by Mark Keating
Dubois stroked the man’s cheek with his purple velvet. ‘Are you perchance from Mirebalais, young man?’
Unaware of any address that did not earn punishment the man stayed silent.
‘The ladies upstairs do so love a man from Mirebalais. Still I suppose carrying buckets of piss has purpose in life. Perhaps the police is your destiny?’ The waxwork before him was irresistible now that the regent had ignored him.
‘You know, the English, they did wrong when they removed their king the last time.’ He moved closer with his hot breath. ‘They killed the revolutionary principals but they sent the smaller ones to their colonies as slaves. That was a mistake. Revolution is carried in the blood. I have urged often the death of dissenters. And I am proved right. If they breed, the children will carry the thought in their blood. The English king will lose the colonies because he sends his haters away to breed. And we do the same by filling Louisiana with hate.’
The nostrils of the bucket bearer widened; his arms were beginning to tremble, his buckets filled with hours of waste by every wanderer within the walls.
‘I, boy, have condemned hundreds. Those Bretons seeking republic. Foreign Catholics seeking home. If you do not kill them their children’s children will return.’ He patted the man’s cheek with emerald- and ruby-banded fingers. ‘You will punish us if we allow you to breed . . . malheureusement.’
He wheeled away, scuffing his shoulder against the wall as he spun back to face the unmoving sentinel. ‘I did not break conspiracies! I cut blood for the sake of the divine!’ Then, his finger waggling foolishly, ‘I can hear you! I can hear you all!’ He moved away to seek the drink and the flesh, his voice heavy. ‘I am glad that I will be too long dead to meet you when you come.’
Chapter Nineteen
Sunday morning
‘They’re still coming,’ Dan Teague said, and passed the glass to Bill. They stood on the Shadow’s shallow quarterdeck watching the square towers of sail roll over the horizon. No deck was visible so the ships were still a ways off yet.
Two ships. The dawn had brought them, the sun presenting them to the Shadow’s anchored stern, the working day of the pirate some hours off yet. Dan Teague and Bill were late in greeting the sails.
Bill spoke his mind aloud. ‘She’d turned by now if making for Malo or the coast. They ain’t in too much of a hurry leastways: they have royals if they would but use them.’
The Shadow had cruised under her French merchant flag almost out of the Channel and into the wide welcoming arms of the Atlantic, her passage marked by the Îles d’la Manche to larboard and the Lizard to their starboard bow. Then came the Scilly archipelago and at last they left the rough white-capped waters between France and England. Now, though, two ships of the line from the east seemingly dogged them, matching them knot for knot. It was more like a drag than a hunt.
Bill lowered the glass. ‘We should raise English colours. If they’re Frogs we ain’t the heads to fool them, not with the captain and Dandon gone.’
‘We could make closed waters. Round to Bristol,’ Dan suggested.
‘Aye,’ Bill agreed. If the ships were French they had no business within the three miles of Mare Clausum, that territory around England’s coast that had been hard fought for and whose measure was defined by the range of a cliff-top cannon – or an Englishman’s hate. ‘But we’re to make for the Verdes and back again for the captain. Back in three days. Can’t leave him lolling in that tartane. Besides, Dan, it ain’t a chase yet.’
Others had joined them, shielding their eyes from the morning sun to watch the white pillars suddenly grow taller and wider still as the royals fell and studding sails struck out like wings. The course of the twin ships stayed as faithful as if the Shadow had laid them a towing hawser.
Dan did not need the scope to see it, and made sure Bill had. ‘Ain’t it a chase, Bill? Looks one to me now. Time to hauls it, I says!’
Bill showed nothing, not with the crowd around him. His was the rule now, as Devlin had passed it, for whatever it was worth. He made a slow swallow beneath his beard which none could see. ‘Know your scripture, Dan,’ he whispered, then moved round for them all to hear.
‘Be not afraid. Three hundred and sixty-six times the Bible says that! That’s a blessing for every day of the year, and one for the leap!’
Already he had begun to think of powder, but not out loud to them, not yet. ‘I’ll have mine today, lads! Be not afraid now. Sunday after all. Who fights on a Sunday, save for us!
Trouin left the scoping of the horizon to his officer pups brimming over the fo’c’sle. No need for him to lay sight of his fox. A black and red frigate rigged to the gallants, not intelligent enough to change her grey sails from those as described years past. The faint plume that detailed a hearth on the weather-deck where men ate above rather than below – a sure mark of a pirate biting against convention. Closer and he would know; see her French-built strakes that overlapped, clinker-built for outer hull strength. If so that would confirm she was the Shadow, ‘a Sombra’, as surely as the wax seal from the governor of the Verdes that bought her, whatever masked escutcheon she was sailing under.
It was him. The pirate that had two royal warrants against him and more from every ally. Too far for his eager officers to perceive a flag but close enough for Trouin to feel, the hair rising on his skin, that this was the ship that the merchant had told him of three days ago.
He had given no margin for error or ingenuity from the pirate. Like fool’s chess the brigand would sail into his trap. La Françoise would stand to the pirate’s forefoot, feinting to lure her to the treacherous Scilly rocks of the aptly named Hell Mouth – a sailor’s graveyard. The weaker La Patiente, Trouin’s command, would give her leeway, allow her a gap to run, and when she took it . . .
There was no need for signals or orders shouted through trumpets. Captain Cassard on La Françoise had his orders to follow like calculus. One only needed to mark time until the distance between them closed. A fine Sunday morning in August that some artist would soon immortalise in oil. Trouin would choose the artist himself, not out of vanity – no vanity in glory – but to ensure that the painter had the right sanguinary spirit for the task.
The sea pulled. The bow dipped. Everything ran in his favour just as it always had. Pity those against him on the sea. His sea.
The Shadow unfurled her sail slowly in the distance and moved on. The game was afoot. His game.
‘La chasse est ouverte!’ he cried out over the sea rather than to the horde behind him who cheered raucously in response. He presented no expression of pride, made no flourish with his hat. Already, coolly, thoughts of his chicken supper seemed more important: René Duguay-Trouin at his table. But he had told none of them of his innermost thoughts, the pricking at his skin and instinct.
A pirate had come into his waters, famous and bold, but had ignored the fat merchant ships in his sight, and instead had veiled himself as a plague ship. Why?
There was more game here than just a forban rat.
John Law sat at his desk in his company’s offices in the Rue de Quincampoix, a small white-panelled upstairs room with one shuttered window and the yellow light of candles dwindling away the hours. At least Sunday provided peace from the maniacs selling and buying stocks in the streets below. Even those fools needed mass or bread eventually.
He mused over the papers that had been waiting for his return. He was a formidable mathematician, perhaps greater than the finest astronomers of Greenwich, and if he had turned his skill to the Longitude instead of the gaming tables of Europe, Halley and Flamsteed may have slept more. Now he lifted each page as if it were ballast, despairing over his figures as if they counted plague victims.
Still, his Scotsman’s optimism – or obstinacy – led him to feel that something could be done other than flee to the Netherlands or back to England if the pirate should succeed.
But the more the abyssal figures trailed away before his eyes the more difficulty he had i
n ceasing the trembling of his hands.
The banknotes had been a sound notion. Perfectly sound. When England almost a quarter of a century before had needed to rebuild its navy it had started its own bank, offering notes promising an eight-percent return. So successful was the scheme that England now challenged France for European supremacy, her defeat at Beachy Head forgotten, her navy ruling the waves.
In France the scheme to offer notes for gold and silver had won even greater popularity. The people had embraced the notion that their notes could not be devalued by a king’s whims and the fact that paper was more portable and practical than coin in so vast a realm – particularly so when the ferocity of speculation in the New World companies, of which Law was now head, hit Paris like a hurricane and littered the streets with chits and credit notes as if it were exactly just such a cataclysm.
But John Law, Monsieur Lass, had not counted on the lust that sight of such vast profit could create in the regent’s eye and in that of the blue-bloods who had promised to support his ascension in return for livres rather than policies. Somehow, Philippe still carried the people’s admiration but not so for Lass. Over the summer, as the price of shares in his companies fell and fell, the people who had once labelled him a genius now sought his hide. He had sent his wife and children to his country estate for safety and for the health of his youngest son who had developed the first signs of the dreaded small-pox, the illness that had plagued Law in his youth. Bravely he had stayed in Paris, albeit under the protection of the regent. Perhaps indeed his only chance of safety was to run, Walpole’s plan his avenue of escape.
How could this terror have gripped France? America should have been fat, a goose with layers and layers of grease and pregnant with golden eggs to boot. The kingdom of France should have been her master. But America was not the whore of plenty they had banked on.
Swamps, hostile natives, pirates – especially the pirates – stopping a third of the trade like a tax collector wandering up and down the pews of a church with cudgel and sack. And there was no gold.
It was hoped that the northern plains would have the same alluvial abundance as the wealth of New Spain, but that had not transpired. Spain still held civilisation’s purse-strings and laughed at them from its treasure fleets sailing still from Potosi.
Law trembled more with every statement from each department that landed on his desk; they provoked a rising nausea that could only be temporarily quelled with whisky, or permanently by some miracle.
‘There is a baker here to see you, Monsieur Lass.’ He was pulled from his pit by his administrator’s soft voice at his open door. He wearily lifted his head.
‘Hmm?’
‘A baker.’
‘A baker?’
The man pushed his pince-nez back to the bridge of his nose. ‘He says he has the pie you ordered. A “tarte rat” it would seem? He says it is a Scottish dish for yourself.’ The administrator had some knowledge of the vulgar stomach of Scotsmen. Why not a rat pie to add to their repellent list of delicacies?
Law however struggled to recall any such request, and his bemusement did not go unnoticed.
‘He says it is the “backwards” pie of your homeland? That you eat it back to front or some such nonsense?’ Law simply stared at him. ‘I will send him away, Milord,’ said the administrator with a nod.
Law pursed his lips. A rat pie. Eaten backwards. A slap of realisation hit him in the face. He shouted at the back of the man at his door, his hands suddenly no longer trembling.
‘Show him up, Henri! I remember perfectly! It was before my trip – yes, yes, show him up at once! My rat pie! Splendid, man!’
Henri pushed his pince-nez once more back onto his nose and bowed, exiting with French expressions of disgust under his breath.
Law admired the new steadiness of his fingers, his corpse-pile of numbers instantly forgotten. A moment later, hope sauntered into the room, although in a more surprising manner than to Law than when he had first laid eyes on the pirate Devlin.
Devlin wore no cocked hat this time, just a leather sailor’s cap, long on one side, a woollen shirt, a common eighteen-button waistcoat and slop hose. Finishing off his much-changed appearance were wooden shoes that clacked on the bare floor as he came into the room and closed the door behind him.
‘Well met, John,’ Devlin said, not minding his English and sure they were alone. He pulled over his head the thick leather strap by which means the tray of his baked wares was held out before him.
Law watched him place the tray down, unable to stop grinning at the transformation of pirate to pie-man. He sprang to his feet, scampering around his desk and warmly pumped the pirate’s hand.
‘Well met indeed, Captain! Good to see that discretion is your loudest virtue! A rat pie indeed! To eat backwards! Pie-rat! Ho, pirate! Splendid! But what if I had not known?’
Devlin took away his hand. ‘Then I’d have guessed you wrong,’ he said.
He looked around the plain room. A blackboard on one wall, books lining every other. The blackboard, Devlin assumed, was a symptom of Law’s obsession with mathematics. He took a chair, uninvited, and pulled it to face the desk. Law took his cue and sat back at his place; the pirate was clearly not one for small talk.
Devlin removed his cap, scratched through his hair and checked his nails for whatever stowaways his borrowed fisherman slops carried. ‘What goes on, John, since we parted? What of the diamond?’
Law squared his papers nervously. ‘I’m afraid the pace has run far ahead of our plans.’ He caught then the smell of ammonia and smoke, the pure lanolin waft from the raw wool. It was not an atmosphere that any man should have to grow used to. But the pirate had disguised himself in Law’s aid and he was grateful for the sacrifice. ‘A drink, Captain?’ It was the best sympathy he could offer.
Law sprang from his desk, using the enchanting melody of glasses and pouring liquor to soften his words. ‘It may occasion you to reconsider following Walpole’s original design.’ He passed an eye over the baker’s tray of pies and pastries. Devlin had admirably gone to a lot of effort in his disguise. He stood over the pirate and handed Devlin a glass. ‘That is, I mean, Walpole’s plan to take the diamond from the lapidary Ronde. Surely now our best course?’
Devlin thanked him for the whisky that covered the stench of his outfit.
‘What’s changed?’
Law explained that the regent was to see Ronde at the palace that very afternoon. ‘It is not of my doing. I am as surprised as you.’ Devlin’s face showed none of the surprise Law expected. ‘It hurries things along, Captain, which is all to the good, but now with time against us we shall wait until the diamond is removed.’
Devlin swallowed his glass. ‘Good. Then we will know where the diamond is hidden today. That means we can take it today. I thought we might have to wait for tomorrow. What time?’
Law’s heart staggered. ‘Three o’clock. I will attend, but—’
‘And the duke’s offices are where?’ He pulled out his rough map. Law looked down and indicated the east wing. ‘And that is where you’ll be at three?’ Devlin asked. Law nodded as firmly as he could.
Devlin looked for a clock. ‘Almost three hours.’ As if Law were no longer in the room he placed his glass back on the table, picked up his tray of wares and began to put it back on as he headed for the door.
Law followed him like a toddling infant. ‘You misunderstand. What could you possibly do? I cannot take you in to meet the regent. You cannot manufacture a robbery under the eyes of a castle! It may be Sunday but the palace does not sleep! Captain? There is nothing you can do! How can you be so obtuse?’
Devlin stopped slipping on his baker’s tray and put it down slowly but hard enough that the crack of it on the table made Law flinch.
A silence ensued, the pirate stock still, his head down, some offence clearly riling him. Law rapidly unpicked his thoughts to recall what offence he had uttered.
The head of France’s national bank, one
of the most auspicious men in one of the most powerful countries on earth, stammered and wilted at the motionless form. ‘That is . . . I mean to say . . . that it will be impossible to—’
Devlin spun round. He appeared at the blackboard opposite as swiftly as if he had always been standing there. Ridiculous as his clothing was, his voice came as powerfully and exact as if he were draped in ermine and gold.
‘Right. Obtuse.’ He picked up a chalk and began to draw a crude map complete with waves and two ships, each stroke on the slate, in his anger, like a stabbing knife. Law, his pupil now, awaited his lesson.
‘This is an island,’ he drew a smattering of trees and hills across it. ‘Cliffs from which you can see thirty miles all around. Impossible to approach unseen.’ His voice was hurried, impatient with his companion’s ignorance. ‘Here is a fort protected by a barracks. A barracks of French marines.’ His angry strokes chipped pieces of chalk to the floor; his knuckles were just as white.
‘On this island, inside the fort no less, is a chest of gold that weighs the same as four men. This,’ he slapped one of the ships, ‘is an English Man of War sent to protect the island.’ He half-turned to let his representation sink in, then rapidly crossed out the ship under a flurry of white.
‘Beaten!’ He crossed out the fort, ‘Beaten! Dead! All of them dead!’ – an inflection in the last word like a bad taste. ‘Me and Dandon did that and sailed away like kings.’
He did not wait for a response but merely rubbed the story away with his sleeve and immediately began another island.
‘This is New Providence. A pirate island, now English. Another fort. Two hundred soldiers. Two men of war this time,’ he drew the ships vaguely, their presence smaller, his patience at an end.
‘In the fort, Governor Woodes Rogers and all the soldiers and a letter that I was sent to fetch – fetch for men like you.’ He scratched out the image with cutlass strokes of white and threw the chalk at Law’s feet.
