The Blessing Stone

by Barbara Wood

  “It’s the Americans who buy my goods. In England, pirates are treated mercilessly, but in America we are given protection in their ports, even hospitality. It is the Americans who provision my ship and find buyers for my treasures, for a commission, of course. So the Americans get rich along with me.”

  She frowned. “It is unthinkable.”

  “It’s politics. By supporting buccaneers like myself, Americans are striking a blow against British rule, a struggle that is growing stronger and more bitter with time. The English made this rule called the Navigation Act, which stipulates that no goods can be imported into England’s colonies except in English ships manned by English crews. The Americans don’t think this is fair, so they circumvent British law whenever they can.”

  “And so my lovely candlesticks and my mother’s china…”

  “Will most likely end up on a mantel in Boston.”

  As he began to unscrew the telescope, Brigitte said, “But that was a gift from my husband!”

  He laughed as he hefted the brass instrument in his hand. “Sentimental man, your husband.”

  “You would not understand, m’sieu,” she said with indignation.

  “I understand that women prefer gifts of beauty or romantic meaning, but a telescope?”

  “It is more than a mere spyglass, m’sieu. It is an instrument of power.”

  “How so?”

  “I saw you, didn’t I? And you were unaware of me.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “That is true. You saw us coming and we were unaware. But you did not raise the alarm. Most curious.”

  He walked to the stairway and indicated she should precede him. So Brigitte descended to the landing below and led the way into the main living room where, to her surprise, Kent swept his hat from his head and demanded something to drink. His hair was deepest black without a shadow of gray or silver, yet she placed his age nearer forty than thirty, for his face, when seen close up, was lined with the creases of life and weather.

  Refusing a bottle of wine that was already open and insisting she fetch one that was still sealed, Kent went out onto the veranda where he conferred briefly with Mr. Phipps. Coming back inside, he said to Brigitte, “Still nothing unusual going on at the fort or in the town. We continue to go undetected.”

  Through the transparent panes of the front window, she could see the moon continuing to rise and shed light on the compound where Kent’s men were getting loud and some of her slave women were being encouraged to be friendly. They hadn’t started eating yet, but smoke and cooking aromas filled the air.

  Kent looked at the portrait over the fireplace—a pastoral scene depicting Henri and Brigitte Bellefontaine seated beneath a spreading oak tree, with their children gathered around them. When Kent commented on the young Bellefontaines, and their fortuitous resemblance to their mother instead of their father, Brigitte said, “They mean the world to me. My children are my life.”

  “Yet you sent them away.”

  “A decision I regret.” She brought a tray with two glasses filled with brandy. Kent had her taste both before he selected one.

  “You insult me,” she whispered.

  “Milady, there are a thousand ways to kill a man, but poisoning is a woman’s art. And there are a thousand ways to poison. Shall we have a fire? The night grows chill.” Brigitte called for one of her slaves to build a fire in the fireplace and presently the flames were casting Christopher Kent’s tall shadow on the walls.

  He tasted his brandy, watching her over the rim of his glass. “So your husband drags you to a godforsaken place where you can’t raise children.”

  “My husband did not ‘drag’ me. We came here to build something. The Bellefontaines are an old and noble family, but the previous generation mishandled the fortune so there were no lands for my husband to inherit. He accepted an offer from the king to come here and help build the colony. In return, the land would be ours. Here is our real home, m’sieu, which we built for our children, for they will come back to Martinique. Their stay in Paris is only temporary, for their education. And that is why,” she added a little breathlessly, “I beg of you not to kill my husband. His children need their father.”

  Kent looked out the window and saw Mr. Phipps watching as one of the women tasted a chunk of freshly baked bread before he himself had a bite. Everything was under control, nothing untoward. “Men like your husband,” Kent said presently in a dark, deadly tone, “men with wealth and power, need to be taught lessons.” He fell into a morose silence, his expression growing stormy and unreadable as he watched his men dance around the bonfire. Then he turned, as if suddenly remembering where he was, and said in a lighter tone, “Anyway, your husband’s fate is not up to me but to my men.”

  “But surely you could order them—”

  “You clearly do not understand the law of the high seas, milady. I might be captain of my crew, but we are a democratic ship, as are all pirate ships. What my men decide is theirs to do. I give no orders, nor do they take them. What happens is not my responsibility.”

  He walked to the doors that stood open to the rear garden and, inhaling the night air, said, “What is that perfume?” It was a heady mixture of white jasmine, lily-of-the-valley, purple and pink freesia, lilac and honeysuckle.

  “What pirate does take responsibility for his actions?” she said behind him.

  He turned. “Madam, you know nothing of me, nor of the world I would wager. Think what you will. Why should I care?”

  “So you blame the world for your ills?”

  “What has the world ever done for me?”

  “You kill for revenge, is that it? Even the innocent?”

  “It is the law of survival. As the hawk kills the snake, as the snake kills the rat. Only the strong survive, I’ve learned that much.”

  “But why do you pick on the French?”

  “I pick on everyone. Mankind is my enemy. I make no distinction between English and French, Spanish or Arab. I am a free prince, madam, and have as much right to make war on the whole world as he who commands a navy upon the sea and an army upon the land.”

  She turned away speechlessly. She saw the flowers in her garden standing as brightly in the moonlight as if it were day. She heard the enchanting calls of a nightbird. The island continued to sleep beneath the effulgent moon. There was no cannon-fire from the fort. No sign of ships, no torches being carried up the mountainside. And the lookouts in the palm trees had shouted no alarms. Below, tangy smoke and aromatic cooking filled the air, and drunken song and loud fiddle playing broken by high feminine laughter.

  Kent fell silent and seemed to withdraw into himself.

  “Strange,” he murmured after a length. “I have visited all of these islands these past years, I have trod their earth and drunk from their streams, I have anchored in their waters and tasted their fruits. Yet I have never actually seen these islands.”

  She waited, and the night seemed to wait with her. She imagined all the exotic birds with their colorful plumage, all the tropical flowers with their succulent leaves and petals, the sparkling stars and fat, ivory moon, even the white breakers on the beach in the distance, she imagined that the entire universe had stopped for an instant to wait with her.

  Kent said, “Yet I seem to be seeing them now. Martinique, at least. What magic is at work in this place?” His glance fell to the blue crystal at her breast. “ ’Tis a mysterious stone. The likes of which I have never seen before. Neither diamond nor sapphire. Like a blue topaz, but deeper and cloudier. And what lies at its heart? A cluster of stars, it appears.”

  When he brought his eyes up to hers, he said quietly, “There is magic at work here, but is it the island? Or is it you, madam? What kind of enchantment do you cast upon me?” His brow furrowed and his look turned troubled. “My men and I should leave,” he said decisively. “It makes me nervous to stay too long in one place. We have been seduced, I suspect.”

  Her heart jumped. He must not leave! “Your men haven’t e
aten yet.”

  “They can take the food with them.”

  “The piglets are not quite done. And some of your men…” Her voice trailed off a the looked into the dense trees surrounding the house. Kent took her meaning: he, too, had seen some of his men sneaking off into the foliage with slave women.

  Kent gave Brigitte another long, curious look. “Why are you not afraid of us?”

  “But I am.”

  “You said that, yet I cannot believe it. I have never seen a woman acting as you do. I am used to screaming, running, fainting. Or hiding behind their men. You are made of different stuff.” His eyes trailed from her face to her shoulders, bare and white in the moonlight. “But you shiver, madam. The night has grown cold.”

  “At this altitude,” she said, breathlessly, as if the altitude were making it difficult to breathe, “the temperature drops at night even though we enjoy very warm days.”

  Amusement danced in his eyes as he said, “And how do you keep warm at night?”

  “Martinique has its warm places.”

  He saw challenge in her eyes. And when she moved slightly, he caught the flash of blue fire at her bosom. Also a challenge? “Show me these warm places,” he said quietly.

  As they passed through the smoky compound again, some of Kent’s men called merrily to him, making bawdy comments about the company he was keeping. By now they were cutting off chunks of bread for themselves, and hacking away at pineapples and coconuts. Brigitte noticed that they were using their own daggers instead of the kitchen knives provided by her slaves. She also noticed that Mr. Phipps had found the crate of brand new pewter goblets recently arrived from France, still in their packing straw, for it was from these the pirates drank, again to avoid the chance of being poisoned. In fact, they took no chances at all, but made sure that every onion, every pinch of pepper that went into the dishes was first tested on a human, and once the piglets were cooked, the men would hack at the meat with their own safe daggers.

  But at least they were eating and drinking, which was what Brigitte had counted on, to keep them from bolting as soon as they had the gold. Once they were gone, she would never have a chance with Kent again.

  Brigitte kept her head high and tried not to look in her husband’s direction as she led the pirate captain through the partying crowd, past the edge of the immaculate green lawn, and into cool, dense jungle foliage.

  As soon as the thick leaves and fronds closed behind them, sound was muffled and a strange silence enfolded them. Behind her, Brigitte heard the sound of Kent’s cutlass being drawn from its scabbard. But she pressed forward on the trail barely visible in the moonlight. Overhead, a leafy canopy allowed only glimpses of the full moon; unseen creatures rustled underfoot, and golden eyes blinked in the darkness. Finally they came to the edge of the thick green growth and could hear up ahead a curious rushing sound.

  Brigitte went first, and when Kent joined her, coming to an abrupt halt at her side, she heard his whispered oath. For they were both gazing at a sight beyond belief.

  The lagoon was perhaps a hundred feet across, bordered by large smooth boulders, reedy shallows, grassy dunes, and a short stretch of sandy beach. It stood open to the sky so that the fat moon rode like a gold coin on the water’s surface, which rippled out in concentric circles from a most astonishing waterfall. It came from a geyser that bubbled up through rocks high overhead and cascaded in a froth of white foam and hot steam.

  Sheathing his cutlass, for he realized no trap lay here, Kent stepped forward and swore again. “Never in my life have I seen such a place! ’Tis like a bathhouse in here! How is this water so hot?”

  “It is heated by volcanic springs far below the ground,” Brigitte said, noticing that a fine perspiration had sprouted on his forehead. Here, in this sultry clime, wild orchids grew in profusion, and jade vines, flamingo flowers, many varieties of hibiscus, and fleshy succulents with tumescent stems.

  Walking to the water’s edge, Kent put his hands on his hips and surveyed the astonishing scene. Already the torrid atmosphere was making the ends of his hair curl and beads of sweat to appear around his mouth. He removed his hat and then his long black coat, folding it carefully onto the ground. Brigitte saw how his white linen shirt had begun to cling to him in damp places, outlining muscles.

  Kent rubbed his forehead in confusion. The hot mist and floral perfume were confounding his reason. This lush, verdant paradise had robbed him of logic and sanity. In all his life he had never been so seduced, nor ever thought he could be. He stared at his bewitching companion and again the glint of blue fire at her breast caught his eye. Was it the crystal that was casting the spell, or was it the woman? Or both?

  He reached her in four strides and, taking her by the arms, said in a husky voice, “From the moment we arrived I had the feeling you wanted to keep us here. I suspected a trap. I thought you had sent runners to the fort. But there has been time now for soldiers to arrive, and my lookouts would have spotted them. You sent no message, did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “You wanted me to stay?”

  She slowly nodded.

  “Swear it. On everything you hold dear. Swear it is the truth that you wanted me to stay.”

  “I swear it,” she whispered. “On the life of my children, I swear I wanted you to stay.” And it was the truth.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her. They broke apart for only a moment, to catch a hasty breath, then he drew her to him again while the waterfall plunged and steamed, and the moon looked down with a dispassionate eye. Brigitte, surrendering to his kisses, thought of the gypsy fortune-teller of long ago and realized that the legend was true, the Star of Cathay did possess the powers of love and passion. Without it, she knew, this night would never have happened.

  They lay upon the damp grass, exhausted. They had swum in the warm lagoon and embraced beneath the tumbling waterfall. Now Kent was murmuring, “You are magical and rare, like this blue gemstone, and just as beautiful. Come away with me, Brigitte. Live with me on my plantation in Virginia. I would make you very happy.”

  He spoke for a while then of his home in America, and then he drifted off to sleep while Brigitte lay in his arms, looking up at the tropical moon as it made its relentless progress to the western horizon.

  Kent awoke to the sound of birdcall. The sky was still black but the moon had set and dawn was not far off. He saw Brigitte standing at the water’s edge, as dressed as she could be without the help of a lady’s maid to do the laces.

  Kent dressed silently, wrapped up in the wonder and magic of what had taken place. And as they took the trail back to the plantation and to reality, Kent knew two things: that he wanted to keep this woman, and that he was ravenously hungry.

  Most of his men were sprawled around the dying bonfire, snoring, mouths agape. A few staggered about, moaning and retching. The women had vanished. Colette materialized suddenly, as if she had been awaiting her mistress’s return, bearing a platter of hot food and a mug of rum.

  “She saved you some,” Brigitte said to Kent, taking the plate and handing it to him. “Otherwise, the bones have all been licked clean.”

  Kent grinned as he lowered himself to the grass and crammed the succulent meat into his mouth. It had been cooked and seasoned to perfection. His men, when they sobered up, were going to swear they would never in their lives eat as well again.

  He turned his face to the east, where paleness was starting to wash the horizon, and said, “We must set off soon. My ship is hidden, but still there is risk of discovery.”

  Brigitte looked over at the animal pens where the men had been locked up. Most of them slept, having drunk their fill of rum which the women had brought to them. But they had had no food, under Colette’s strict orders, who had received her instructions from Brigitte. She saw Henri, still chained to the hen house, looking abject and miserable.

  “Collect whatever you want to take with you as quickly as possible,” Kent was saying as he devoured the juic
y piglet meat and washed it down with rum. “You won’t be needing much, darling, for I shall buy you all the gowns and jewels you want.”

  Brigitte saw Colette by the veranda, watching, solemn eyes set in a black face. The young woman stood with her arms folded, as if the night’s events had not touched her.

  The sky continued to pale and the surrounding rainforest broke out with monkey chatter and noisy birdsong. The last of the pirates collapsed to the ground, but Kent did not notice as he ran a bread crust around his plate to catch the last of the piglet juices. He spoke with his mouth full: “Are you not hungry, my love?”

  She knelt beside him at last, her skirts billowing around her, and the colors of her gown resembled a sunrise—gold against pink. She said, “Martinique is known for its flowers, m’sieu. But even so, many of us brought favorite plants from home. Do you know the oleander?” She pointed to tall, leafy shrubs bearing pink blossoms. White stumps could be seen where branches had earlier been hacked off.

  Kent sucked on the last piglet bone and then crunched the remaining piece of crackling skin. “Wait till you see the flowers in America, my dear.”

  She pointed to the discarded spits beside the fire pits. “We cooked the piglets on those branches. I told Colette to make sure the bark was well stripped off before they were skewered into the meat.”

  He took a long swig of rum and gave her a perplexed look. “What is all this to me?”

  “The oleander is poisonous. Every bit of it.”

  His look was blank.

  “Your men are not sleeping, m’sieu, they are dead.” She gestured to Colette who, knowing what was expected of her, broke into a sprint. She went from man to man, to all the bodies sprawled in the yard, felt each on the neck briefly, and then moved on. When she was finished, she flashed her mistress a triumphant grin.

  Kent blinked. “Dead? What are you talking about?” And then comprehension dawned on him just as dawn broke over the mountain peaks and shot spears of light across the plantation. Now he saw what he had not seen in the smoky light of predawn: that his men lay in unnatural positions, and that they were far too silent to be sleeping.