by Tim Severin
The carriage drew up at a stone jetty where a ferry was waiting. As Maria shepherded the three children on to the boat – young Charles shooting her a look of pure hatred – she felt a quickening excitement. She had already decided on her course of action. As soon as she had completed her interview with Captain Blackmore, she would visit the docks. There she would ask if anyone had seen a group of four men – among them a Miskito and a big powerful man who looked like a prize-fighter.
The arrival in Port Royal itself came as a shock. The ferryman had to roar and shout to force his way through the swarm of skiffs and small boats blocking the landing steps. The quays themselves were black with people. Ships lined the wharves two or three deep. More vessels lay at anchor, waiting to take their places. Everywhere was noise and bustle. The chance of tracking Hector down in this confusion was remote.
On shore Maria found her surroundings even more daunting. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry. People were picking their way through the clutter of barrels and boxes and bales. They pushed past her rudely and to her dismay she could hardly understand the snatches of conversation she overheard. She spoke fluent English, but on the dockside there were so many accents and strange words that she was often at a loss to know their meaning. Only the frequent curses were unmistakable. The sudden boom of a cannon made her jump. Mrs Blackmore noted her alarm. ‘That’ll be a newly arrived ship,’ she said. ‘The captain is letting everyone know that he has a cargo for auction, slaves probably.’
They left the waterfront and Maria felt even more bewildered. Mrs Blackmore was a person of sufficient importance for two burly porters to be hired to shepherd the little party through the scrum. Even so, they were jostled and pushed. Maria was accustomed to the orderly layout of Spain’s colonial townships and she was dumbfounded by the higgledy-piggledy arrangement of the streets. It seemed to her that a ramshackle European town had been uprooted and dumped on the sandspit. The houses were jammed up so close to one another that the only room for their expansion was upwards. Many were tall and narrow, four storeys high, and they seemed to be ready at any moment to topple forward into the street. Every few yards there was a tavern, and trade was brisk. Drunks accosted the little party, and the porters were kept busy fending them off. Maria’s head whirled. Her eyes and ears were battered by the hubbub and bustle. She wondered with increasing desperation how she would ever manage to track down Hector in this disarray and tumult.
In due course Mrs Blackmore stopped in front of a house, located in what was evidently the wealthier part of town. Although as tightly squeezed together as elsewhere, the buildings were all of recent, fashionable design with their mullioned windows and lower floors built of brick, which must have cost a small fortune to import. She rapped on the door with the brightly polished knocker in the shape of a dolphin and a black manservant answered. Maria followed the old lady and the children into the dark hallway. At the far end was a flight of stairs, and the three children broke away and scampered up them, pushing and shoving as they raced one another to what was evidently their customary room.
‘Where’s the master?’ enquired Mrs Blackmore brusquely.
‘In the parlour, ma’am,’ responded the servant. Without pausing, Mrs Blackmore pushed open a door immediately to their right and strode inside, taking Maria with her. The ‘parlour’ was a poorly lit reception room which smelled of damp and tobacco. In its centre three men were gathered around a table covered with a stained white tablecloth, on which were some glasses and a decanter of wine. One of them, dressed in a dark suit and wearing eyeglasses, was some sort of secretary. He had a pen in his hand and was seated with an account book on the table before him. Standing beside him was a fat, florid man of middle age with a goatee beard and moustache. He was in the process of reading aloud from a list he was holding. At the interruption he stopped in mid-sentence and looked round in surprise. Also seated at the table was the man Maria knew instantly was Captain Blackmore. He was about forty years old and dressed in pale buckskin breeches and an embroidered waistcoat and was wearing a turban of purple velvet. He was smoking a long thin pipe. A black servant was standing behind him, dressed in an imitation of his master, with a velvet cap and surcoat with a row of shiny buttons. He too was smoking a pipe.
‘Richard!’ began Mrs Blackmore. She spoke to her son abruptly, in the manner of someone accustomed to getting her own way. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting, but I need to ask you about Mary Lynch here.’ She drew Maria forward so she could be seen clearly. ‘She says she can instruct the children to speak good Spanish and I think she can also teach them some manners.’
Captain Blackmore took the pipe stem from his lips and deliberately looked Maria up and down. She thought to herself that the knowing expression on his face must be the same as when he assessed an indentured man recently set ashore or a slave on the block. To her surprise the man with the goatee beard spoke first.
‘Are you a peninsular?’ he asked.
‘From Andalusia,’ Maria answered. Immediately her interrogator switched to Spanish. He spoke so fast that Maria could barely answer one question before the next was flying at her. Where had she been educated? How old was she when she left Spain? What made her leave? Where had she lived in the colonies? Evidently she passed the test, for he turned to the man with the pipe and gave a slight nod.
The captain’s teeth were stained with tobacco. ‘Martha,’ he said in a slow drawl to his mother, ‘she’ll do. Show her where she can sleep above with the other servants.’
The interview was over. Maria made a small curtsy and followed her new mistress out of the room. As she turned to close the door behind her, she cast a quick look into the room. The man with the goatee beard had returned to reading the list in his hand. The secretary was reaching out to dip his pen in the inkwell. Captain Blackmore had taken another puff at his pipe and was staring after her. Maria had an uncomfortable feeling that there was a hint of lust in the heavy-lidded eyes partly obscured behind the curling plume of smoke.
*
HECTOR WOKE TO FIND himself staring up at an embroidered and fringed canopy. He was lying in an enormous four-poster bed. The mattress was so soft that he had sunk into a hollow so deep that he would have to make an effort to climb out of it. The sheets were of the finest cotton, smooth against his skin and faintly perfumed. He stretched luxuriously and turned his head to look around. All the bedroom furniture was made of massive dark wood, heavily carved: the uncomfortable-looking upright chairs, a prayer desk, a vast hanging cupboard, a clothes chest, even the frame of the mirror on the wall. Dust motes danced in the bars of bright sunshine shining in through the slats of a shuttered window. He could hear the distant cries of street vendors. He lay still for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Last night there had been a lavish dinner with his host Don Alfonso. Jezreel, Dan and Jacques had been there, as had Baltasar’s two sisters and his dignified mother. Baltasar had enthralled the company with tales of his escape from the mutineers. Hector had been called upon to describe life as a castaway on a desert island. The evening had ended late.
Hector sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was such a grandiose piece of furniture that his feet did not even touch the tiled floor. He had remembered Don Alfonso’s words as the meal came to an end. ‘Baltasar will take you to the Alcalde’s office first thing tomorrow morning,’ the merchant had said. ‘He will need someone to confirm the deposition stating the details of the mutiny.’
He dressed. The clothes tailored for him the previous afternoon were a good fit – a white shirt, light silk hose, a collarless over-vest of black wool closed with a sash, shoes of fine soft leather. He admired himself in the mirror as he adjusted the muslin neckcloth, then slipped his arms into the sleeves of the mulberry-coloured coat. The Spanish costume suited him, and for a moment he preened, imagining himself as a prosperous merchant of Cartagena.
The illusion continued as he descended the stairs to the courtyard. Breakfast fruit was laid out on a side tabl
e – guavas, papayas, sapodillas, custard apples. A footman held his chair, and as soon as he sat down, another servant was at his elbow offering fresh white bread accompanied by a sweet preserve. The frothed chocolate came in a blue and white china cup. Judging by the empty place at the head of the table, his host, Señor Alfonso Corbalan, had already breakfasted and gone to his office. The ladies of the household had not yet appeared, nor had any of his friends. Baltasar was his only companion. The young man was prattling on eagerly about his schemes for his own independent trading house. He saw opportunities for profit in indigo, the price of quinine was sure to rise, there were rumours of a new commercial agreement with the Dutch. Eventually he ran out of his list of projects and said, ‘Hector, we should go to the office of the Alcalde whenever you are ready. If we get there early enough we can see him straight away. Otherwise we may have to wait there for a while. He’s a busy man.’
Hector swallowed the last of the chocolate and rose to his feet. ‘Have you discussed your plans with your father?’ he asked.
‘Not yet. It’s better to wait until this little chore is out of the way. Then he’ll listen.’
Together they left the house, Baltasar continuing to chatter gaily. Hector was happy to listen to him in silence. As they walked, several passers-by greeted Baltasar by name, and the young man introduced them to his companion. Hector felt himself slipping contentedly into his new role as a well-to-do confidant of a scion of an influential merchant family, perhaps a business partner.
The office of the district judge, the Alcalde, was in the main government building, a grandiose edifice built of huge coral blocks, with a broad flight of steps and heavily barred windows. Baltasar confidently led the way past the sentries at the entrance and spoke with a clerk seated at a desk in the main lobby. They were assigned an usher who escorted them down a long cool corridor and brought them into a large anteroom. There Baltasar explained to yet another clerk that he had come to make a deposition relating to an act of piracy.
‘You need to speak to a relator,’ he was told.
Baltasar was impatient. ‘I’m in a hurry. Can’t an ordinary scribe take down the details?’
The functionary notary treated him to a withering look. ‘Señor, only a relator may draw up a deposition for forwarding to a judge. If you would be kind enough to wait.’
With a sigh of exasperation Baltasar turned to Hector. ‘So much for getting here early.’
They returned to the corridor and for a full hour the two of them paced up and down restlessly. Finally the door of the anteroom opened and a small, fastidious man in a sombre black suit put his head around the door and beckoned. They followed him into an office where he went behind a large desk and sat down. They were left to stand like schoolchildren before a teacher. The relator arranged some papers meticulously on his desk before looking up expectantly at his visitors. ‘You wish to make a deposition concerning an act of piracy?’
Excitedly Baltasar began to describe his adventures. The relator interrupted him. ‘No, no,’ he said testily. ‘There is a formula for such a deposition.’
He searched in a folder on his desk until he found the paper he needed. Hector saw it was an old legal document, the ink beginning to fade. The relator found a fresh sheet of paper, scrupulously cleaned the nib of a pen with a small rag, dipped it into the inkwell and began to write. The room went silent except for the slow scratching of the nib on the parchment and an occasional dry cough from the relator as he copied out the time-worn phrases.
Baltasar glanced across at Hector and raised his eyebrows in a gesture of exasperation. Head down, the relator kept writing, gradually working down the page with his flawless script. Finally he had finished copying out what Hector supposed was the legal preamble. At that point the relator paused. He looked up, his pen poised. ‘Now I need to fill in the names of the accused,’ he said.
‘Miguel Roblandillo,’ said Baltasar immediately. ‘He was the ringleader. He lives in the Getsemani district.’
The pen scratched on the parchment.
Hector became aware that the door of the office had opened behind him.
‘The other man was Julio. His family name is Almagro,’ said Baltasar. ‘He used to work for my family.’
The clerk’s expression told him that this extra detail was unnecessary.
‘Anyone else?’ he asked.
‘The third man is Jose. I don’t know his family name.’
Impassively the clerk wrote down ‘Jose’ then left a blank.
Again the pen was poised. ‘Anyone else?’
‘You have left out one name,’ said a voice behind Hector. ‘Enrique Benavides – though I doubt it is the correct one.’
Hector swung round and found himself looking into the weatherbeaten face of Captain Juan Garcia Fonseca. With a sudden sharp twinge of memory Hector recalled that he had seen the San Gil moored in the harbour when arriving in Cartagena. But he had failed to recognize the urca.
Fonseca had shifted his attention to Baltasar. ‘Hello, young man,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect to find you in the company of pirates. Or perhaps your father has new friends.’
From the tone of the remark Hector suspected that Fonseca and Baltasar’s father were commercial rivals.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Baltasar. He was looking annoyed. The relator was staring at the three men. He appeared to be both astonished and puzzled by the sudden interruption to his bookish routine.
‘This man,’ said Fonseca, pointing a stubby finger at Hector, ‘robbed my vessel off the Vipers. If the relator cares to look into his files, he will find my report of the incident. The value of the stolen goods was negligible. But he and his associates also set fire to my ship and that I resent. It lost me a whole week of the sailing season.’
Baltasar was gaping at Hector. ‘Is this true?’ he demanded incredulously.
‘It was unfortunate,’ Hector admitted. Silently he was cursing himself for forgetting that Captain Fonseca was based in Cartagena. ‘I had no idea what would happen.’
‘Perhaps he should have consulted his lady friend,’ suggested Fonseca grimly.
‘But, Hector, I thought you said Maria was on Tortuga,’ exclaimed Baltasar.
Hector shook his head. ‘No, that wasn’t Maria. It was someone else.’
Baltasar shot him a look full of disappointment. Hector could feel the disillusion setting in. Baltasar had been so admiring of his love for Maria; now he felt that he had been duped.
Fonseca was speaking again, this time to the relator, his voice gravelly and firm. ‘I suggest that you call the constable and have this man arrested,’ he said.
The relator looked flustered. He could never have expected to meet a pirate face to face in his own office.
‘Wait a moment!’ pleaded Baltasar. ‘I’m sure that there has been some sort of misunderstanding.’
‘No misunderstanding,’ growled Fonseca. ‘I can summon my son Felipe to act as a witness. He will swear to an act of piracy by this man.’
Baltasar was stammering with confusion. ‘Just give me time to consult my father. Hector is a guest in our house. I will stand surety for him that he will not abscond.’ He looked pleadingly at Fonseca.
‘Very well,’ grunted the captain. ‘I will expect your father to hold you to your promise.’
He turned and stumped away, dragging his useless leg behind him.
Baltasar had panic in his eyes. ‘Hector, my father will know what to do.’
They left the building and hurried back towards the Corbalan mansion.
‘Let me tell you what really happened on the Vipers,’ Hector began. He recounted the unfortunate incidents of that day and how he had never expected the Kergonans to be so ruthless. He took care to stress that Anne-Marie was the joint owner of the Morvaut and that he had no idea she was carrying a pistol. By the time he had completed his explanation, he could tell that Baltasar’s good opinion of him had largely been restored.
Fortunately Alfonso Corba
lan was still in his office. After his son explained what had happened, he asked Hector for a detailed account of the events aboard the San Gil on the Vipers. When Hector finished speaking, Señor Corbalan sat quietly for several moments, his face expressionless. When he spoke, it was softly and without any emotion. It was as if he was discussing the terms of a business loan.
‘Juan Fonseca will not withdraw his charge of piracy against Hector,’ he said.
‘Can’t you try to persuade him?’ said Baltasar.
His father shook his head. ‘Fonseca is a man of strong principles. I respect him for it even though he is my commercial rival. Besides, Hector admitted his part in the pillaging of the San Gil in the presence of the relator.’
‘Then why don’t we approach the relator? Make it worth his while to bury the matter in his files?’ said Baltasar.
‘A bribe might be wasted,’ said his father calmly. ‘The relator could take the money and still forward the charge to the Alcalde. Besides, Fonseca would insist.’
Baltasar looked despondent. His boyish enthusiasm had gone. ‘There must be some way out of this mess.’
‘There is,’ said his father. He rose to his feet. ‘The Governor, Don Martin, has the power to intervene. I have no wish for the garrotte to be put around the throat of the man who saved my son’s life.’ He looked at Hector with profound sympathy and was rewarded with a flicker of wary hope in Hector’s eyes. The merchant went to the door and called for his carriage to be made ready. Turning to his son he said, ‘Baltasar, it’s now nearly noon and I don’t have an appointment to see Don Martin. He won’t be receiving anyone until the worst of the day’s heat is over, and even then I’ll have to wait my turn. You and Hector will have to be patient.’
It was nearly midnight when Alfonso Corbalan finally returned from his mission. Baltasar and Hector were still up, waiting in the central courtyard. Everyone else had gone to bed. The household servants had left a few lanterns burning, and their lights reflected in the black sheen of the ornamental pond. They heard the noise of an approaching carriage, and a few moments later the merchant came striding briskly through the shadows.
