The War of Knives

by Broos Campbell

  “A seaman could’ve took it, sir,” I said.

  “Not likely,” said Peter. “Jack’s superstitious fear of the dead and his notion that theft is nearly as shameful as sodomy rules that out. Well—not entirely, I grant you, but it is most unlikely. Have Horne ask among the boat’s crew anyway.”

  “Perhaps,” said Quilty delicately, “you merely dropped it?”

  “I did not, sir.” I said it pretty sharp, and they looked at each other uncomfortably. “Now listen here,” I said, “I told you I put it there myself.”

  Quilty unlocked a wooden box and took from it a pair of long knives, a saw and a pair of tongs. “Yes, yes, of course you did,” he said. He picked up one of the knives and touched its tip to the body’s breast. “Now, gentlemen, unless you wish to further your education . . .”

  Horne wouldn’t turn up anything, I was sure of it. Whatever Peter and Quilty might think, that left Franklin and Connor. They both of them had been below when the fight started.

  A flock of sloops and schooners scattered like chickens before a fox as we approached Léogâne from the northeast. They were the usual riffraff of island traders and no threat to us, but among them was a ship. We spilled our wind, waiting to see what she was up to, but she shouldered her way through the small fry and showed us her heels, rolling in the chop of the Canal du Sud and cracking on sail.

  Peter handed me his spyglass. “What do you make of her?”

  “A frigate, sir, a twenty-eight or a thirty-two, maybe.” Her high poop, the gingerbread across her stern, and the narrow gallery below her stern windows where her captain might take a few paces in private said she was old—ancient, even. Frigates hadn’t been built that way in decades. The carved figures and scrollwork that once would’ve been picked out in red and blue and gold were painted black like the rest of her hull. There was something pathetic but evil about her, like a poxy beggar-woman holding one hand out in supplication while the other grasped a razor beneath her rags. She heeled over and the sunlight flashed on the green stuff that grew below her waterline. “Her bottom wants breaming.” I lowered the glass and squinted at her. “And she rides light, sir, like her main battery’s been took out.”

  He took the glass back and studied her again. “Even so, she has some teeth in her. I count four guns on her fo’c’s’le and perhaps half a dozen on her quarterdeck.”

  When we were certain she was indeed leaving, we studied the sun-washed streets and the hills roundabout the town for signs of fighting. All lay quiet and still.

  Peter snapped his glass shut. “Had you not best ready yourself?”

  I had been half-listening through the skylight to Connor and Franklin arguing with Ambrose about the best way to stow their gear. Ambrose, my personal servant when he wasn’t the wardroom steward, tipped me the nod as I stepped below. “The gents’ things is all shipshape and Bristol fashion, Mr. Graves.” He heaved the last carryall up onto the table that ran the length of the wardroom. “You want I should do yourn the same as well?”

  “That’s right,” I said, knowing he would anyway.

  Franklin stood in the doorway of his cabin. He hugged his writing desk to his chest with one hand and clutched at the doorjamb with the other against the slight motion of the schooner. Connor stood at the far end of the table, his hands on his hips. “See here, Mr. Graves,” he said. “I am used to the way Franklin does my kit, and I’m not in the habit of being ordered about by a servant when it comes to my personal effects.”

  “Ease your mind, sir,” I said. “It don’t do to meddle in the little things.” Franklin could always repack their stuff later; but I had to live with Ambrose, who had numerous ways of letting his displeasure be known. “The bosun is getting the pinnace in the water. Mr. Rogers will hoist your baggage aboard.”

  “We’re off, then!” Connor bounded up the ladder.

  Franklin took the steps one at a time, snatching at the siderail with his free hand as he went. His cheeks had a green tint, and from the smell wafting from his cabin I bet he’d left a full bucket under his cot.

  “So, Ambrose,” I said after they’d gone, and my voice rang falsely bright even in my own ears: “Was there anything unusual in their things?” I showed him a half-real.

  “Oh, dear me no, sir,” he said, holding his hands in fists so I couldn’t sully them with silver. “The end of the month will be fine. But there’s sumpthin’ fishy about them two.” He gestured me closer and breathed tobacco and grog on me. “Everything was already bundled up into little packages, like. Couldn’t tell what was what, ’ceptin’ the obvious things like the brushes and razors in their housewives and such, and papers tied with red tape. Sealed with wax and wafer, too, most them was.”

  “But did you see anything that might’ve been a dagger?”

  “I were on the lookout for one, sir, just like what you said. And Mr. Connor, he got a right wicked-lookin’ one. Wears it around behind under his britches gusset. Odd thing for a gent to carry, but from what I hear he can’t take no chances, with assassins poppin’ out o’ dark alleys at him.”

  “Well? Has it got a steel hilt and a black grip, bound in silver wire?”

  “Oh, not at all sir. It’s what a Guinea calls a stiletto. Plain wooden handle with a brass hilt.” He held his hands eight or nine inches apart. “About yay long.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Sure I’m sure,” he sniffed. “Couldn’t mistake sumpthin’ as plain as that, now could I, sir?” He made as if to go.

  “No, no, of course not,” I put out a hand to stop him. “But what about Franklin?”

  “Nary a weapon nor any kind for him, sir. He’s a scholar. One o’ them fellas that’s above such things, as long as they got someone around to protect ’em.”

  “Very well, then. Thank’ee.”

  “I’ll have your things done up in a trice, sir, and lay out your duds. Traveling coat, slop trousers and sea boots?”

  “I’ll wear the boots, but I have to look fine. I’ll wear my best undress coat and epaulet, and the blue pantaloons. Pack my white britches and a decent pair of shoes and stockings.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” He went off grumbling about ruining good clothes in the mud and thickets.

  “Oh,” I called after him, “and a shoulder strap for my sword. I’ll be riding.”

  “Horses, is it? A sea officer on horseback’s about the pitifullest sight . . .” He disappeared into my cabin and shut the door.

  The westering sunlight poured in through the stern windows of the Rattle-Snake’s great cabin. Peter sat on the padded locker below the windows and held up his glass. The sunlight in the Madeira bathed the whitewashed bulkheads in a golden glow. “Here is to a quick trip, Matty,” he said. “May you succeed in your endeavors.” We drank. “Whatever they may be.”

  “Thank’ee, Peter.” I stretched out my legs. Peter had bought Billy’s spindly gilt cabin furniture rather than ship it home to Billy’s parents, but the chairs hadn’t gotten any more comfortable now that they were his. “Can I tell you about ’em?”

  “If you may.”

  “The commodore said I ain’t to tell anybody but them as I trust with my life.”

  “And you trust me so, Matty?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I shall strive always to live up to that,” he said, as inscrutable as ever.

  I told him all that Gaswell had charged me to do, even the part about the plot to raise a rebellion in the South.

  “It would never work,” said Peter. “It doesn’t do to let a man up again after you’ve beat him down. Whether you should have beat him down in the first place becomes academic.”

  “You don’t think there’s a plot, then?”

  “I did not say that. The heart of man is hard and strange,” he said. He looked at Gypsy, crouching on his desk with her leg up as she licked herself. “The more I know about people, the less I understand them.”

  “You know what else is strange,” said I. “Blair tried to take a page
of my orders from me before he countersigned my passport. He even threatened to burn it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Natural-born cussedness?”

  “Surely he’s more complex than that—here, madam, stop that.” He poked Gypsy till she laid off licking herself. “Our Mr. Blair is a poltroon and a coward, yes, but not a simpleton. I do not trust him. No doubt he is still angry about the affair with the picaroons. We caught him in a lie, and I would not put it past him to harm you if he can.”

  “Yes, sir. And to tell the truth, I ain’t too keen on Franklin, neither. There’s something he ain’t quite honest about, but I ain’t put my finger on it yet.”

  He drank off his glass and set it aside. “With Connor around you should be safe enough. I shall need you back whole, and as quickly as possible. The bosun can stand your watches, but it will be hard on him. Mr. Midshipman Jeffreys hardly knows his backside from a backstay.” He grunted. “I do not know yet what I shall say about Mr. MacElroy. I must write his parents, of course.”

  “Yes, sir. And the commodore too, of course.” But that was Peter’s problem, not mine, and I’d be dogged if I’d share it with him. We stepped to the chart table to examine the Bay of Jacmel once more.

  “I am permitted an independent cruise of several weeks in the Jamaica Channel,” said Peter. “Afterwards I am to rendezvous with the Croatoan off the mouth of the bay sometime in the second week of March. I shall fetch you here, at Cap Maréchaux at its eastern end—if at all possible.” He tapped on the table to ward off the Fates. “If you cannot be there, leave a note nearby. I shall do the same if Rigaud or the French should have a naval presence sufficient to deny us the bay. The shoals east of the cape extend as much as five miles to seaward, but I believe we have several hands aboard capable of finding an island as large as Hispaniola.” He smiled. “Even in the dark.”

  I didn’t smile back. I kept thinking of MacElroy going over the side, sewn up in his hammock with a pair of round shot at his feet. “Aye aye, sir. Should I make a signal of some sort?”

  “Yes. Say, two shots followed one minute later by two more shots, and by two more shots again, on the quarter hour. I shall fire two guns to windward in reply.”

  “That’s kind of complex, ain’t it? What if I don’t have a pair of pistols?”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Matty, use your own good judgment. Set the woods on fire. Run around on the beach with your drawers on your head.” Gypsy strolled over to see what we were doing, and Peter knelt down and held his hand out. She sat down with her back to him and yawned. “Paint me a picture of a rattlesnake, even.” She glared sleepily as he scratched her jaw. “Anything will do, so long as it draws my attention.”

  Six

  I gripped my reins and saddle horn together in both fists. Joséphine, the harpy our guides had foisted on me in Léogâne, laid her ears back and showed me the yellows of her eyes as we trotted along the highland track. Riding her was very much like riding a masthead in a blow, except mastheads don’t bite.

  Connor rode up beside me. The whites of his green eyes shone in the shade of his broad straw hat, and the ebony handles of his pocket pistols afore and the brass hilt of his stiletto astern gleamed in the purple sash around his waist. He had shucked his coat and neck-cloth and loosened his collar, which allowed his shirt to billow picturesquely. He looked so fine, so dashing, so much the romantic adventurer, that I would gladly have shot him. He smiled at me and said, “How d’ye fare, Mr. Graves?”

  “I’m told—Mr. Connor,” I jerked out between jounces, “that a sailor—on horseback—is a pitiful sight.”

  He laughed. “Oh no, not at all, sir, not at all.” He clicked his tongue, and his horse danced past Franklin toward the front of the line.

  Daylight flashed between Franklin and his saddle as he jolted along. His gold spectacles bounced around his sweaty face, and he was in constant torment to keep his portable desk under his arm. He had insisted on carrying it rather than let it be tied to his saddle with his carryall. “One hand for the ship and one for yourself, Mr. Franklin,” I called, and he gave me such a vicious, miserable look that I almost felt sorry for him.

  The older of our two Negro guides laughed. I gave him my best quarterdeck stare, but he had his back to me and missed the benefit of it. The younger one, Juge, who I guessed was only a few years older than I was, but who carried himself as if he had already crossed some imperceptible boundary into middle life, rode with a carbine across his saddle brow. We had left the Léogâne road an hour back to strike through a stretch of pine forest and thorny scrub; I didn’t know much about soldiering, but it looked like a good place for an ambush. A distant thudding came intermittently on the breeze. “Ecoutez!” I called as I realized what it was. “J’entend le bruit des canons!”

  Juge reined back till I caught up with him. “Bon sang!” he said. “Of course you hear artillery. There is a war, you know.” He was a sight handsomer than the old coot, but he was an odd duck in his own right. He wore an officer’s long-tailed blue surtout with bits of gold lace dangling from it, and didn’t bother to wear a shirt under it. He flapped the coat like a rooster getting ready to crow as he spoke—the better to display his chest, I calculated. His chest was worth looking at, too; there was people back home who’d pay cash money to see it. A capital J had been branded on his right breast and an E on the left; thick scars, like the country marks you see sometimes on new-bought Guinea slaves, formed the letters U and G between them. J-U-G-E, the French word for judge. His red-and-white-striped trousers were torn off at mid-thigh, his long black cavalry boots were rolled above his knees, and a tricolor cockade and scarlet plume decorated the starboard side of his high-crowned round hat. He wore it tipped forward against the sun, but he kept his eyes moving across the trees and rocky bluffs even as we spoke. He tapped his horse’s sides with his heels and cantered past the old man into the lead again.

  The old man gave me an uninterested glance before returning his attention to the sides of the road. He was missing his upper teeth, and what teeth he had in his jutting lower jaw looked as weather-beaten as old wooden pilings. Juge called him Grand-père Bavard—Grandfather Chatterbox—though he didn’t talk much. Like Juge he wore a blue surtout trimmed in red, but under it he wore a clean white shirt, a gray vest, and tight gray pantaloons tucked into Hessian boots. For headgear he wore a turban of yellow silk with a thin red stripe like a Barbary vizier, with a tricolor rosette and a tall red plume at the knot in front. He rode as if his hip joints hurt him. His horse was a fine white charger that he called Bel-Argent. I took bets with myself about how long it’d be before he got throwed; but when a flock of doves broke cover and exploded across the trail in front of him, he soothed the beast with a soft word and a single caress. The rooster claws he wore for spurs were streaked with dried blood, but it wasn’t Bel-Argent’s blood; he never so much as touched a heel to the horse’s flanks.

  The pine forest thinned out as we approached a steep ravine, where a cascade of white water rushed around a jumble of boulders. Our guides examined the trees that screened the far side while we sat our horses and waited. Finally, the old man nodded at Juge.

  “Hu! Tss-tss!” Juge urged his mount forward, skittering through loose drifts of rocky debris as he scrambled down and across and up the far side of the ravine. He trotted into the shadows, leaning low in the saddle with his carbine at the ready.

  “What is happening?” said Connor.

  “Chut!” said Grandfather Chatterbox.

  Connor cocked an eyebrow at me. I held a finger to my lips.

  The old man looked up and down the ravine, and then back the way we had come. A thrumming of insects filled the air. The sky was dotted with high clouds, and a cool breeze with a hint of the sea in it found us. I’d had little sleep since before the Rattle-Snake made Port Républicain, and despite the laconic pop-popping of the field guns in the distance, I dozed.

  Joséphine shook her head and snorted, and I opened my eyes
with a start. Juge stood on the far side of the ravine, waving his hand. Grandfather Chatterbox still looked down the track behind us, his tongue writhing along his lips like a little pink snake.

  “Monsieur,” I said.

  He held up his hand; I ain’t much for the supernatural, but it felt as if he’d clamped it across my mouth. Then he turned Bel-Argent toward the ravine. “Allez-y!” he said, with a curt gesture for us to follow him. He plunged across. Our horses leaped after him, and I kept my perch by the grace of God and Connor’s hand on my bridle.

  Juge met us under the trees, where a squadron of dragoons knelt in skirmish order along the edge of the forest. Most of them wore shoes instead of boots, and their white pantaloons and long blue coats were patched and grimy; but their black-maned brass helmets and the silver trefoils on their shoulders shone, and their carbines looked well cared for. To the rear, a pair of troopers with freshly waxed boots sat waiting in their saddles. The old man spoke rapidly in Creole to Juge and then trotted off through the forest with the mounted dragoons on his heels.

  I stared at the troopers under the trees. “Où diable . . .”

  Juge rolled his eyes. “Bon sang! They have been with us all the way from Léogâne. You will never make a soldier.” Then he laughed. “Get down off your horses, mes amis, and keep an eye open.”

  The horse handlers took our mounts to the rear. Franklin went with them, cradling his portable desk in his arms. Connor and I crouched down behind a fallen tree, where Juge stared across the ravine like a cat watching a rat hole. “Do not move until I say,” he whispered. He put his hand on Connor’s arm as the mulatto drew his pistols. “Not even a finger. Chut—hush now, they approach.”