“An’ how was I to know ya had yer britches dine, with the light as dark as the divil’s arse? Himself is after doin’ him a hurt, Mr. Graves. Yer man’s wits have wandered these several days.”
“That’s a lie,” said Treadwell, somewhat calmer. “I meant merely to pay my respects to Tom Turdman. And when I sat down, the seat gave way and I tumbled in. Embarrassin’, really.”
“Tumbled in?” said I, laughing.
“Yes, damme, tumbled in. Quite stuck now, I’m afraid.”
“Oh aye—stuck are ya? ’Tis after gettin’ ya o’t I’ll be, Mr. Treadwell, or me name’s not Michael Cahoon. Which it is, and all.”
“No! Keep your distance, you whey-brained moose—”
There was a snap of wood breaking, a grunt, and then a slithering sort of wail.
“By Jezzus, he’s goin’ dine!”
There was a click and a spark of steel on flint, and Juge held up a lighted stub of a candle. By its flicker I saw Treadwell’s hands clutching Cahoon by his side-whiskers, and his stocking feet sticking out on either side. The sergeant was reaching down into the hole, presumably trying to get a better grip, when he slipped in a puddle of muck and went headfirst down the hole after Treadwell. I grabbed him, but he slobbered through my hands.
“Sweet mother of glub—” said Cahoon as he disappeared.
“Help,” added Treadwell in a muffled and unhopeful sort of way. I heard a pair of diminishing wails, a sploop, and then nothing more.
I stood away from the latrine, shaking filth from my hands.
“Bon sang!” said Juge. “What shall we do?”
“Get them out again, I guess.” I leaned over the hole. “Ahoy below! Ahoy there! Can you hear me?”
I heard a low moan, and the sound of someone puking.
“Oh, God, not on me,” said Treadwell, faint and far away.
“Well, they’re alive at least,” I said.
Juge spluttered through his fingers as he tried not to laugh. He held out his other hand and I hauled him to his feet.
“Ahoy below,” I called again, and then a beam of light swept through the room. I spun around.
“Stand where you are!” rasped the Parson.
Franklin stood in the doorway, holding up his lantern. The Parson’s deathsome face loomed over his shoulder.
“Mon dieu,” breathed Juge, making the sign of the cross.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Juge,” said Franklin, stepping into the room. “I thought I had heard your voice these several days.” His French was stiff but serviceable. The Parson stepped around him with his sword at the ready.
“Bonsoir, mon ami,” said Juge. He took a small step toward Franklin. It was a subtle move, as if he’d merely shifted his weight, but it put him between Franklin and the door. “Monsieur Graves has already informed us of your presence.”
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Graves?” said Franklin, switching to English as pretty as you please and shining the light on me. “You look as if you have had a chamber-pot emptied on your head. ‘Ye shall know them by their raiment,’ it is said.”
“Nay,” said the Parson. The tip of his sword quivered. “Matthew seven-sixteen: ‘Ye shall know them by their fruit.’ The next verse is ‘A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit,’ and eviler fruit I never seen.”
“It ain’t fruit,” I said. “It’s shit. Anyway, I calculate to serve you out, Franklin.” I eyed the Parson’s blade. “In about a minute. I’m busy at the moment.”
“Serve me out? Whatever do you mean?”
“I mean you’re in league with the Knights of the White Hand. You told Pétion I’m a spy, and I aim to bring you down for it.”
“I—? In league with whom?”
“You heard me. Now be quiet, I’m trying to listen.” I bent over the hole again.
“I shall not be quiet,” said Franklin—then, “No, sir, put up your sword!”
The Parson shoved past him and came at me. I was all set to hop down the bog-hole after Cahoon and Treadwell, but Juge punched him in the side of the neck. The Parson dropped like a wet sack, and Juge snatched up his sword.
“And now, my friend,” said Juge, placing the point at Franklin’s throat, “perhaps you will be so good as to explain your association with this man.”
“I have not heard of these Knights of the White Hand, Mr. Graves,” said Franklin. “I would swear it on a Bible, had you one handy, although I am not a great reader of that work.” His eyes were bland behind his glasses. “Besides, you would not believe me in any case.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t. I heard you two talking, and I’m getting pretty sick of your lies.”
“Ah. Well, I can tell you this, then.” He pointed at the Parson, still stretched out on the floor. “Mr. MacGuffin there is dedicated to thwarting a conspiracy on the part of some of Rigaud’s followers. It is their idea to foment slave rebellion to the southern states. If he is a Knight of the White hand, I have no official knowledge of it.”
“Then why did he go for me when I mentioned the White Hands?”
“Perhaps he believes you to be part of the conspiracy.”
“Me? My orders are to find out who’s involved in it. That’s what I’m doing here.”
I didn’t know a man could look disgusted and superior with his back against a wall and a sword at his throat, but Franklin managed it. “You got yourself jailed to discover a conspiracy? Your methods want work.”
“Shit and perdition! I keep telling people I didn’t come here a-purpose.”
“Regardless, this is far beyond the Navy’s jurisdiction.” He looked down at MacGuffin and nudged him with his foot. “And what about that letter from Villon?”
“What about that damn letter? Everybody keeps asking me did I read it, and I never did. All’s I did was, I swore to Villon before he hanged that I’d deliver it to his wife here in Jacmel.”
“There is no Madame Villon.”
“So I gathered.” I said it pretty bitter, too; I didn’t think my dislike of Franklin was entirely justified, but I still hoped Juge would stick him in the throat. “But anyway, I never read it.”
“It’s immaterial whether you’ve read it. What matters is that I should read it.”
“What makes you so special?”
“I follow the conversation with difficulty,” said Juge. “May I trouble you to speak French?”
“Au certainment.” I filled him in on what Franklin had said.
“We are presently at an impasse,” added Franklin. He kicked the Parson again, a little harder than before. “Monsieur MacGuffin and I have made an uneasy sort of pact to find and destroy elements of a conspiracy to foment a slave rebellion in the southern states. Monsieur MacGuffin is of the opinion that Monsieur Graves has been sent to Jacmel as part of that conspiracy, but what part he plays, if any, I have yet to ascertain. However, he has delivered a certain document into Pétion’s hands. I believe this document to contain a ciphered list of co-conspirators.”
Juge kept the blade at Franklin’s throat, but his eyes wavered. “Matty, surely you would not allow this to happen? Rigaud, he could use this list to buy the support of your President Adams—or at least to withdraw his support of us. Bon sang! I thought you were in sympathy with our struggle.”
“Of course I am. Franklin doesn’t know what’s in that letter any more than I do.”
“You deny giving it to Pétion?” said Franklin.
“If it’s in cipher, how do you know he’s read it?”
“That’s not what I—” Franklin cocked his head. “Do I hear voices?”
“Halloo, Mr. Graves! Are ya hearin’ me there?”
Franklin stared at the latrine. “Has someone gone down . . . ?” Unable to finish his sentence, he merely pointed.
“Some friends of ours have had the mishap,” said Juge.
“But how did they—”
“Quiet,” I said.
“—come to fall in?”
“Shut up!” I leaned over the stinking hole.
“Ahoy, Sergeant Cahoon! Are you hurt?”
“No, sir. As filthy as a Belfast hoor, but we landed soft for all that. Mr. Treadwell’s in a bad way here, though, with his puir leg and all.”
“Can you climb back up?”
“That I cannot, sir. The hole widens o’t at the bottom an’ there’s naught to grab hold of.”
“Can you see a way out?”
“Oh aye. There’s a low bit of tunnel with a wee gate at the end.”
“Can you open the gate?”
“Dunno, sir. It’s all I can do to keep Mr. Treadwell’s head above— above water, sir.”
“Stand away from below, Cahoon. I’m coming down.”
“Aye aye, sir. I’m away.” I heard a receding series of splashes.
I held out my hand. “Juge,” I said, “give me that sword, if you please. It’s the closest thing we have to a crowbar.”
“You go after them, hein?” He watched Franklin a second longer and then handed me the sword. “Happy landings, mon ami.”
Franklin wiped a smear of blood off his throat. “We have much to discuss, Mr. Graves,” he said, “but I think the curiosity of our hosts has been piqued at last. I hear several pairs of boots coming up the stairs.” Without so much as a grunt of effort or a glimmer of expression, he grasped MacGuffin’s wrists with one hand, grasped him behind the knees with the other, and hoisted him onto his shoulder. He scooped up the lantern and stood up. “You will have to serve me out another time. Meanwhile I shall return to my cell.”
The first ten feet or so was just like climbing down a chimney, albeit a belly-lurchingly filthy one. Then suddenly there was nothing under my feet but air and I went down the shaft like a rock. After a brief eternity I landed with a muffled plop.
It was worse than I could possibly have imagined. The air was saturated with a stench so foul that I felt I would rather suffocate than breathe it. But breathe it I did, in a shallow gulp that my lungs immediately expelled, followed by what little there was in my stomach. I was on all fours, and the filth splattered back into my face as I puked. Not that it mattered much. I seemed to be drenched with the stuff through and through.
I gained my feet and stood with my hands on my knees, gasping and dry-heaving. I still had MacGuffin’s sword in my hand. I used it like a blind man uses a stick, groping my way toward a place that seemed less dark than the rest of the pit.
“Halloo! Mr. Graves, what was it that ya dropped? A great rope, I’m hopin’.”
“Hush,” I said. “The turnkeys are out and they’ll hear you.”
“By Jezzus, ya did not coom dine yerself?”
“No, I sent your granny.” I felt around till I found his arm in the dark. “Now where’s that gate you were talking about?”
“’Tis only a wee bit from here. I left puir Mr. Treadwell propped up nearby it. ’Tis loose, but I cannot get a grip, it bein’ so muckish underfoot.”
We sloshed along under the low roof of the tunnel till it rose a bit as we came to the end, and I could see the rain and the bay through the gate. Treadwell sobbed in great gasps with his face against the bars.
“Ease him away handsomely, Sergeant,” I said, and Cahoon took the lieutenant under the arms and gently pulled him a few feet back up the tunnel.
“Just set yerself there, me darlin’,” he said, “for what hurry is on ya until the wee door is open at all?”
“I’m well enough for now,” said Treadwell. “But for God’s sake, hop to it, man.”
“We aim to,” said I. “The guards’ll figure out where we went in about a minute, if Juge can’t hold ’em off.”
“Is himself not comin’ then?” said Cahoon.
“No, he ain’t. Said he’d rather take his chances where he was. Then he blew out his candle, and I guess that’s the last I’ll see of him.”
“’Tis the great pity o’ the world,” said Cahoon. “He’s a fine man. Sure, an’ he’s as brave as—”
“Here, you Hibernian hobbinol, do you get that gate open! The air in here is thick enough without your boggish nattering. Any more of it and I shall surely perish.”
“Feeling better, are we, Mr. Treadwell? Bear a hand, Sergeant.”
The bars of the gate were fuzzy with rust, but for all that they had a core of solid iron and wouldn’t budge. Even when Cahoon braced himself behind me and I pushed with both feet, all we did was slide back up the tunnel.
“That’s no good, sir,” said he. “But how are the hinges now, I’m wonderin’?”
I banged on the frame of the gate with the hilt of the sword. It moved. “The pins are set in sandstone. If it’s as rotten as the rest of the stones . . .” Using the sword as a crowbar, and with Cahoon pulling me from behind, I felt the frame begin to give way.
“Handsomely! Handsomely now,” I said. “If the blade breaks, we’re sunk.” There was a squeal as one of the pins slid out from its stone shaft.
“D’ye hear that, by Jezzus? Only one more t’ go—”
“’Vast heaving,” I whispered. “Listen!”
From upstairs came the sounds of a to-do in French. A gruff voice was demanding to know where we’d gone, and Juge was saying that he’d been asleep till just that minute, and anyway it wasn’t his job to keep track of prisoners. Bon sang! Maybe if they’d lock the doors now and then, as they were supposed to, perhaps prisoners wouldn’t wander off as they pleased and tumble down the stairs in the dark and break their heads or worse. It was a shameful way to run a prison, he thought, and they’d better go look around the corridors and perhaps upstairs if they meant to find us before Lieutenant Négraud did. And they’d better keep their voices down while they did it, too, or they’d be found out before they were done. I heard a few slaps and a groan, and then a bang as the cell door slammed shut.
“He just bought us some time,” I said. “You still got your boots—see if you can’t kick out the other pin.”
We switched places. Cahoon braced himself against my back and gave a mighty kick.
“Ooh, ’tis me foot that’s broke,” he said.
The heave had sent me under. I had to swab out my ears before I could understand him.
“You broke your foot?”
“Bless ya no, sir, just in a manner o’ speakin’.”
“See is the gate loose,” I said.
“Aye aye, sir. Oh God aye, sir! It’s comin’—” He shoved it open with his shoulder and tumbled out into the open air. He was so greased up that he slid right down the slope into the bay.
“Come along, Treadwell.” I turned him around and slid him along on his stern.
“Was that a splash I heard?” he said.
“Yes. I hope the sergeant can swim.”
“First time he’s ever been glad for a bathe, I should imagine. I say, hope you remembered the soap and flannel.”
Rain never felt so good. I reveled in it as I oozed down toward the bay. The sea was as warm as bathwater, though a bit fouled from the muck the sergeant had already sloshed off himself. He sat up to his waist with his feet splayed out in front of him, using one of his boots to pour water over his head.
“Oh, ’tis grand,” he said. “Is it a bucketful you’d care for there, Mr. Treadwell?”
“Yes, I should like that.”
Leaving Cahoon to sluice Treadwell off, I placed the gate back over the mouth of the tunnel and then crept down to the end of the wall to see where my boots had landed when I’d tossed them off the roof. Campfires glowed around the corner and I could hear men moving about and talking in low tones. Rain hissed in the flames. No excitement, no hue and cry, which meant no one there was expecting us.
I looked over at the pier where the boat was tied up. There was no sentry in sight, but if there was one, and him a proper soldier, he’d have found himself someplace to shelter from the rain.
I found my boots and scooted back to the others. “How’s the leg, Treadwell?”
“Took a bit of a pounding, sir. Shouldn’t think I could walk on it, but I’ll hop
if I must.”
The water lay calm along the shore. “You won’t have to. We’ll take you in tow.” I wrassled my socks over my wet feet. “Cahoon, there’s a boat tied to the end of the pier over there. Let’s float Mr. Treadwell on his back and keep our heads low. And remember, sound carries well over water, so no talking unless absolutely necessary.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Can you swim, Treadwell?”
“Like a fish.”
“Good man. But just lie quiet and let us do the work.”
“Right, sir.”
“Let’s shove off, Sergeant.”
I didn’t think it was the right sort of terrain for caimans, but I was pretty sure the carcasses floating down the river made the bay an attractive place to be a shark. No point in mentioning that—if somebody got bit, we’d know it soon enough. We half-waded, half-swam toward the pier, with Treadwell calmly keeping his nose above water as he bobbed along on his back. The hair rose up on the scruff of my neck every time a fish nipped at the filth on my legs—or it would have risen, anyway, if it hadn’t been so thoroughly pasted down with muck.
The rain drummed on the pier above our heads. I hoisted myself up to eye-level to have a peek. There were several soldiers between me and the campfires, but they were all hunched down with their cloaks over their heads against the rain.
I worked my way around to the end of the pier, where the boat lay gently knocking against the piles. Some lubber had tied the painter with no thought to getting it undone again. Pure soldier’s work, that was—a sailor would’ve thrown a clove hitch over the bollard and had done with it. I had to heave myself onto the pier to get at the knot. Of course it was soaked, and I tore off several nails before the obvious occurred to me. I slipped MacGuffin’s sword out from my belt and cut the line.
A tarpaulin in the boat moved, and somebody stuck his head out. “Is it you, Paul-Charles?”
“It is not.” I stepped into the boat and slashed his throat for him.
It was an excellent blade. It cut so deep that he made no more sound than the sighing of the wind as his life gushed out of him.
I found the oars under the tarpaulin and fitted them into the row-locks. When I’d eased the boat down to where I had left Treadwell and Cahoon, I said, “No noise, you two. Just grab ahold of the stern for now, and keep your yaps shut.”
The War of Knives Page 21
