O’Toole got to the foot of the gangplank and hesitated. His beard was as full and bushy as Joyful remembered, though more gray than black these days. Beneath his stovepipe hat, Joyful knew, was a shiny, totally bald scalp. As a child, he used to sit on Finbar’s lap and listen to tales of how the Irishman had traded the hair on his head to a leprechaun, but got to keep his beard as part of the bargain.
O’Toole ignored the porters swirling about him and looked round as if he were waiting for someone. He took a couple of steps in Joyful’s direction. Close enough now so Joyful could see that the box was made of polished wood—possibly ebony—not the rough stuff of the tea chests, and chopped with a single character, the classic Mandarin symbol of the mythic Chinese fire-breathing dragon. The same sign as appeared on the owner’s flag. This box was Gornt Blakeman’s private property.
A man appeared, making his way through the dockside crush as if it did not exist. There was menace in his every step, and the porters took pains to move out of his way. Vinegar Clifford had been the public whipper until three years earlier, when the city abolished flogging as an official punishment. Cruel and unusual, the judges said, a violation of the Constitution. Clifford might no longer be in the public employ, but he still clutched his whip, holding it fully coiled under his right arm, close to his body, and he could release it in full snapping fury as fast as an eyeblink. Joyful had seen it on a number of occasions. He took a quick step deeper into the shadows.
O’Toole and Clifford met at the foot of the gangplank. A pair of bulls, looking for a moment as if they might lock horns. They exchanged a few words Joyful couldn’t hear, then O’Toole nodded and handed over the ebony chest. Clifford lodged it under his left arm—his right still cradled his whip—and turned and left.
Bloody interesting, Joyful thought. He turned up the collar of his cutaway against the driving rain and strode forward.
“So how’d you know I was captain o’ Blakeman’s Star?”
“I know a lot of things these days. I’ve become good at listening.”
“Because o’ that?” Finbar O’Toole gestured toward the black glove.
“Partly that,” Joyful admitted. “I’ve had time to acquire other skills.”
“I never ’spected to see you a victim o’ your own knife, lad.”
They were in the Greased Pig, a grog shop on Dover Street, at a tiny table in the corner, surrounded by a noisy throng of wharf rats who had been laboring since before dawn and were intent on their drinking during this quarter-of-an-hour midday break, the only one they’d have until four o’clock, when their workday ended and it was time to eat. The dockhands concentrated on slaking their thirst, ignoring all else. It was a safe enough place to talk.
“I didn’t cut my hand off, Finbar. A blast from a poxed English carronade did that.”
O’Toole took a long pull at his grog, fiery rum made right here in New York with sugar brought up from the Caribbean, the result diluted with a half portion of water. “I can see as how folks wouldn’t want you cutting ’em up with only one hand, but all the rest o’ what doctors do, the purging and cupping and leeching and the like, that don’t need two hands, do it?”
“Tell me something, Finbar. In all your days, have you ever seen anyone cured of their ills by the purging and cupping and bloodletting?”
The Irishman shrugged. “Don’t go around asking, do I?”
“You don’t have to ask. Surgery is what makes the sick well. Everyone willing to calculate experience knows that. It’s fear as keeps them from the knife and gives them early death instead. But if people won’t trust a surgeon with two hands, they sure as all Hades won’t go near one that’s single-handed.”
“The herbs and simples your ma gave folks,” O’Toole said, “they was magic. They cured for sure. I saw plenty o’ that afore she died, St. Patrick guide her soul to rest.”
Roisin Campbell Turner had been a Woman of Connemara, a member of an ancient Irish healing society like her mother and grandmother before her. It was Roisin who cured the wife of the imperial governor of Canton when the woman’s stomach was swollen with a painful growth. In return, her husband, Morgan Turner, was allowed to build a house in Canton itself, where he and his wife and child could live year-round. All the other yang gui zhi, the Western foreign devils, had to live above their factories—their warehouses in the Canton trading strip. Moreover, they could reside there only from June to December; the rest of the year was spent at their homes on the Portuguese island of Macau. “My mother’s cures worked,” Joyful said. “But that’s not what I was trained to do. I don’t have her knowledge or her skills.”
The secrets of the Women of Connemara were passed from mother to daughter, never to a man, not even a son. O’Toole, for all his fierce American patriotism, was Irish enough to understand that. “Very well. But I still don’t see what we’re talking about.”
“Trade,” Joyful said. “If I can’t be a surgeon, I must be a trader, Finbar. It’s the only other thing I know.”
“The blockade’s put a mighty crimp in trade these days, lad. I ran it this time because the Star’s possibly the finest merchantman afloat, but no one can make a regular thing o’ running a bloody English blockade.”
“I know.”
“Then—”
“The blockade won’t be in place forever. Already there’s a British and American commission set up to talk of peace.”
“Talk didn’t blow your left hand off. And in case ye ain’t noticed, there’s like as not to be an army o’ redcoats right here in New York sooner rather than later.”
Joyful turned and signaled for the bowl of grog. “Nonetheless, peace will come. In the not too distant future, I believe. When it does, I’ll need a captain. I want it to be you.”
“I’m fifty-three years old, lad. You need a man with more voyages left in him.”
“I need a man I can trust.”
“Ships cost money,” O’Toole said. “More’n two thousand pounds.”
Joyful wasn’t surprised the Irishman knew exactly how much had been in the moneybag his father sent from Canton. Neither had he ever questioned Finbar’s assertion that every penny of what he’d been left had been put into Joyful’s hands. A man could be both trustworthy and curious. “The ebony box chopped with the red dragon, the one you handed over on the wharf today, how much did it contain?”
“Don’t know anything ’bout any ebony box.”
“I was there, Finbar. Filled with silver, was it?” Silver, measured out in a unit called a tael, each equivalent to a thousand coppers, was the trading medium of the powerful hong merchants of Canton.
O’Toole didn’t answer. The bowl of grog was passed to them by the men at the next table. Joyful put four copper pennies on the table, and the Irishman refilled both their mugs, then got up and carried the bowl to yet another table. “How are you planning to get a ship? Where’s the money for that going to come from?”
“I have the money. At least enough to get things started. I made some wise investments.” O’Toole didn’t look convinced, but Joyful offered no further explanation. “Gornt Blakeman’s making a run on Devrey scrip, buying it up for cash money.”
The Irishman lifted his drink and took a long pull, keeping his gaze fixed on Joyful all the while. Finally, he set the mug down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What do you care? I know Bastard’s your cousin, but the way I heard it, there’s no friendly feeling between Devreys and Turners.”
“None at all,” Joyful agreed.
“Then why?”
“Traders thrive by knowing things.”
The Irishman shrugged. “Maybe, but you ain’t a trader yet. Besides, the Star lades near to three hundred tons. There’s a goodly amount o’ cash money going to come from what was in her hold. Even without what’s in the poxed ebony box.”
“So you do know what it contains.”
Another shrug. “Not for sure,” O’Toole said. “I heard it was jewels, but you know Canton, I he
ard a lot of things.”
Joyful’s gut tightened with excitement, but his voice was level. “Jewels? Emeralds? Rubies? Where would—”
“Not no poxy colored geegaws,” Finbar said softly. “The real thing. Diamonds. Least that’s what I was told.”
Sooner or later, everything under God’s own heaven fetched up in Canton. And if diamonds had arrived in New York on a ship owned by Jacob Astor with his far-flung trading empire, that wouldn’t have surprised Joyful. But Gornt Blakeman…“Finbar, is there any reason to think Blakeman owns other ships? That he’s a bigger trader than he appears to be?”
The Irishman shook his head. “Ain’t nothing like that as is talked about in the factories or on the Bogue.”
That settled it. Nothing in the world of the China trade could bypass the collective knowledge of the traders’ strip and the Bogue, the harbor of Canton. But diamonds? Holy God Almighty, he’d been dealt a card he never expected, and one that made the others he held stronger than he’d dreamed they could be. He couldn’t ask for better. Joyful leaned forward. “Finbar,” he said softly, “listen carefully. A while ago you said there was no love lost between Turners and Devreys, and I said you were right. Now let me add this. I’m going to be the cousin who owns Devrey Shipping. Not Bastard, and definitely not Gornt Blakeman. Me.”
“Indeed? And when’s this miracle to come about then?”
“Soon enough. What you’ve just told me makes it even more certain.”
“Known you since you were no taller than your da’s knee, lad, and you were always as cheeky as you were smart. But that’s a big plan for someone as has one hand and whatever could be made of two thousand pounds. Big enough so maybe it’s sheer poxy madness. Leastwise some would say so.”
Joyful dropped his voice just above a whisper. “What do you know of the Fanciful Maiden?”
“Schooner yer da had back when he was privateering, when we was fighting the godrotting French and their godrotting Indians. What about her?”
“The voyage of ’59, when the Maiden came back empty and my father said he’d taken no prizes. You know about that?”
“Maybe I do,” O’Toole said.
“I know as well,” Joyful said softly. “Everything. My cousin Andrew told me.”
“Andrew Turner? What’s he to do with this? Your da told me he couldn’t remember where—Ach, all right. I know what happened in ’59. But Andrew Turner and your da were never close. It was your ma Andrew cared for. That’s why he took you in.”
“I know. Nonetheless, Andrew had the note my father wrote, the one that said where—” Joyful broke off.
“Had, you said. Who’s got it now?”
“I have.”
“So that’s where the money for a merchantman’s going to come from?”
Joyful shrugged.
“It’s a long odds wager, lad. Made a few o’ those in me day, God help me. It’s not often they pays off.”
“I know. But my ship and getting control of Devrey Shipping, that’s going to happen just the way I plan it. I feel it in my bones, Finbar.”
“Yer da wanted you to have the tr——, what we’re talkin’ about. That’s how come he told me about it. Said he knew he’d hid it for well and certain, but after the godrotting British finished with him on their poxed prison ship, he couldn’t remember where it was. Biggest sadness in his life, that was.”
“Then he will rest easier once this is done.” Joyful leaned forward. “What’s Vinegar Clifford’s connection to Blakeman?”
“No idea. Didn’t know his name neither, till you said it. Looked to put the fear o’ God into a heathen, he did. Rather face an enemy with a cutlass, even a pistol, than a bullwhip.”
“I agree. Take my word for it, Clifford’s a genius with his whip, and without a trace of pity for his victims. He’s called Vinegar because back when he was the town’s official whipper, as soon as his victims passed out, he’d revive them with a gallon of vinegar splashed over the wounds. More pain that way.”
The Irishman shuddered. “Worst o’ the world’s devils, them as enjoy other folks’ suffering. You think Clifford’s workin’ for Blakeman now?”
“I didn’t think so until this morning. How did you know he was the person sent to claim the box?”
“He knew the password. I was told to wait until we were an hour into the unlading, then bring the box ashore and give it to him as said bei mat. Then I answered nang lik. Then he said wing yuen. Long as he did all that, I’d know he was the right one.”
In Cantonese, bei mat meant “secret.” Nang lik, power. Wing yuen, forever. Secret power forever. Pretty fanciful, particularly considering Gornt Blakeman wasn’t Chinese. “As far as you know, has Blakeman ever been in Canton? He didn’t hire you in person, did he?”
The Irishman shook his head. “Never set eyes on him. It was his comprador as hired me.”
A comprador was usually Chinese, though the word was Portuguese. Come into use because the Portuguese had opened the China trade nearly a century earlier. A comprador was a facilitator, a man who could move easily in the Asian community but understood the business ways of the Europeans. He was a shipping company’s eyes and ears, and counted upon to be fiercely loyal because he had a substantial share in the company’s profits, and because the job was customarily passed from father to son. A few compradors were independents, men who worked for any shipper who offered employment on a given day. These men were also trusted to keep the shippers’ secrets; nonetheless, they were talking about Canton. Bei mat, secret, was written with the symbol for an open mouth.
“Forget about the poxed box and whatever’s in it,” O’Toole said. “Forget everything about this damned voyage, in fact. Bad joss otherwise.”
Joyful knew joss was more than luck, it was fate, something you had to accept. But in New York as in Canton, money trumped luck every time.
Chapter Five
New York City,
Maiden Lane, 2 P.M.
MANON VIONNE WAS TALL and slender and remarkably pretty, with pale gold hair and eyes the color of dark purple pansies. She was also, at the advanced age of twenty-two, unmarried, thus marked for spinsterhood. Which did not seem to trouble her in the slightest in the early afternoon of this summer day. She was smiling and humming softly when she returned to her father’s house on Maiden Lane.
Manon came in through the kitchen door, avoiding the shop where Maurice Vionne traded in jewels when he could get them, and more regularly engaged in the smithing of gold and silver. Her father was waiting for her. “You’re soaked, Manon. Where have you been?”
“To the Fly Market, Papa. I told you I was going. There was a dreadful storm, did you not hear it?”
She set down her basket as she spoke, and took off her high-crowned straw bonnet and her embroidered shawl, revealing a white and-lavender-checked day dress with a high frilled neck and long sleeves with ruffled cuffs. Modest enough, but wet as it now was, the thin cotton fabric clung to her body. That didn’t alarm Vionne as much as the flush in her cheeks. Lately, he was more and more convinced his daughter was keeping secrets, and less and less sure what to do about it. Her mother had died eight years before. Vionne was convinced that if his wife had lived their Manon would be married by now, and he would be dandling a grandchild or two. Perhaps a grandson to replace the three sons who had not lived to work beside him as he’d once dreamed, a male heir to learn smithing and inherit his business. “I heard today that Pierre DeFane has a nephew coming from Virginia,” he said. “Seems his wife died last year and he—”
“I will be happy to meet the gentleman when he arrives, Papa. I am always happy to entertain your friends, you know that. Now, look at the lovely fish I found at the market.” Manon folded back the cloth that covered the contents of her basket and held it up for his inspection. “You shall have a delicious soupe de poisson for your dinner.”
It was always the same: She never opposed him outright. If she did, he could command her obedience. Instead she was c
ompliant and sunny and seemed to fall in with whatever he wanted. But nothing ever went his way, always hers. You are too clever for me, my Manon. Too clever for any man. And that is the problem. “Soupe de poisson,” he said. “I will enjoy that.”
Maurice Vionne was perhaps the best known of the town’s Huguenot jewelers. He could afford a cook, but like her mother before her, Manon did all the shopping and cooking for the household. It was a considerable savings in the monthly expenses, so perhaps it wasn’t so bad that she was a spinster. Besides, she was useful in the shop. In a country without a royal court to support trade in precious stones, smithing was the everyday work that bought their dinners. All the same, trading in priceless stones, that was in the Vionne blood, and Manon had an eye for a jewel as keen as his own. “I will want you to mind the premises later this evening,” he said.
“Of course, Papa. Will you not be here?”
“I will be upstairs. With a visitor.”
Manon’s heart began to pound. She made a huge effort not to let her excitement show. “A customer, Papa? Someone you won’t see in the shop?”
Vionne shrugged. “Someone whose business is private. Jewels are often held close to the heart, ma petite. You have surely learned that by now.”
“Indeed, Papa.” Manon knew that more than one widow had come to Maurice Vionne long after business hours, white-faced and mortified that she needed to sell her jewelry to get money to live. “Am I to take it you will be receiving a lady?”
Vionne started from the kitchen and didn’t look at her when he spoke. “Not a lady, no. Please hold yourself ready just after seven, Manon. Here in the kitchen. I will let my visitor in myself, and call you after I have him settled.”
“I will do exactly as you ask, Papa.” So! Perhaps Joyful was correct. Nothing in her voice or her manner gave away her excitement, but she could not keep her hands from trembling. Pray God Papa had not noticed.
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