Had ever a day been so hot, and it was still early in the morning? Had such a day ever been seen, in all the brief history of America? For had such a city ever fallen to so few men, and to such men? They ran through the streets, no longer fearing opposition where there was none. The houses were shuttered and silent, and perhaps empty. They reached the central square, and gazed in amazement at the immensity of the cathedral, rising up and up and up, its square tower the one they had seen from the forest. Then they gave a whoop, and ran for the great barred doors.
Others had found the city hall, and beneath it, the dungeons. Here there were shouts and screams, and the buccaneers seized glaring torches and made their way down the noisome corridors, bursting open the doors of the cells to release the things that lay within. For these were surely not men. Some had lost one eye, some both; the marks of the fire still clung to their temples and foreheads. Others had lost cars and fingers and toes, and others whole limbs. More than one had been castrated. And all had been whipped so savagely their backs were masses of festering sores, while all showed the bones and paper-thin skins of men who had been starved as a matter of course. And these were the lucky ones, whom the Inquisition had not yet burned.
'By God,' Morgan said. 'By God. We'll have a Spanish life for every mark on every body. What say you, boys?' The roar of angry lust filled the gaol.
'Make them scream, boyos,' Morgan shouted. 'And make them yield every last drop of wealth they possess. Tear it from their living bellies if you have to. And bring it to the square in front of the cathedral. For mark my words; we share and share alike, according to the articles under which we sail. The man who forgets that hangs.'
They uttered another scream and poured into the square once again, their yells mingling with those already issuing from the cathedral, where some of the buccaneers were dragging out the great gold services and tearing down the crosses from the walls, while others had invaded the offices at the back of the building, and the cellars below, and reached the hiding nuns.
That was too terrible to contemplate. Kit found himself in the midst of a band rampaging down a side street, ignoring promising shops and smaller dwellings as they searched for bigger game, and finding a mansion at the end of the street, set back from the road behind wrought-iron railings and a huge, locked gate. But these were seamen. They swarmed over the wall in a matter of seconds, advanced across the splendid garden, kicking aside rose bushes and flowering oleander, their sweat and the blood on their arms drenching even the odour of the jasmine.
A dog barked, and two ran from the rear of the building. They were met by swinging cutlasses and stretched lifeless on the patio before the front entrance. Now, Kit thought, this day, we avenge your death, Grandmama. Fully. But he felt sick.
The door was barred, but had never been intended to resist so tumultuous an assault. Muscular shoulders were hurled against it, regardless of bruised flesh or broken skin, and it flew open. Kit was one of the first through, scattering across a parquet floor beneath a high, painted ceiling, to come to rest against a mahogany dresser, to stare at the huge vases in front of him, filled with bright flowers.
'By Christ,' someone said. 'Solid silver.'
'There'll be more,' another said, and ran into the inner room. Here double doors opened on to the centre courtyard, a place of peace and more flowers, where a fountain played. ' 'Tis a palace.'
'And empty?' someone demanded.
'There'll be cellars.' The first speaker, whose name was Scotch Mack, had taken command. 'We'll to them first. Come on, lads.'
They flooded across the courtyard to the kitchen, where the fires still glowed in the huge ovens; it was so early the family had not yet even had time to breakfast before the disaster had fallen on their city. A pan of cooking fat simmered gently, giving its tang to the already rancid air. And there, sure enough, was the door leading down to the cellars. This too was barred, and this too was torn from its hinges in a matter of seconds. They tumbled down the staircase to find themselves in the midst of endless rows of bottles.
'French wine, by God,' Mack shouted, and seized one, to snap off the neck against a pillar and upend it over his face. They all followed his example. Warm liquid splashed on to Kit's cheeks and flooded down his neck; some found its way into his mouth and helped to calm his tumbling nerves.
But already the buccaneers were battering against an inner door, and a moment later they gazed at the people inside. A man, well past middle age, tall and with some dignity in his face to offset his obvious fear. A woman, no doubt the man's wife, for she was of an age with him, like him wearing an undressing-robe over her nightclothes, thin and pale, with white hair loose on her shoulders. Two Negro women, dressed, and wearing aprons. And another woman, younger than the couple, although considerably older than any of the buccaneers. Their daughter, Kit estimated. She was tall and plump; her hair was a rich brown and her face had the aquiline splendour of a woman accustomed to rule. Now she stood in front of her parents and her servants, her hands clasped. She wore a deep blue robe which brushed the floor, and her hair was also loose, gathered in a long strand over one shoulder.
'By God,' someone grumbled. 'They're old.'
'They'll have children,' Mack promised. 'And gold, buried.' He seized the younger woman by the hair, dragged her against him. She gasped for breath, and tried to maintain her dignity as he brought her close. 'Gold,' Mack shouted into her face, and she gagged on his breath. 'Where have ye buried your gold?'
She tried to shake her head, but that was impossible.
Her father spoke, in a thin voice which trembled. 'We have no gold buried, monsieurs,' he said in French. 'What we own you see about you. You are welcome to it. Leave us only our lives, I beg of you.'
Mack stared at him for a moment, and then thrust out the hand holding his cutlass. The old man swayed backwards, but the thrust none the less split his undressing-robe and nightshirt, and slashed his chest. He stared down at the blood in horror.
'Bring them,' Mack shouted, and started up the stairs, still holding the woman's hair, so that she had to run behind him, her body dragged forward. She struck at him with her fists, and another of the buccaneers swept her legs from the floor. The pair of them carried her up the stairs, and deposited her on the kitchen table. The rest brought the other four people. Kit found himself holding the old woman by the arms as he pushed her forward. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and whispered in French, 'But you are only a boy.'
The sickness in his belly grew, into a huge solid mass which threatened to erupt at any moment.
Mack was shaking the younger woman to and fro by the hair, in front of the old man. 'Gold,' he repeated. 'Tell us where you have hidden your gold.'
The old man fell to his knees, still clutching the blood seeping from the wound in his chest. 'Oh, God,' he begged. 'Oh, God.'
The two Negresses cowered against the wall; the woman Kit was holding also sank to her knees, and he let her go. The younger woman said something in Spanish, her face twisted with pain as Mack dragged on her hair.
'We'll make ye squeal,' he growled. He looked around him, quickly, searching the kitchen with his gaze. The woman's eyes followed his, rolling. And then he smiled; he had seen the pan of cooking fat. 'Heat that up,' he said.
One of the men gave a whoop, and thrust the pan over the flames. Immediately it began to sizzle, and the aroma drifted through the kitchen. Mack let go of the woman long enough to grasp the front of her undressing-robe and tear it free. Underneath was a white nightgown, and this too was torn away, to reveal large, sagging breasts, nipples hard with terror, flesh white and filled with pumping blue blood-vessels.
'Over here,' Mack said. 'We'll cook ourselves some breakfast.'
The woman screamed, a shriek of real terror as she understood what was going to happen to her. Kit ran from the kitchen and up the stairs. So she was a member of the nation which had murdered Grandmama. Against whom his family had fought all of their lives. Against whom he must fight all of
his life and against whom he had sworn eternal vengeance. But in such a bestial fashion?
He paused, at the top of the huge staircase, facing a gallery of empty doorways, and listened to another scream, while the smell of cooking flesh came seeping upwards. He hurled himself forward, through the first doorway, found himself in a bedchamber, a wide expanse of costly drapes and highly polished wooden floors, dominated by the immense tent-bed in the centre of the room. He flung himself on this, pulled the pillows over his head, stuffed them into his ears as shriek after shriek, now accompanied by roars of laughter, came howling upwards through the house.
And heard another sound, closer at hand. He sat up, right hand instinctively snatching the cutlass from his side. The room was empty, but a door had opened, and then closed. And now he saw the door, a small one clearly giving access to a dressing-room. He tiptoed across the floor, seized the handle, pulled the door wide, gazed at the two girls, huddled against the far wall from whence they had been dragged by their mother's screams. Because clearly they were her daughters. One was perhaps fourteen, the other a year or two younger; each possessed the statuesque dignity of their parent, if that still existed, the strong features, the rich brown hair, the tall bodies, hardly concealed beneath their nightdresses. No doubt their father had fallen on the plain. Or had he run like a coward to the shelter of the forest, leaving his women to suffer?
'Oh, Christ,' Kit said. Because here was what those monsters downstairs really sought. The gold would keep, but not their lust.
The girls stared at him. The woman downstairs had stopped screaming, and the only sound was the terrible laughter.
Kit ran back across the room, closed and bolted the bedroom door. The girls watched him. They held hands, but had said nothing. 'Listen,' he said. 'I claim you as my prisoners. My slaves, eh? Be that, and you will be safe.' He spoke in French, and watched the older girl's eyes flicker. 'You understand me,' he said. 'What is your name?'
'Isabella.' The voice was low. Perhaps she was not afraid. Perhaps she did not know what might soon be happening to her.
Kit sat on the bed. Suddenly he was exhausted. And afraid. Of himself. 'Isabella,' he said. 'You understand what is happening?'
She nodded, and her sister's fingers tightened on her arm. 'Come here,' he said.
She looked down at her sister, and then gently freed her hand and walked across the room to stand in front of him. The nightdress became filled with light as she stood between him and the window; he could trace the curve of her thigh, the long line of slender leg beneath. Was he then no different to those abominations downstairs?
But she was close enough to touch. She humoured him, perhaps in an attempt to save her sister. There was courage here, and resolution. Perhaps even curiosity. Or was he no more than hoping for these things? Because he could not save her now. It had been too long. It had been forever, in fact, and here was no whore, but something young, and fresh, and totally innocent. Something beyond his experience, beyond his wildest dream. His hands stroked through her hair, and drifted across her shoulders and she understood her fate. He held her close and buried his face in the front of her nightdress, and found softness there too. She was Marguerite Warner, come to life, here in his arms, passive and non-resisting. She was a dream, suddenly walking. Yet he did not wish to hurt her. He prayed she would not resist, as his hands slipped down her back and raised the nightdress over her thighs. Her legs were better than he could have hoped; the down on her belly came as a surprise, but one which only increased her desirability. He lost his face in that dry forest, and realized that he was afraid to raise his head, afraid to look into her face. But this had to be done, as he laid her on the bed beside him, and found to his amazement that her mouth was open. With passion? Or with prayer? Tears rolled out from her eyes, but he felt her fingers biting into his shoulders as his body crashed on to hers, and again. It took no more than seconds, such was the urgency of his passion. She moaned once, and then lay still, as did he for some seconds, before slipping from her body and from the bed, to kneel beside her.
'May God forgive me,' he whispered. 'May you forgive me, Isabella. May God have mercy on me. I swear, I will protect you. I will marry you, Isabella. This I swear. I will look after you and honour you, always, Isabella. And I shall protect your sister. This I swear, Isabella. Say that you understand me. Say that you believe me.'
Now he wept as well, and the girl had ceased crying. She stared at him, her forehead gathered into faint wrinkles. A voice shouted outside, calling his name in the rolling tones of Agrippa.
He went to the door, unlocked it. 'They said you were up here,' Agrippa said. 'I feared for you, Master Hilton. I fear for us all; this army has gone mad. And now the town burns.'
Kit inhaled, and smelt the tang of smouldering wood. 'Aye,' he said. ' 'Tis not a day I shall want to remember. But ...' he saw the expression on Agrippa's face, and turned, as the pistol exploded. He gazed at the figure of the younger girl, falling forward to her knees as a gush of blood exploded from the white front of her nightdress. 'Oh, Christ,' he cried.
But there were two pistols in the belt he had so carelessly thrown on the floor. The girl Isabella had turned to face them, and as they watched she dropped the weapon she had just fired and drew the other. Her face remained as impassive as earlier when she had been raped; only the dark eyes suggested the torment that was burning in her brain.
'Duck, man,' Agrippa yelled, seizing Kit's shoulder and throwing him to one side. But Kit knew the bullet was not meant for him. She had already reversed the pistol and placed the muzzle inside her own mouth.
Song and laughter filled the forest, scattered outwards from the river, accompanied the splashes of the paddles. But even paddling was no labour, on this journey; the boats flowed with the stream. And besides, they followed the lead canoes, on which the gold was stacked, as a pack of dogs might follow a butcher's van. They homed, on the beach at Chagres, where everything they had ever dreamed of would be granted to them.
As if they had not already accomplished their wildest dreams. There was scarce a sober man in the army, and they had brought enough wine to float their fleet with them. They had brought captives, too, women and young girls and boys, and those who did not work the paddles continued a week-old orgy in the bilges of the canoes. They sang, and laughed, and belched, and fornicated, and crammed their mouths with sweetmeats and fine cheeses, and relieved themselves where they sat. They were men who had scaled the heights, and taken the untakable. A vast stench accompanied the fleet. Port Royal might have transferred itself bodily to the Panamanian jungle.
'A ship.' Jean DuCasse lay in the stern of the canoe and waved at the branches which occasionally passed overhead. 'I shall buy a ship. Twenty guns to a broadside. Sakers fore and aft. I will put a copper sheath on her bottom. No worm for Jean DuCasse. With that ship, I will conquer the world. You'll sail with me, Agrippa?'
The Negro smiled, but his smile was sad. 'What of Master Hilton?'
'Christ.' Jean stuck out a foot, prodded a toe into Kit's thigh. 'He is a melancholy fellow, for a devil from hell. I know not what will become of him. Kit, Kit. They were but bits of flesh. Had you not taken the girl, someone else would, and much less gently.'
Kit turned. 'We are all bits of flesh, Jean. We are but arrogant if we assume that God could ever have created us in His likeness.'
'Listen.' Jean stared at the bottle, and threw it over the side. 'Listen. Those were Spaniards. They hanged your grand-mother. Whatever they suffered was yet too good for them.'
'What we will suffer will surely be too good for us,' Kit said. 'There were no men at Panama, Jean. There are no men here. Does it make you proud to belong to a pack of wild animals?'
'For Christ's sake,' Jean shouted. 'What would you do? Fight for the Dons, then?'
Kit sighed. 'Had I a flaming sword I would destroy us all,' he said. 'Dons and buccaneers, and leave these blessed islands to the Indians, as I have no doubt was originally intended.'
'
Bah,' Jean declared. 'Did not the Indians kill one another? Are not the Caribs cannibals? Now, how much worse can you get than that? Did you see any Spaniards eaten alive, back there?"
'Is that the worst fate which can befall a man?' Kit demanded. 'I tell you this, I have done with it. May Heaven strike me dead if I ever seek to take a human life again, save in defence of my own.'
'There speaks a unique buccaneer,' Jean said. 'What say you, Master Agrippa?'
The Negro continued to stare at Kit. 'That Master Hilton is right, Monsieur DuCasse. Supposing such a thing is possible. I had thought there could be no man more vicious than a Barbadian planter. Now I know better.'
'God's truth,' Jean said. 'You are a right pair. What will you do, then? Become priests?'
Kit stared at the blue vault of the heavens; they were close to the beach. 'What do you estimate each share in this victory will be worth?'
'You mean you will dirty your hands with such bloodstained money?' Jean asked. 'You amaze me.'
'If I can put it to good use,' Kit said. 'Tell me its worth.'
HF - 03 - The Devil's Own Page 10
