"Yeah, I saw her come in," Ellison casually said, with no more suspicion than previous to his tone. "Panton, Leslie carries good wares. Have some arms aboard, do they? You'd be amazed how the easterners from the wrong side of the mountains think t'settle without decent arms, nor enough flint, shot, and powder. Like all the Indians just up an' flew away soon as we became a state."
"I believe they do," Lewrie informed him. "Most especially, a quantity of Austrian air-rifles, quiet as anything, but very accurate. Better than a musket, but not as good as a Pennsylvania rifle. Decent price they're asking, too, I think. You ought to at least take a look at 'em, if for no other reason that they're a rarity, sir."
"Hmmm… maybe I will, at that," Ellison mused aloud, rubbing his chin. "Well, I haveta go catch up with my wild men before they wreck the place," he added with a wry grin. "They get a snootful, and they're like the old bull in the china shop, don't ya know. Maybe we will run into each other again, long as we're both in New Orleans? I favour the Pigeonnier cabaret, if you're lookin' for entertainment on the town. Got hired rooms nearby."
"Thankee for the suggestion, Mister Ellison," Lewrie said with a relieved grin, shaking hands with the fellow once more, though he hadn't the first clue as to what a cabaret was or what sort of amusement might be found in one, especially one called the "Pigeon Coop."
"Mister Willoughby… Mister Jugg," Ellison gallantly said as he doffed his hat and sketched a brief, jerking bow in conge, forcing them to lift their own lids and show a "leg."
Ellison had not taken two steps when he turned about, though.
"By the by, Mister Willoughby, that was quick thinkin', the way ya handled Georgie," Ellison told him, greatly amused.
"Er, ah, thankee, Mister Ellison."
"For a minute there, I thought you'd riled him beyond all temperance. When that happens, he's a very short fuse. The most warning ya have is him sayin', 'Ah'll kee' ye,' then it's 'Katie, bar the door.' "
"Ah kee' ye?" Lewrie parroted, head cocked in query.
"That's country for 'kill you,' sir," Ellison warned, not half as jovially as he'd been just a moment before, then knuckled the brim of his hat, spun about, and went below to the emporium proper.
"Think I blew it, do you, Jugg?" Lewrie felt need to ask, once they were alone at the starboard rails. "By God, I do!"
"Permission t'git ragin' drunk, sor," Jugg replied.
"That bad?"
"F'r when 'e comes sniffin' about an' askin' me 'bout ya, sor. An' gits me three sheets t'th' wind t'do it, sure," Jugg added with a wide grin of expectation. "I'll set him straight, no fear, sor."
"By God, somebody should," Lewrie bemoaned, back turned so he could not hear Jugg's scathing, mouthed "Amen!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
The de Guilleris-Helio, Hippolyte, and Charite-with Don Rubio
Monaster, and their cousin Jean-Marie, were "at home" to receive guests. To the casual passerby who took note of their guests' arrival nothing could seem more innocent. First came Monsieur Henri Maurepas, the prim and eminently respectable banker, a man known in New Orleans as the de Guilleris' parents' factotum and financial advisor who stood in loco parentis to keep the youngsters reined in whilst their elders, the dashingly handsome Hilaire and the beauteous Marie pursued rounds of country pleasures on their up-country plantations.
Their other two guests-Capitaines Lanxade and Balfa-might have drawn more attention as they arrived; more envy than anthing else for those two old rogues and their tales of derring-do were always welcome in French Creole parlours.
Nothing could seem more innocent-cafe au lait, sweets, and fresh-baked biscuits, bright laughter and vicarious thrills. Though, inside the grand upper-storey appartement on the Rue Dauphine, everyone sat stiffly upright in expectation, or slumped in boredom as Henri Maurepas droned on through his dry financial summary.
"… results in a profit to the Reunion Enterprise of four hundred fifty thousand Spanish dollars," Maurepas fussily related. Monsieur Maurepas was one of those gotch-gutted minikins, what crude Americans would call "shad-bellied," though a fine satin waist-coat and a gold watch chain tautly spanned that "appliance." The balding Maurepas patted his shiny pate and fiddled with his little oval spectacles, awarding them a wee smile as he summed up his report. "The bank has deducted its tenth part, as your agent. A twentieth part goes to Monsieur Bistineau to cover those bribes he paid the Spanish authorities at the Cabildo to land untaxed goods. Another forty-five thousand dollars, I shifted into the Revolutionary Fund, for purchase of weapons, shot, and powder to arm new recruits. Less a further ten percent each due Capitaines Lanxade and Balfa, and shares to reward their sailors, ah… that leaves ten percent to be divided equally between you young people, as the principals, that is to say… nine thousand silver dollars each." He ended with a short, seated bow to every person present. "Which shares are now deposited in your accounts, to draw upon as you wish."
If he thought he'd made them happy, then he was wrong. Rubio Monaster went poutily red-faced; penniless Jean-Marie Rancour, whose family had fled bloody Saint-Domingue with nothing, went pale and gaping in disappointment. As for the doughty pirate capitaines…
"You cheese-paring bougre!" Boudreaux Balfa erupted, leaping to his feet. "You an' dat Bistineau salaud, too, him! He gets dem goods for nothin, den sells 'em dear, an' bribin' de Spanish he done did all de time, by damn! Normal bid 'ness wit' Bistineau. Eh, merde!
"We can't go back to our crew with promises or bank slips. We need to take them their shares, in coin… now!" Capt. Jerome Lanxade demanded, rising with his left hand on the hilt of his smallsword and with a wee creak from his own "appliance," that bone-stayed corset that kept his own boudins from resembling the banker's. "They will not wait for their money. They signed on for a quick payout, with nothing up front but wine, rum, and rations, and had to provide their own hammocks and sea kits! They're waiting aboard Le Revenant where we hid her for their money… and I tell you, banker, they will not wait long! They have no trust in lubberly accounts, they want silver and gold!"
"But, Capitaine… that much specie in one batch will weigh so much, my bank does not hold reserves that-!" Maurepas tried to demur.
"Your bank, m 'sieur, and you yourself, entered into our scheme with assurances to us that you did so from pure patriotic fervour. Do you now wish to see everything fall apart because you refused to take risks?" Helio de Guilleri accusingly spat, still slumped upon a table edge by one arm. "This is for Louisiana 's freedom. For France!"
"After what the gallant French people did to throw off the despotism of King Louis and the ancien regime" Charite de Guilleri chid him from her seat at the other side of the table. She sat erect and prim, hands clasped together in her lap as she would at Mass with her family. "After the example even the bumpkinish Americans showed us when they wrote their Declaration of Independence, m 'sieur Maurepas… that they 'pledged their property, their lives, and their sacred honour' to oust the perfidious Anglais? Freeing Louisiana from Spanish tyranny and declaring ourselves part of Republican France is just as noble a cause. Shame, m'sieur Maurepas, for shame!"
"Mademoiselle, I would do anything for our coming revolution, but a successful revolution must have a sound financial footing, and I cannot assure you that foundation without being somewhat circumspect," M. Maurepas insisted, dabbing at his face with a handkerchief, ready to polish the lenses of his spectacles of the irritation-fog that his skin had generated. "Money is power, young people… as powerful as massed artillery, for it buys the guns, the shot and powder, it clothes and feeds the brave-"
"Pays their damned wages," Capitaine Lanxade nastily growled.
"Keep de ship dat make money afloat, an' ready to fight, money." Balfa gruffly added. He had sat back down and was now squashed into a hairy hog-pile of muscles, his arms crossed over his chest. "An' not enough money, by Gar! Forty percent for de men, dat's only… uh, one hundred eighty t'ousand dollar, only four t'ousand dollar apiece, and dey can drink dat up in a week!
Mebbe the bank only take five percent, and dat revolution fund go short dis time, mebbe so, hem?"
"But we agreed upon a-" Maurepas said in a scandalised gasp.
"Two hundred and forty thousand silver dollars to be shared by our hands," Lanxade proposed, stroking his mustachios and twirling a tip as if the matter was settled. "That's fairer. That will be over five thousand dollars per sailor," he loosely guessed.
"Perhaps m'sieur Maurepas, in the pure revolutionary spirit," Charite sweetly and calmly suggested, "might reduce his bank's share to seven and a half percent… just this once? And perhaps our wise advisor will also speak to m'sieur Bistineau about reducing his firm's upfront cut as well, since he will make such an outsized profit from our goods, which cost him nothing but his complicity? If you take pains to point that out to him, m 'sieur, I am sure he will act in the patriotic spirit."
"But…" Maurepas spluttered.
"And we still have the prize ship to sell," Charite continued in her sweetest parlour manner, the epitome of a soft-spoken and well-bred Creole lady, "which might reap another fifty thousand dollars or so? If not here, then at
Havana, Veracruz, Tampico, or Cartagena. I think our capitaines are right, m 'sieur Maurepas. If our crew is not well rewarded, they will melt away, and we'll lose the means to earn future profits. No more money for the Revolutionary Fund… and no hope of freeing ourselves of Spanish rule… until those despicable Anglo-Saxon Americains take all the Southwest from them."
"Then where would we be?" Don Rubio grimly added, always eager to second anything Charite proposed. "They'd make us American, please God save us from that fate. Brr!" He mock-shivered in disgust.
"No more than five percent to the fund," brother Helio proposed to the banker. "When the ship is sold, a second deposit, of course…"
"Five thousand dollars per sailor," Maurepas haggled, "making a total of, um… two hundred twenty-five thousand. Else, you would have to wait until I purchase coins from Veracruz or Havana."
"Pah!" Balfa hooted, scrubbing his grey locks in frustration. "Six thousand be better. Dat be two hundred seventy t'ousand, and I better be on my way wit' it down Bayou Barataria tonight. Sixty percent for de crew, like de ol' days, dat."
"Then perhaps you and Capitaine Lanxade, for the good of the revolution," Monsieur Maurepas slyly countered, "might agree to reducing your share from twenty percent to fifteen, to be split between you. Merely for a short time… 'til the ship is sold, of course. For my part, I will agree to seven and one half percent, temporarily. After all, the sailors' requirements come before the officers', n'est-ce-pas?"
"You thieving bougre!" Capt. Balfa roared in protest. "Take de food out de mouths of ma famille, you? Nom d'un chien!"
"Only 'til the ship is sold off, messieurs?" Charite quickly seconded, batting her eyelashes at Balfa, who was immune, and then at Capt. Lanxade, who most assuredly was not, despite his deeply held reservations about her ruthlessness. Still and all, Lanxade considered, she'd be a delightful temporary lay. Lanxade preened his mustachios a bit more and struck a noble pose intended to impress the mort.
"Naturellement, m'sieur Maurepas," Lanxade declaimed, "the wise leader sees to the needs of his men first. Bon! Seven and one half percent to me, and to Boudreaux as well… just this once, hein? It is necessary, though, that Balfa and I take the crew's share to them as soon as possible. Tonight would be best."
Banker Maurepas quickly scribbled on the back of his prepared notes, heaved a wee sigh, then removed his glasses. "With a pittance of two and one half percent in the Revolutionary Fund,-the crew will split fifty-five percent, or fifty-five hundred dollars, per man and that, I regret to say, is the best I can manage. Until the ship is sold off."
The de Guilleris, sister and brothers, their cousin Jean-Marie, and their hired buccaneers shared equally glum expressions with each other, then reluctantly gave their consent to such a division.
"Bon," Maurepas said, gently slapping his expensive calfskin book shut and rising. "I will make the adjustments once I get back to the bank and will have the specie ready… no later than tomorrow evening. Tonight is out of the question, Capitaine Lanxade, but tomorrow, for certain. Will you bold gentlemen require your shares in coin at the same time?" he asked, forcing himself to be genial, fingers crossed.
"I will gladly let you carry me as a depositor in your strongboxes, m sieur Maurepas, but for a mere thousand in silver dollars ox pesos," Capt. Lanxade grandly announced, with an elegant bow and "leg."
"You gimme five thousand," Balfa tetchily demanded. "My famille need t'ings from town, dem."
"It shall be done. Well!" Maurepas said, brightening. "I think that concludes our first, successful work towards the freedom of Louisiana, don't you? Adieu, mademoiselle, messieurs," the banker said as he made a graceful bow and leg in conge, clapping his narrow-brimmed, high-crowned townsman's "thimble" hat over his heart and departing the cool and airy apartment on the second storey of the elegant pension. Despite M. Maurepas's apparent gaiety, he once more felt the pangs of serious misgivings that he'd ever been damn-fool enough to become part of their bloody scheme! His reputation! His neck, did the Spaniards discover his complicity! Those brainless… brats who were sure to over-reach themselves or boast immoderate to the wrong people! Dear as reunion with France was to him, sweet as it would be to oust every last arrogant sham-hidalgo Spaniard, surely it could not rest on such a slender bundle of reeds! Where were the wise adult patriots?
"Need a drink, me," Balfa huskily decided. "Wash de foul taste of bankers away. Let's go, Jerome. Now we so damn rich, I'll buy."
"Don't you have shopping for your famille to do first?" Capt. Lanxade reminded him, "if we head down the bayou tomorrow night. I'll meet you at the cabaret, later." Lanxade only slowly gathered up his hat and cane, his elegant new kidskin gloves, bought by the dozen on credit from M. Bistineau's store. Mile Charite had crooked a finger and glanced to the empty chair by her side when Balfa's attention was distracted, and Lanxade was curious to see if his sham "nobility" and selflessness had improved his chances at putting the leg over.
"Oui, later, cher," Balfa glumly said, gathering up his things as well. "Mademoiselle Charite, Helio… Hippolyte, Jean-Marie… adieu." He bobbed them each a sketchy bow, then clopped out through the hall door, his feet, shod for once in silver-buckled shoes and not the wooden sabots he kept for mucky weather or town visits, drumming on the parquet.
"And I thought there was money in piracy," Cousin Jean-Marie moaned, absently chewing on a thumbnail.
"There is, Jean," Helio said, going to the side board for wine. "There would be, if you didn't spend all your time at the Pigeonnire, playing Boure."
"Next trip, there'll be more," Hippolyte prophecied, joining his brother for a glass, as well. "There's sure to be. We could sail off to the west and take a rich ship full of Mexican silver and gold."
"That would require a better ship than Le Revenant, young sir," Lanxade idly responded, carefully seating himself beside the desirable Charite, who today was forced by societal conventions to wear her hair up and a gauzy but somewhat chastely lined high-waisted, puff-sleeved gown with dainty flat shoes on her silk-sheathed feet instead of knee boots. Her light, citrony scent was maddening to Lanxade's senses!
"But did we take another fast schooner as fine as Le Revenant," Charite eagerly said, turning to face Capt. Lanxade and batting away like Billy-O with her long lashes, her blue eyes glittering, "may not two small ships equal a bigger, Capitaine!' I know, you are our most experienced… mentor, in these matters, but could not two schooners, crewed by, oh… perhaps no more than sixty men, double our chances?"
"Well, mademoiselle," Lanxade replied with one "experienced" eyebrow cocked, "I dare say two schooners would suit me better for the taking of a much bigger and well-armed treasure ship, oui, but…"
"And with two ships, we could place dear old Capitaine Balfa on his own quarterdeck again, as he most desires," Charite suggested. "Once we have the two schooners, of co
urse. With two, we could seize a single ship full of coin and reap three or four times the profits of a string of poor captures, could we not, m 'sieur?"
"Assuredly, Mademoiselle Charite," Lanxade all but simpered.
"Then we could afford the arms and pay with which to raise our rebel army," Charite almost giddily fantasised, fanning herself with a laced silk and ivory folding fan, "and approach even more capitaines to join us. Then
there would be no shortage of sailors. Quel dommage, that, for now, we seem to have so many men for our one little schooner. Two capitaines? Why, at this rate, it will take us years to build our secret fund with m 'sieur Maurepas's bank!"
"It would be a grave mistake to pay off crewmen just to save a few sous," Lanxade frostily said as he twigged to what she was driving at. All for her foolish rebellion, but nothing for those who make it come about? he sarcastically thought; She's mad… the rest are just greedy! "After all, who will form the backbone of our liberation, if we disenchant the ones we first recruited?
"We carry a large crew so we can sail and fight the prizes that we take, and defend Le Revenant, you see?" Lanxade explained, striving for patience with them. Did he make them angry, he'd lose his berth, and the loot that went with it, more than he'd made in three years of the river trade. Lanxade knew in his bones that nothing would come of their scheming, but at least it was profitable while it lasted. "This is so aboard any privateer in wartime, the cost of doing business, non? If we do not lavish profit on our hands, they'll jump ship, even strike out on their own in competition with us, n 'est-ce pas?" he instructed, with the simpery, bemused air of tutor to pupil. "Capable and ruthless sailors cost dearly. But they are worth their weight in silver."
"Ah, mais oui, I understand," Mile Charite said with a heave of her chest, most wondrous to Lanxade's lascivious covert oglings. "You are right as usual, dear Capitaine Lanxade. Forgive us our ignorance and lack of experience with such things, but… it is so frustrating for the coffers to fill so slowly, to glean but not to reap the funds to reunite us with beloved France! We all know that but for you and Capitaine Balfa and your sailors, we find so little support, so thin the contributions from other patriot Creoles. Our poor people," she bemoaned as she drew a delicately embroidered handkerchief from her tight sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "We Creoles… so proud and prone to florid speeches. We can be so enthusiastic, but… so lacking when it comes to conclusions, or acting on them. So many swear they wholeheartedly support what we propose, but will they join us, fund us, or take up arms? Act? Really do anything?" she sneered. "Like those snails, Maurepas and Bistineau! All is profit, profit, profit and gain, and freedom is someday, someday, someday… if it isn't too much trouble!"
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