Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

Minette added quickly, “You’re right, and Lady Geneva wouldn’t let the governor do such a thing to her cousin anyway.”

  Emerald dare not say what she thought—that Felix, who had married Geneva, was a man of independent power who would do as he wished.

  “We’ll soon find out,” said Emerald and left the taffrail to hurry down to the main deck.

  The cockboat came alongside the Madeleine, and at the foot of the ladder the Carib Indian reached to tie the rope. A minute later, Zeddie stepped into the waist of the ship. He turned as Emerald rushed up to him, anxious for news.

  “Where’s Father? Is there trouble?”

  “Aye, he’s to appear at the Bailey to answer a question or two.”

  “About the Prince Philip?”

  “That snake-mouthed Levasseur testified to Lord Felix that your father was involved.”

  Fear sprang to flame as she remembered Baret’s warning.

  “Levasseur’s also talked about Thorpe and the Black Dragon. He claims Captain Foxworth was workin’ with Thorpe.”

  Rafael was in Port Royal!

  “That treacherous, lying blackguard! Why hasn’t he been arrested? He’s a worse pirate than any who sail the Caribbean.”

  “An interestin’ question, if you go askin’ me, an’ I’ve no answer yet except he seems to be hobnobbing with Lord Felix—who isn’t anxious to arrest him. Levasseur’s bitter enough over losin’ you in the duel to have included you in the doings. Do you think he has the humility to lose to Captain Foxworth? Especially when his lordship made him dance the sword’s edge? Har! Levasseur lost your hand in marriage, an’ he ain’t a good loser. An’ it didn’t help things when Foxworth threatened to sink his ship over the Black Dragon.

  “Aye, m’gal, Levasseur snapped at the opportunity to do evil to him by comin’ to Felix. Anyway, Levasseur has upped anchor, but the French dandy may dangle yet, and more with him. Now m’gal, try not to fret. Sir Karlton is a good man to be sure, an’ he’ll ride this out is my guess. So will the viscount. He’ll outsmart his uncle, you’ll see. Your father’s given me orders to bring you to the lookout house. Says to wait for him there. Seems we’ll be in Port Royal a few days more is all.”

  “A few days?” she inquired anxiously, her hopes faltering. “Then … they’re holding him?”

  He straightened his periwig. “This mite of trouble is causin’ a minor delay. He’ll be there only till the matter at the Bailey is swept clean of misunderstandin’s.”

  Misunderstandings…

  She remembered how Baret had signed articles with Rafael when they had sailed to Maracaibo to locate Lucca. There’d been two deaths aboard Baret’s ship, even before he entered Spanish territorial waters: Jamie Bradford and a crewman of Rafael’s named Sloane. Baret told her the dreadful pirate Sloane was killed in Maracaibo when Baret sought the whereabouts of the scholar named Lucca. She wasn’t certain who had killed him, Baret or Captain Farrow, but if Baret was ever asked to explain to the Jamaican governor, it would mean admitting his illegal entry onto the Spanish Main.

  There had been some trouble with the Spanish soldiers guarding Lucca as well. Now there’d been the attacks on the Main of the Venezuelan coast and the San Pedro. All this was disturbing news for Baret, but what of her father? He had been involved in his own way.

  “Then the Admiralty officials know that he sailed with Baret’s father when the Prince Philip was taken?”

  Zeddie mopped his brow with a calico cloth, looking worried. “He’ll manage to convince ’em otherwise.”

  She couldn’t help but worry. Returning to Port Royal had been a dreadful mistake. “Oh, Zeddie, we should have sailed to England from Curaço.”

  “It’s too late now, m’gal.”

  Too late … The cold, dark words sounded a death knell to her hopes. Perhaps it was also too late for Baret, despite his plans to save his father and salvage their reputations. It seemed too late for them all, including herself and Minette. They had unwisely returned to a trap.

  Port Royal remained, as Great-uncle Mathias had called it, “a cockatrice den of cutthroats, whores, and covetous merchants.” Port Royal’s citizens turned a deaf ear to the rumbling beneath her foundations of silt. Barrels of kill-devil rum, that hot, hellish liquor that was the main drink of Port Royal, continued to flow in place of the water that was mostly undrinkable.

  Which I will once again need to boil, Emerald thought as she made large jugs of weak tea to quench their thirst.

  Not that Jamaica produced only buccaneers. Those colonists who settled the island had been a hardy people, restless, energetic, greedy, and determined. Some had come for religious freedom. Many of the early buccaneers were French Huguenots and Dutch Protestants, angry at Spain for her Inquisition. Attacking their galleons and hauling off their treasure was pure delight. Others, like her father, a maverick in the respectable Harwick family of London, had arrived years earlier when the Civil War broke out in England.

  Land and accumulated wealth clothed the newcomers with power, and with power was granted the nod of acceptance and respectability by others who were more powerful. Marriages unthought of in England were arranged in the rich West Indies, and the blood of the Harwicks, Morgans, and Thaxtons was joined. The nobility scooped up land for sugar and traded in Spanish gold. And so Earl Nigel Buckington, Baret’s grandfather, had married Mary Harwick. And now Lord Felix Buckington had married a Harwick heiress, Geneva, a cousin of Sir Karlton. The dynasty buying into King Sugar expanded and became even more powerful.

  Still others came. They came with enthusiasm and built their shops and churches. They constructed brick houses with goods hauled in from Europe, but they recklessly built on Port Royal—its foundation being a cay of silt and sand—in order to be close to the water, close to the five hundred ships that called each year with their silk, spices, calico, wine, horses, pigs, and French chocolates. They built their taverns and alehouses all across Port Royal and welcomed the buccaneers and pirates to safeguard the island from attack by Spain.

  And despite Sunday preaching, Port Royal would not turn from its ways. Gambling, drinking, and whoring went on all night. Uncle Mathias had always reminded her, after returning to Foxemoore from St. Paul’s Church, that his friend the rector warned from the pulpit of judgment “soon to come.”

  Emerald had taken a special interest in what was said to be a future “fire and brimstone” calamity coming upon Port Royal, “the most sinful city in the world, as dangerous as a plague and as wicked as the devil.” When growing up, she had often trembled whenever an earthquake occurred, or a hurricane struck with devastating winds, or even when she rode from Foxemoore to the edge of town to look upon the pirates of Chocolata Hole. She had never said anything to Mathias, but Emerald would wonder afterward if she too might not die along with everyone else when the looming catastrophe struck. As a child, she had told the Lord she needed His mercy and forgiveness as much as anyone else in Jamaica.

  As Emerald matured, she discovered that Mathias’s summation of Port Royal’s notorious reputation was only too accurate. Although there were sugar planters all over the island—including Spanish Town—Jamaica’s second largest settlement—people flocked to Port Royal because the wealth was there.

  From the beginning, the buccaneer stronghold had overflowed with looted gold, silver, pearls, and emeralds, all of it from pirated plunder of Spanish galleons or from raids on Spain’s colonies of Porto Bello, Cartegena, and Panama. Even with Governor Modyford withholding marques from the buccaneers to legally attack Spanish shipping, Port Royal remained the “Treasury House of the West Indies.”

  On Jamaica’s southern coast, overshadowed by the lush Blue Mountains, a long, low sandspit curved south and then west away from the island. Once called the Palisadoes, it now formed Port Royal Harbor, where deep waters and the absence of shoals made it the ideal natural port and lured hundreds of ships a year. The Spanish had used the old harbor, Spanish Town, as their chief port, and Point Caguay—site of Port Roya
l—had been unoccupied during the Spanish rule save for a careenage where ships were refitted.

  Lying off the western tip of this sandspit was a cay separated from it by a marshy area of mangrove trees. Through the efforts of the merchants, the cay had been filled in and connected to the main island. The enterprising merchants and colonists first called it “The Point,” but when Charles II was reinstated as king of England, the loyalists in Jamaica officially renamed it Port Royal.

  “It’s the most flourishing seaport in the West Indies,” they announced. “And the privateers will find this town to offer them a most warm welcome in exchange for protection against Spain.”

  And so it was. Situated at the center of the Caribbean, Port Royal was ideally located for trading and privateering voyages all over the West Indies. It became a cove for buccaneers, pirates, smugglers, and all manner of adventurers, including gamblers and harlots. Port Royal became a boomtown, where pirates’ gold, silver, and precious gems flowed in a steady stream across the gaming tables of the Red Goose and the Spanish Galleon. More than one fortune was gained—or lost—in a single night.

  “Looks unusually quiet,” commented Emerald curiously, as her eyes ran along King Street and Fishers Row, fronting the wharves, warehouses, and grog shops where buccaneers and pirates once sauntered with cutlass and pistol. A few sea rogues remained, but the dangerous throng of rum-drinking pirates she was accustomed to seeing there was strangely missing.

  “Perhaps sowing to the wind and reaping the whirlwind is a lesson Port Royal has finally learned,” she told Minette.

  Her cousin looked doubtful, glancing about as she opened the small yellow parasol that Emerald had given to her for a birthday gift two years ago. Its inch of battenburg lace was now soiled. She cast limpid amber eyes toward a lean, tough pirate who loitered on the wharf. His shoulder-length black hair lay in oiled waves.

  “I doubt the villains will ever learn, Emerald. They’re born with a crooked bent to their ways, but ‘tis quiet. I wonder why. We was only gone two months, so why should things change?”

  She followed Minette’s uneasy stare at the swarthy pirate, who watched them with keen interest. And Emerald’s imagination envisioned his bold, tanned face turning into the pale and haughty countenance of Lady Sophie Harwick. Great-aunt Sophie was demanding answers as to why Emerald had shamed herself and the Harwick name by running away like a common piece of baggage with the first handsome rogue who looked her way—“just like her mother.”

  Minette was right about Port Royal’s godless lifestyle not easily changing. “Can a leopard change his spots?” the prophet had asked. It would take more than ridding Port Royal of the worst pirates to bring change to Jamaica. The island needed more than reform; its citizens needed a reformation of the heart.

  As far as she knew, the well-delivered sermons were continuing to be preached by the rector at St. Paul’s, but except for the regular Sunday attenders, who was paying heed?

  The crashing boom of a cannon in the Fort Charles battery startled her from her musings. It was followed by two more loud shots to signal an approaching vessel that it had permission to enter the harbor.

  Minette snatched in her breath, and Emerald felt her cousin’s fingers tighten about her arm.

  “Emerald, look!”

  10

  TO TRAP A PIRATE

  Emerald didn’t like the shocked tone of her cousin’s voice and with reluctance followed her gaze down the warped wharf. At first she saw nothing unusual. Her eyes skimmed over some new, roughly constructed buildings and more warehouses along the cay that were being built to house the king’s generous proceeds from any raids upcoming on the Main. With the withdrawal of commissions, however, these were likely to stand empty upon completion, and Tortuga and the French king would gain the bounty instead.

  As she scanned the area to which Minette gestured, she saw the normal amount of slaves going about their work. Half-castes, Caribs, and Africans were emerging from their huts and kennels to haul in the cargo that was evidently expected on a newly arriving gray merchant ship that bore no flag.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Emerald, as Minette continued to clutch her arm.

  “Oh, Emerald! There!”

  Emerald lifted her eyes and focused on the large carrion birds sitting expectantly on the cross arm of a gallows on the Point. She recoiled, offended by the stark brutality made more suggestive now that her father was being held on questions of piracy.

  Was it not here that Jamie’s brother, Captain Maynerd, had been hanged—he who had sailed as a crewman aboard Viscount Royce Buckington’s ship?

  Her throat felt the iron fingers of fear grip her jugular. Six bothes hung from the newly erected execution dock, each one in various degrees of decomposition under the tropical sun. A nightmarish fear arose in her mind. “Your father,” it cackled. “Go take a look—you’ll see him!”

  “No,” she choked and broke into a cold sweat. “No!”

  “Emerald,” whispered Minette worriedly, “it’s not Uncle Karlton. Don’t be afraid. I—I shouldn’t have said anything. Come on, let’s get out of here.” She took Emerald’s arm and tried to propel her across the narrow, cobbled street, but Emerald stood unable to move. The birds seemed to be waiting for the neck of a corpse to rot through, allowing the body to fall onto the ground where it could be feasted upon.

  She noticed a ladder leaning against a support, suggesting that the authorities expected another pirate to be led there for hanging soon. She struggled to concentrate on some words from Scripture: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God!”

  She swallowed, and slowly her overwhelming fear began to subside like ebbing waves rolling over pure white sand. “Lord Felix is anxious to appease the Lords of Trade and Plantation in London,” she murmured. “That pirate aggressors attacking Spanish shipping are being harshly dealt with in Jamaica looks good for his own position before His Majesty.”

  Emerald snatched up the hem of her skirts. “Come, let’s cross the street,” and she and Minette stepped out amid the slow traffic of horse-drawn buggies and wagons.

  Minette pointed out the fine carriages belonging to the wealthy sugar and cacao planters. It was no wonder, thought Emerald, for one block inland from King Street were Queen Street and High Street, where the gentry built fashionable town houses and occupied them for at least half the year. She recalled that before Geneva’s marriage to Felix, there was talk about his constructing a house as Geneva’s wedding present. Emerald supposed that Felix had a supply of rich pieces of furniture to decorate with, many of them taken from the Spanish Main. He’s a fine one to hang pirates, she thought with cynicism.

  She wondered whether or not that house was completed and whether Geneva might be there. Not that I’d ever be accepted there, she thought. Nor would I impose.

  For herself and Minette, and Zeddie too, they had best do as her father said and make their temporary living quarters his lookout house on the quay itself, its stilts driven deep into sand and water. Soon he would be released and putting her and Minette onboard a ship to England. Zeddie would stay on the Madeleine with her father, as would old Drummond, who had been his attendant at the bungalow on Foxemoore for many years. The three of them would sail with the buccaneers.

  Emerald heard the brisk trot of hooves behind them. A horse and buggy were coming. She and Minette moved to the edge of the cobbled street to avoid the overtaking vehicle.

  “It’s Zeddie!” Minette called with relief. “He’s hired a buggy.”

  Emerald turned to watch until Zeddie came abreast, hauled on the reins, and clambered down to assist them.

  Once seated on the torn leather seat between Zeddie and Minette and on their way to the house, Emerald noticed that he was oddly quiet. Her own emotions felt frazzled, and she didn’t mind the silence. Rather, she used it to recoup for what might wait ahead for them all. Oh, for a cup of sweet tea and time to take her slippers off! Carefully, she avoided a last glanc
e toward the hideous sight at Gallows Point as they trotted past the wharf in reflective silence.

  “Things are unusually quiet in town,” said Emerald at last, glancing at him to see what he might know that he wasn’t telling.

  Zeddie flicked the reins. “‘Tis the Governor’s new hangin’s I’m hearing. The arrival of his lordship Felix Buckington to marry Lady Geneva is seen more as the scheme of them Spanish sympathizers in London’s Parliament. The Peace Party rascals intend to appease Spain by runnin’ out the Brotherhood, even if it means hangin’ them all.”

  Zeddie turned the buggy down Fishers Row, and the wooden buildings became more typically rough. With a frown, he informed them that they had not been mistaken about the bizarre silence in town. Most of the Brethren of the Coast had quietly boarded their vessels and slipped away past the big guns of Fort Charles, planning to set up their stronghold at French-held Tortuga.

  Emerald stirred uneasily, unsure whether she wished the streets to be prowling with cutlass-and-pistol-toting pirates or risk cannon fire from a Spanish galleon instead. One thing was sure—she’d had enough of pirates like Lex Thorpe. But she reminded herself she needn’t be concerned, since she and Minette would soon be sailing for the sweet civility of London.

  Zeddie told her the fleet of buccaneers had left because the governor was under strict orders from His Majesty to refuse them commissions. Since the buccaneers were not about to cease pursuing their livelihood, they resorted to what they were always inclined to do under such unfavorable circumstances. When denied legal commissions, which made them privateers, many became pirates by displaying no national flag.

  “They’ll sail under some private color of their own, more’n likely the Jolly Roger. So they left for a warmer welcome at Tortuga, not wantin’ to risk his lordship Felix’s Gallows Point. Looks like trouble to be sure, m’gal. And it’s you we’re worried about.”

  Thinking that the worst was facing the family before sailing, her gaze darted to his. “No need for either you or my father to worry. I don’t plan to go to Foxemoore. I’ll stay at the lookout house until he buys passage.”