded on him. ‘That settlement left the corpse I woke alongside, your handiwork, is that not true?’
‘No-one denies these things, John, but you have not yet heard enough.’ The leader’s tone was calm again, emollient. ‘Wait, listen. With the settlement came a new remove, a different phase of our existence. We occupied these chambers and shrank from contact with the world above. As you will have guessed, or suspected from Theobald’s indiscretions, we formed the Secret Committee. From this chamber and in that guise we ran the greatest Company on the surface of the globe. We set about restoring our fortunes and those of the Company which had drifted in the time of the siege. In the Indies we sponsored petty rulers and despots, extending credit to them through the Company and recouping it directly ourselves. In this way, the Company’s profits were diverted to ourselves before they ever reached England. Each year a caravan would leave the court of this or that provincial tyrant bound for the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Each year we sent a ship to meet it that would wallow under the weight of bullion. The ship would sail west, the length of the Mediterranean, then north along the western coast of France to our old cache at Rochelle. In essence it was a simple procedure. In practice it was fraught with difficulties and once at least was almost to prove our downfall. Acquiring ships in secret drove us to fake ship wrecks, small armies were needed to guard the caravans and the loyalty of our Indian agents was always questionable. However we arranged it, the whole business seemed designed to adve
rtise our existence. We used Indiamen supposedly lost with all hands. We renamed them. The Vendragon, in which you and others have taken such an interest, was only the last in a long line. Captain Neagle stumbled across her predecessor more than twenty years ago and though he mistook what he found for an insurance fraud his blunderings almost brought the whole arrangement to light, ourselves along with it. But we silenced Neagle and took his ship as you know. The Falmouth became the Vendragon and the gold flowed again. Now she sits laden and waiting for us here in London, waiting for us to come out. But I run ahead.
‘From the first we directed everything from here. Having chosen secrecy, it became our cross. We might emerge if we wished, but never as ourselves. Inside and out we have become exiles, different, only really belonging here. We began to change, John as the years passed, we changed in here.’ A hand was pulled back into the shadows. Lemprière heard it tap against the leader’s chest. Vaucanson was watching intently and it seemed that he was about to say more, but then the hand rested again on the covers of Lemprière’s dictionary.
‘After the siege and its settlement, as we took stock of our new surroundings and set the Company back on its feet, in the midst of these difficulties and with so much yet to do we thought at least the feud with the Lemprières was resolved. We were wrong. It was only beginning. One after another your ancestors came after us and one by one we cut them down. We asked ourselves what led the Lemprières to us, one after another? How could you know?’ Lemprière shook his head as he thought back and asked himself where it had begun. He saw his father roll in the water at the edge of the pool.
‘The agreement,’ he said.
‘No. We led you to that, and only you. Something else, John. Some other hand has guided the Lemprières. But whose? Whose is the third hand, John?’ The Cabbala had turned their heads to him and were staring as one. He thought, are we Lemprières not alone then? Do we have an ally? He racked his brains for some remark of his father’s which might throw light on the matter.
Lemprière's Dictionary Page 65