Hunt for White Gold

by Mark Keating

  Dandon looked over Devlin’s shoulder as he broke the purple wax seal and withdrew a single, white, almost transparent feather, plucked from the wing of a crow-like bird.

  Devlin rolled it between his fingers. The sight of the white fletch brought back the memory of a weighty downpour, of staring through a straggling forelock, running in his drenched coat from men on horseback. The feather spoke to his memory of the spark of swords, of the taking of the Shadow, and of Valentim Mendes, governor of the Verdes whom Devlin had tied to a tree. He had wrapped a grenadoe in the man’s hand and lit the fuse. It had been such a long way to come only to see in his mind’s eye that bird again; for Valentim’s pet had been a startling white raven.

  ‘What is it, what does it mean?’ Dandon asked. He had not been there. Had not seen the albino bird. He had only heard tell of Valentim Mendes, who bequeathed them their fine frigate.

  ‘A white raven’s feather.’ Devlin dropped the envelope and the feather to the desk. His eyes glazed momentarily.

  ‘Have you seen the man himself?’ Devlin asked quietly.

  Ignatius smiled just enough.

  ‘Hate is not the word for it, Captain. Not even the manner of the word.’

  ‘What am I to do for you? For Valentim?’ Devlin looked at the feather and felt a calmness emanating from him. Suddenly his fate was back in his hands and the impersonal world was his once more.

  Ignatius clasped his hands behind him. He moved back to his desk, picked up his stylus and opened a ledger, furiously scratching away as he spoke.

  ‘You are to sail to Providence. For the cannon is there. Time is not with you however, Captain, for Teach is after the same. His involvement is not for you to know. You are to bring it here to me, to secure the freedom of your quartermaster. And the continuance of your own liberty of course. I have here a description of the gun for you.’

  Devlin’s derisive laugh stayed his writing hand.

  ‘You are amused by my proposal?’

  Devlin had half-expected the letters to be hanging around King George’s neck. That at least would have required some effort – a second load of pistol perhaps. He smirked in disbelief at the man behind the desk.

  ‘You want me to sail to a pirate island? As a pirate? There is some difficulty in this that I am unaware of I take it? Or do you always use a hammer to clean your windows, sir?’

  Devlin doffed his hat theatrically. ‘Goodnight to you. Dandon and I will abscond to the tavern opposite. We’ll try not to over-plan our assault. As for Teach, if he is my only concern, we’ll be back in two weeks. I have stared him down before. And with an empty gun. I hope, for your sake, Peter Sam be here awaiting me, fat and found.’ He plucked Dandon’s sleeve and made for the door.

  Ignatius’s words halted them at the threshold. ‘Oh, of course: you’ve been away haven’t you?’

  They turned. Animosity had returned to Devlin’s eyes.

  Ignatius continued: ‘You’ve spent some time out of these seas. News travels so very slow, does it not?’

  ‘What word am I unaware of?’ Devlin rested his palm upon his pistol.

  Ignatius leant back, his hands tapping in his lap.

  ‘The good word is the word you are unaware of, Captain. Peace has come to the Bahamas. I want you to sail to the island of New Providence. The island is now under the control of the infamous Woodes Rogers and seconded by your own Captain John Coxon. You remember him? Doubtless he remembers you. New Providence is now a colony of England, piracy wiped from its face. A garrison of one hundred soldiers and three hundred Navy fellows is there. Five men-of-war are anchored in its harbour making sure it never returns.’

  He watched Devlin’s cold look swim across the room towards him and rocked back in his chair. It had been worth the wait.

  ‘That is the island I want you to sail to. Not this piratical paradise you assumed. Oh, and the cannon? I’m afraid it is in Governor Rogers’ fort. The one he has made his home along with the garrison and militia of citizens. Your former brethren, by the way.’

  Devlin and Dandon looked at each other. Devlin felt along his belt, running his fingers from pistol to sword.

  ‘When? When did this happen? There is nothing on Providence to warrant a colony.’

  ‘Fifty years ago I would have agreed,’ Ignatius chimed. ‘But fifty years ago this town did not exist either. Even your colleague’s town of Bath,’ he lifted a hand to Dandon, ‘barely existed when he left Mobile with his master ten years ago.’

  Dandon shivered. The memory of his past-life had become a mystery even to him, so much had his world changed. Now he was back. Just a thieving apothecary’s assistant poring over medical dictionaries, who believed he could become a learned man without a purse to back him. Just a boy playing doctor. The shivering did not go unnoticed by Ignatius. He held out the description of the gun.

  ‘Take this order and instruction, Captain. Or should I simply kill your quartermaster when he arrives?’

  Devlin did not move. His fingernail tapped against his pistol flint.

  Dandon tip-toed forward and took the paper, succentor to his holy captain. He tapped it against his forehead, backing away.

  Devlin snatched the door open, then looked back to the desk. ‘Tell Valentim I am sorry about the hand. It was required at the time. It was … democratic.’

  ‘I’m sure you can tell him yourself. Success or not, he will be waiting for you. However, if you die in the pursuit I’m sure he will not weep.’

  Devlin paused beneath the lintel. Dandon edged past him, making his way to the front door.

  ‘I expect Peter Sam to be here. A fortnight from now. I’ll have your letters. And by the time I do I’m sure one more death will not make much odds.’

  Ignatius said nothing. He pulled himself back up in his seat, lowering his eyes to his page, and began to write again the notes that would exalt him, the notes that would exempt him, depending on the reader, until he heard the door click shut behind the pirate. It had been worth the wait.

  Still writing, he spoke aloud to the empty room. ‘I trust you have heard enough, gentlemen?’

  A pause ensued lengthy enough for the two men that waited in the garden to ready themselves, open the glazed double doors and step into the room. They had indeed heard enough. A hidden vent in the wall had carried the entire conversation.

  He waited for the two to sit down on uninvited chairs at opposite sides of the study, their full-length black cloaks sweeping the floor. Prudently Ignatius finished his work, placed his stylus down and lifted his head to them.

  Hiding his amusement he addressed them both. ‘Still the pretence of your masks, gentlemen? How very droll.’ In each dark corner his guests wore white clay Bauta masks and full tabarro lace that covered their heads and necks and ran beneath their tricornes.

  The almost glowing Venetian masks stared back coldly with blank eyes. One of them spoke, the beak of the mask hanging over and away from the mouth, thus perfectly distorting the direction and identity of the voice.

  ‘Our anonymity preserves some dignity amongst ourselves, Ignatius. It is no deceit against your person.’

  ‘Quite,’ Ignatius noticed their canes impatiently trying to twist their way through the floorboards, while their dead faces betrayed nothing. The frustration of trying to engage with statues detached Ignatius even more from the emotions that his enterprises often provoked in him. ‘You have listened; you thus understood the full control that I enjoy over our situation. In a month, perhaps less, the secret of the porcelain will be here in this very study. Yours for the taking.’

  ‘For the purchasing, Ignatius,’ one of them snapped back. Ignatius bowed to the adroit observation.

  ‘Indeed. Now, as I understand, one of you,’ he waved a hand to them both, ‘owns a considerable iron refinery which might easily be turned to the production of the porcelain.’

  A mask nodded back, the unseen and sweating face behind it quickly grimacing in regret at giving away the knowledge to Ignatius’
s quick eye.

  Ignatius spoke directly to the other mask. ‘And therefore I assume you, sir, would be the gentleman most able to purchase native lands that supposedly hold deposits of the appropriate clay?’

  No nod or word was returned, but the ebony cane tried to screw itself through the elm-wood floor. Ignatius resisted the impulse to put ink to paper. The masks twitched and a muffled voice was heard.

  ‘You imply that our motives spring purely from profit, Ignatius. I say you are mistaken, sir.’

  Ignatius rested an elbow on his desk and leant his chin on his hand in a pose eloquent of opening his mind to enlightenment. The mask continued. ‘You have spoken yourself to the very pirate now on his quest, of the importance of the porcelain to our country.’

  Ignatius raised an eyebrow. ‘Your country?’

  ‘This country, these colonies, provide the most valuable commodities in the world. In less than a generation you may add cotton to the tally. Yet we are compelled and restrained only to sell our goods to the motherland, my pig-iron included, at a price set by men I have never seen. A third of the kingdom’s income is generated by the colonies yet we are taxed for the privilege and our countrymen may send no representative to our King’s parliament. If I wish to breed a horse I must write to a secretary in Whitehall. Yet if I need a garrison of soldiers to protect against the pirates and the Indians I must pay them from my own purse at a penny a day.’ Even muffled by the mask Ignatius could sense the bitter tone of personal grievance in the man’s voice.

  ‘I have lived here for almost a year, gentlemen. You bleat long but you have government and legislature enough of your own. Many of you grow wealthier than your fathers despite king and crown. And I’ve read nothing in your pamphlets of complaint except for the somewhat thwarted desire to grow richer still. The porcelain you seek is only for your fortune. Do not pretend or plead to me otherwise. I will bring it. But do not think that I am guided to give you some leverage against the motherland. This is business, gentlemen. Nothing more.’

  ‘Yet you spoke to the pirate of “ideals”? His task was decorated by you as a noble endeavour.’

  Ignatius could tell which mask the voice came from and he watched it tremble as the voice behind it grated hoarsely. ‘Do you betray yourself so often Ignatius, that you are unable to tell the difference between cause and trade?’

  Ignatius glared back with his own effortless mask of indifference. ‘Devlin needed those words. Tomorrow he could sail from here and be richer than either you or I. Perhaps he is so even now. I can make a starving man do anything, and a man born rich only aspires to get richer. But a man who steals wealth, even his very food, needs other motives. I know this well. I have taken a man from him and he now hates the living bones of me. I have threatened his liberty and he hates the blood of me. I have set myself his master and he would drag my corpse in the street if he gets but the breath of a chance. This is my game, gentlemen. I know how to play it and you will pay me to play it well.’

  The masks shifted in their seats. Ignatius bit down on them with his final words.

  ‘He is better than you, this pirate. I know men. I know you. You wish to gain. You wish to gather more riches and gain some hold over your king. He merely wishes to save the life of his friend. You should be hopeful to live so long to understand him.’

  Ignatius stood, his head down, folded away his ledger and straightened his inkwells, showing more interest in the order of his desk for the morning than in the two uncomfortable masked men. ‘You may leave the way you came, gentlemen. My servant will assist you. I hope this evening has assured you that our plan will be a success for all our … causes.’ He did not suffer their protests. He crossed the room to the door, opened it to let his black servant boy enter and then vanished beyond it. The white masks exchanged silent glares; they removed their hats but not their masks as Ignatius’s servant rolled back the rug in the centre of the study, keeping his head lowered from the lifeless faces as they gathered near him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dandon slapped down the description of the gun upon the small round table, shaking the jug and pewter mugs. ‘Nine feet long and bronze!’ he jeered. ‘It will take three men to lift it. It is our curse that everything grand we liberate weighs more than we do!’ His voice was almost a bellow to make himself heard over the rolling din of the hostelry. Their table and stools sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by more small tables not much larger than the brim of Dandon’s hat.

  They did not lower their voices, did not care if the whole town – all of which seemed present with them that night – heard them.

  Apart from the girl, Lucy, now rosy of face and glassy of eye, who rested her buttocks pertly upon Dandon’s knee and nibbled at blackened chicken like a squirrel, the inn heaved with sailors. Some partook of a nefarious history judging by their proliferation of weaponry, noted by Dandon and Devlin as too great in value for any honest mariner.

  Also present, and the loudest, were one or two overseers from the rice plantations which produced Charles Town’s richest trading good. They had no songs about Cape Cod girls, unlike the seamen in their rolled shirts and head-scarves. Their loud tirades were concerned with the weakness of the slaves coming in from Sullivan’s island and the prevalence of lice that seemed to outwit their latest powders.

  Amongst such society Devlin and Dandon felt no need to be subtle. Besides, they would be gone before anyone there could remember they had seen the two dank and miserable-looking fellows.

  Devlin sat tall, drawing hard on his pipe as it threatened to go out. ‘Never mind the weight of the gun. It is only the letters inside the gun that we need,’ he reminded Dandon. ‘Now, what do we know?’

  ‘I do not know anything,’ Dandon slurred. The tensions of the day and the lure of the comforts of an American town had seduced him into drunkenness. His thoughts still lingered on what a stranger knew about him and something else he could not quite put his finger on. Something faint but intrinsic and just out of reach. More rum would help. ‘Perhaps, Captain, you could enlighten me more on this Valentim Mendes and his part in all of this. If I am to die for your past, that is.’

  Devlin bit his pipe and touched his mug as if some comfort could be found by it. ‘There is not much to tell that I suspect you have not already heard, Dandon.’

  ‘I have heard little of the matter from yourself, Patrick. And that would be the most important word to me.’

  Suitably the inn grew momentarily quiet as Devlin lowered his voice and Dandon and the girl Lucy leant in.

  ‘Valentim Mendes was the governor of St Nick, a good pirate stop in the Verdes. As are all the Verdes.’ He lifted his cup as if saluting ghosts around the table. ‘Seth Toombs had a mind to take him for ransom,’ recalled Devlin, and drank as if swallowing the qualms he had felt as he had run from the house that night, leaving dead brothers behind. ‘Valentim had better plans. Seth was killed. I took his place. Took his ship and his men. Took Valentim’s ship. His Shadow, not mine. Only left him shame.’ Pouring another measure, he gave out his next words carefully, not wishing to offend the delicate nature of their female company. ‘In revenge for killing Seth and some of the other lads we staked him to a tree. Wrapped a grenadoe in his fist. Gave him an axe to free himself or be blown to chum. I would guess that he cut the grenadoe free.’

  Lucy pursed her lips, a puzzled eye half closed. ‘Cut the grenadoe free?’

  Devlin drained his mug with a sigh. ‘Aye. One arm free. One arm strapped. If he has survived, as now I know he has, it is not as a whole man.’ He poured again, including a drink for Dandon this time.

  ‘I suppose that gentleman would not be too enamoured by your continued presence in this world.’ Dandon rang his mug against his friend’s.

  Devlin cast an eye around the crowd. ‘I am wondering exactly who is enamoured of me of late.’

  Dandon leant back, ‘Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.’ He sunk his rum. Somewhere in the bottom of the ch
ased and pitted pewter something leapt to him as if an angel had briefly touched his shoulder before moving on to worthier causes. His cup slammed down on the table. ‘I have it!’ he snapped his fingers. ‘That’s the rub of it, Patrick!’

  The girl jumped at his cry, adjusted herself again on his lap and went for her mug to calm her nerves. Devlin had seen Dandon’s wild exclamations often enough to remain composed. ‘What is the rub of it?’

  ‘It was there all the time!’

  Devlin sat back. ‘What do you jaw about now, Dandon?’

  Dandon, trying to break Devlin’s melancholy with a higher pitch of his voice, pulled Lucy closer to his lap. ‘Now tell me, Lucy, did Blackbeard actually step abroad in your fair town?’

  Lucy confirmed, as far as she could, that the rogue had not tramped up and down their streets. His men had, but the man himself had stayed on board the Jacobite-sounding Queen Anne’s Revenge – three hundred tons of French Guineaman, bastardised to the teeth to wallow under the weight of forty guns. Lucy whispered that the harbour fell into shadow when the Revenge rolled in.

  Dandon nodded, ruminating on a chicken leg. The knuckle snapped satisfyingly in his mouth, but that brief pleasure was eclipsed by the dark face of Devlin looking to the bottom of his black rum.

  ‘Did you hear that, Patrick?’ Dandon tossed the bone to the table. ‘The Queen Anne’s Revenge he calls it! Forty guns and probably more in fowlers and falconets. And Lucy says he never came ashore. What do you make of that?’ Dandon, now much familiar with the black moods that his captain presented of late, ever since Peter Sam had vanished, felt that a levity of conversation brought more relief than the sinking of liquor.

  Devlin raised his eyes, ‘What do I care if Teach never came ashore?’ His rumbling voice was almost challenging.

  ‘Now, Patrick,’ Dandon ignored the ill-humour. ‘Did not that there fellow, Ignatius, take pride in informing us that he had Teach in his very company? In that same room?’