Hunt for White Gold

by Mark Keating

  ‘So he lies. They all lie. Else the girl is wrong.’ Devlin sank his drink while his eyes roved the room for prying faces over the rim of his mug. He caught a few surveying him between puffs of tobacco or the filling of mugs. Discovered, they turned away from him, finding more to interest them in a lamp or the sawdust floor. Devlin slopped more rum into his mug, four fingers’ worth. ‘Who cares? What differs anyways?’

  Dandon leant towards him, lowering his voice. ‘What ails thee, Patrick? Do we not have an adventure afore us after months of idling in Madagascar? Peter Sam to rescue. Capture awaiting us in Providence. What more could men ask for?’

  Devlin swirled the liquid in his cup, absorbed in its depths. ‘I should have held him to the wall,’ he murmured. ‘Stuck a blade to his throat and told him his future. Not bow and tip my hat.’

  ‘I don’t follow?’ Dandon sat back, stroking Lucy’s hip.

  Devlin curled a lip and continued, ‘I have come so far to be free, only to find there is no such thing. I am still commanded by those that were born in better beds.’ He clasped a fist to his chest. ‘Even those I thought bested pull at me from the shadows.’

  Dandon took a small drink, choosing his words with care. ‘You could still do nothing,’ he sighed. ‘We could sail away, meet up with the Shadow and Bill and forget it all. Even go back into that house and slit that cochon’s throat. You can do anything you want, Patrick, that is the difference. But a man of your world has been taken into theirs. His well-fought-for freedom taken from him. What would become of you if you did nothing to bring him back to the path? And, at this point, whoever is involved in our conspiracy, we know more than they think we do.’ Dandon drank tall, letting his cryptic words ferment in Devlin’s ears.

  ‘What do we know, Dandon?’ Devlin’s left hand was beneath the table, his fist opening and closing on the antler hilt of his hanger.

  ‘We are now aware that Peter Sam is not here: Ignatius informed us that Peter is on his way. Ergo, he is not in our presence.’ Dandon tugged on his goatee. ‘He sent agents to find us, so there is, probably, only one or two men holding Peter. And we have Will Magnes and a stout band to find him on Madagascar. In all fact he is most likely drunk with them as we sup here.’

  ‘Aye,’ Devlin leant in. ‘That may be. Peter could be with Will by now. Ignatius would know no more than us.’

  Devlin’s eyes narrowed, the rakish grin returning. Dandon saw the change, almost heard the capstan turning with the prospect of cannon fire and pistol shot in the days ahead.

  ‘There is more, and this you shall like,’ he winked at Devlin’s curiosity then brought the bleary Lucy back into the conversation.

  ‘Confirm for me Lucy, if you will my girl,’ he squeezed her closer. ‘You said that the man in that house yonder never goes out. Is that common knowledge? Is that solemnly true?’

  Lucy dipped her head slowly several times, ‘Aye sir. He been here a year now, renting the house from the governor his-self. Only ever see his boy and the trade coming and going. Asks anybody. And the lights are on all through the night.’

  Devlin shifted himself on his stool, eyeing the room again, now looking for trouble from any eye that might meet his and waiting for Dandon’s expatiation to conclude. ‘And what of it, Dandon? What difference if Ignatius goes out or not?’

  Devlin’s patience was exhausted. ‘We leave. Back to the ship.’ He scraped back his stool. ‘We sail in the morning.’ He dropped some silver upon the pewter charger, paying for the hen and the rum, the clatter drawing glances from every dark corner of the room, not least from behind the bar where the aproned host counted the rattling coins as they fell.

  Dandon looked up quite crestfallen to his mate then began to slide himself up from under Lucy, expertly managing to slip her onto his stool in his place with her barely aware of it. He plucked his captain’s shoulder, drawing his cheek close to his mouth.

  ‘I merely wished to allude to the fact, Patrick – and your failure to observe such tells often concerns me – that for a man who never goes out Ignatius makes a fine mess of puddles in his home.’

  Devlin paused. He tapped out his pipe upon the table and listened to his friend.

  ‘His feet were wet, Captain. Every step he took. The only damp I have seen around is by the wharf is it not? And Blackbeard never came ashore, but sat in that same room?’ Dandon’s eyes gleamed ochre as his liver tightened its grip on him, almost stifling the joy of his revelation. ‘And such a beautiful rug upon the floor did you not think?’

  ‘I’ll take your word on the water. I did not notice. Agreed, if you are suggesting that he has a tunnel to his home from the harbour. I’m sure in a town where a slave revolt and Indian attacks are an everyday concern such contrivances are common. Now let’s go. Say goodbye to the girl.’ Devlin turned and snaked his way through the mess of tables to the door.

  He did not need to hear any more. There was a time for posturing – Devlin enjoyed it as much as any man – but bile had begun to rise in him. He stood outside on the street and looked across to the glowing red arch above the black door opposite, the four windows still flickering from oil lamps within. Those lamps would burn the place up well if one should fall, perhaps knocked by a bold and inquisitive rat. Aye maybe that would do it. Show this Ignatius what a pirate affronted can do. Burn him in his bed for his arrogance. See how smug he is charred.

  But what of Peter if he did such a thing? What then for his quartermaster? All told, it was just the rum steaming his anger and Devlin shook the thought away. How would his men look upon him if he abandoned their oldest hand? And how better their regard if he rescued him?

  A captain’s choice should never be his own.

  He looked down the street as Dandon stumbled out behind him. It was maybe a quarter of a mile down to the wharf. Not a long walk, nor either a tedious creep down a tunnel.

  He smacked Dandon’s chest with the back of his hand, ‘Come. We’ll talk of this aboard. I think you may be right, mate. Knowing that Ignatius has a hidden passage from the house to the wharf could give us a sure advantage.’

  ‘I am glad you agree,’ Dandon hiccoughed at the suddenness of the cool air.

  ‘But remember, he seems to know us well. Knows more about you than I do.’

  Dandon tutted his disapproval. ‘Ah, no. He knows the history of us. He does not know us. He looked down at us about ourselves. Patronised us about France and faïence. He is like all the well-born and wealthy, believing ignorance to be the common man’s contribution to the world.’

  ‘Aye. But now the measure of it …’ Devlin looked about the broad street taking in the warm night, the laughter and glow from the inn, the quiet dark houses. The murderous chill in his bones was at odds with it all. ‘Providence will be our destination, as cold to us now as England, and Coxon there to boot. Blackbeard has been set to the same task and Valentim Mendes, hate-filled enough to traverse the ocean, seeks to find me. My page is marked, and all for the recipe for cups and saucers for Sodomites.

  ‘And the rescue of dear Peter Sam of course. Our lost companion.’

  ‘Aye and that and all. That’s all I came for. To save him who came back for me.’

  He began to walk away, back towards the wharf, his grin briefly returning. ‘All I need now is for Seth Toombs to return from the dead.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Valentim Mendes, Madagascar

  Six weeks had passed since the Shadow left. There had been no hint of Peter Sam. Not a footprint. Not a glimpse. Devlin’s remaining crew had given up the chase and waited for their brethren to return, convinced of the notion that Peter Sam had indeed been carried from the island and it would be their captain that would find him.

  The ten left to scour for their quartermaster had pooled their coin, Will Magnes acting as purser, but six weeks of tavern living had still taken their toll on their silver in addition to their spirit and morale, for gambling and whoring were the black trades of Madagascar.

  After a fortnig
ht, six had sold their pistols and drunk an anker of brandy between them. By the month’s end four were living and pimping with young women they had fallen for, bouncing someone else’s nipper on their knees and teaching them songs perfectly inclined to the understanding of their mothers’ trade.

  Three others had sailed, desperate and worn by the heat. Madagascar had, almost within a week of their captain’s departure, become swollen with pirates all telling the same terrible tale. Providence had fallen, reclaimed by the King. The last friendly port in the Caribbee was no more. Now the Americas, the crooked inlets and the swamps, or the East Indies and her belly of wealth waiting to be pierced would be their ports. Devlin’s men had sailed with Captain England, late of Providence, and paid Devlin no more mind.

  Of the others, one had been shot dead, not for want of speed or due to drunken sloth, but the failure of his ‘snap’ – the diligence to check the effectiveness of his flint, which was forgotten with the fat living he’d had on Madagascar.

  Only Andrew Morris and Will Magnes remained. They shared a room in one of the Dutch taverns in St Augustine. Their loyalty had come from their brotherhood. They had been true mates ever since the Lucy, Magnes had taken young Andrew Morris under his wing. Magnes, now in his late forties, was old for a pirate and Morris made good kin for an old man’s hands.

  The ‘mate’ for a pirate was as close to a partnership as he might ever come. A man to eat with, to share with, to reload for, to fight alongside watching the back of the other.

  The most successful ships of the sweet life generated crews of such men. Hence, Magnes and Morris hung together awaiting their captain’s return.

  Late noon found Morris creaking out of the inn to stretch and welcome the day. He stood beneath the sailcloth awning that shaded the old men lounging on the porch and began to sweep his eye over the masts languishing in the bay, seeking a familiar shape.

  The streets were already crowded with traders at their stalls, teeming with new lumbering sailors trudging up the hill, keeping their heads low and their histories lower. Madagascar was the cornerstone of the edge of the world and wandering mariners were drawn to it like a shrine.

  Morris scratched his beard and clumped down the steps of the porch to watch the local folk at their best. He had abandoned his waistcoat for a loose shirt and breeches. He wore no stockings, just straw shoes and a straw hat, his headscarf tied limply around his neck for the wiping of sweat.

  He had a dagger tucked behind him and a freshly beeswaxed pistol – a foot-long French arm – boldly sticking out of his belt front and shining like a diamond necklace on a pig. A pirate might have black feet, lice on his head and groin and fingernails like a dog’s claws but you could mark him by the sharpness and shine of his weapons.

  His attention was snagged by the approach of a cedar-wood sedan chair struggling up the slope of the street. Such an emblem of wealth was unusual in St Augustine and the sight drew urchins like ants to sugar. Whoever sat behind the closed purple curtains of the carriage was doing little to dissuade the small brown hands from poking through as the bearers trudged along.

  Morris found pleasure in the scene. A rich ponce had no smarts if he entered a poor town in such manner.

  His face dropped however when the chair’s progress was halted by the growing crowd of children and the front curtain was swept aside as the passenger leant forward to encourage his bearers with the prodding of his cane.

  Morris had seen that snarling face before and recalled the black shoulder length hair almost blue in the white sunlight. Then the face was gone, sunk back behind the velvet curtain, and the sedan plodded on.

  Morris stepped forward, dreamlike in remembrance, unsure of his recollection. He watched the back of the chair as if he expected the occupant to lean out and wave back at him and found himself perplexed as he struggled to curl his tongue around a name just out of memory’s reach. Then it came back to him.

  ‘That’s Valentim Mendes,’ he mouthed as if waiting for applause. ‘That’s the man we took the Shadow from. He ain’t dead.’

  Peter Sam, Valentim, Devlin – and Andrew Morris – had been there that night. Had taken the Shadow with Devlin and Peter. Killed, with Devlin and Peter.

  Perhaps unwisely, with hindsight, the Devil’s own view of the world, he chased after the sedan, weaving amongst what little shadow the parched street provided, leaving Will Magnes sleeping in his bed.

  After half an hour the town shrank into the distance leaving only the chirrups and howls of the forest. Morris swapped barrels and doorways for trunks and ferns as he crept behind the sedan unnoticed. He repeated in his head that he had his cartouche of fifteen cartridges for his fine pistol and a dagger and a belly full of breakfast timber to see him home.

  He was not so stupid as to connect so large a world with what little coincidence the Lord provided. Yet this meant something, and he knew it would mean nothing to no-one if he was seen.

  The sedan chair stopped at the baying of a black horse hushed with a pat on its jowls by a giant of a man who almost dwarfed the animal. Morris could see, even beneath the shadow of the large straw brim of the giant’s hat, a horn of a nose shining red like a five shilling ham drying in the sun.

  He saw the back of Mendes, a purple doublet plumed by his black hair, climb carefully from the chair and confer with the giant. His hair appeared temporarily like a ridiculous beard for the giant as he stood before him. Then Mendes turned to command his chair-bearers and Morris quickly ducked to the ground, slowly lifting his eyes up in time to see Mendes mount and then pull the horse away into a trot. The giant ambled dutifully behind.

  The chair-bearers padded away back down the path as horse and rider were swallowed by the jungle. Morris watched the chair pass his tree. He strained his eyes looking into the jungle after Mendes and switched his gaze between both paths. He considered running back to town to fetch Will. That would be a wiser judgement. But judgement was for judges. Like a gun-dog bounding after a stricken bird, helpless against instinct over brains, Morris loped after Mendes and the giant.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Peter Sam poked at the hollows of his cheekbones. For some time now, how long he was unsure, his hands had been free of shackles. He wondered what he looked like now. His beard had stopped growing. His once powerful arms, his slabs of fists, now hung flaccid and weak. His cotton smock was black and reeking. He marked his days by the bowl and the bowel. He could spend hours muttering to himself in the dark, marking his errors, berating the years. Always his sentences trailed off into a beating down by the other Peter Sam, a younger, more handsome Peter Sam, who had a pipe and a good head of red hair, who stood for an hour or so within his shell and paced up and down stabbing indiscriminately, mostly at Spaniards, magistrates or Newfoundland codmen haunting his cell.

  The conversations would dwindle until he sat rocking on his haunches as his stomach signalled the approach of the bowl and he craned his ear for the whistle of the Scotsman.

  That was now. Late afternoon. His arms were wrapped around his knees, and Peter could feel his stomach feeding on itself, sucking at him for some bread and meat with his cabbage soup, which Hib always promised if he could steal it for him or swipe it from his own plate for his friend.

  A different day. A new sound. Peter Sam stopped rocking.

  Down the steps came two pairs of footsteps. The soft patter of the Scotsman and the stomp of hard boots mingled with the unmistakable rattle of a scabbard scraping along the stairwell.

  The cell became brighter with the prospect of a new voice. Peter stood up, shakily so, then backed away shyly as the footsteps approached the door. He cringed as the key turned and the bolt dragged back, and Peter sought the shadows.

  The torchlight from the passage beyond burst into the cell as two men filled the door. The familiar frame of Hib Gow melted into the room and folded back the door for his companion to enter.

  Peter Sam held his face in his hands and lifted it slowly to the newcomer. His eyes we
re drawn straight to the sword. The only steel he had seen was the Spanish knife of his guardian. He had missed the sight of a true blade – and one of such sophistication, whose filigree hilt and double-knuckle bow now filled his sight. A thought passed in him that he would have mocked such fancy not so long ago. Peter would have snapped the artful rapier like a twig. He had tossed lockers’-worths of them overboard as useless pins in his time. What a fool he had been.

  Then he looked at the man himself. A purple suit, white lace collar, razor sharp moustache and beard. Black gloved hands. A beneficent countenance framed by a glorious black helmet of hair. The stranger cocked his head at Peter then raised a kerchief to his face as the grating in the floor introduced itself.

  Peter lowered his hands as a dim recollection of the stranger began to stir within him. He looked at Hib for reassurance.

  Hib sympathised, his vast nostrils flaring, ‘I have brought a friend for you, Peter. This man will take you home. We may have to say goodbye after some supper.’

  The stranger moved closer to Peter, keeping himself a sword strike distant, then lowered his kerchief to speak.

  ‘Such pleasure to see you again … Peter. Do you remember me?’ He spoke as if to a child, his voice softly sinister with a foreign accent stabbing every staccato syllable.

  Peter Sam looked into the black eyes. Then his own grew wide as he remembered the island of Sao Nicolau in the Verdes. The signpost for the Indies. The night of Seth Toombs’s passing and Devlin’s rise.

  The tree. A man had been tied to a tree. A grenadoe was wrapped in his fist and a fuse lit.

  Peter’s eye fell to the left hand of the stranger, its black glove larger than the right.

  The stranger followed his eye and lifted his left hand in response. ‘So, you remember? I am so glad. It means much to me that you do.’

  Peter Sam’s eyes narrowed. Hib lay his fingers on his dagger hilt as a glint sparked from across the dank room and the weeks melted away as the old scowl returned to Peter’s face.