Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  Félicité glanced back. Valcour was an odd figure in the stern. He wore a henna-red wig on which was perched a puffed cap with side lappets such as was worn by older women. He had a satin cloak flung over his lap to simulate skirts, and another swan’s-down-edged capelet swung around his shoulders. Laying down his paddle, he picked up a slim dueling pistol, allowing Félicité to see it before he cocked it with a loud double click and concealed it under the cape. He sent her a narrow, probing stare, then, raising his voice, called out in a wavering falsetto.

  “Ahoy, the ship! Ahoy, I say!”

  A sailor’s head appeared over the side. He took in the bobbing pirogue and its cargo in one brief, contemptuous glance. “What do ye want, you old whore?”

  “I have a special cargo for the captain,” Valcour whined.

  “Our captain don’t do business with such as you. Be gone with You!”

  “This is a special one, she is,” Valcour insisted. “One such as the captain has been looking for. You tell him his Félicité is here, and he can have her without charge if he will come and get her!”

  “I don’t believe a word of it, you sniveling harridan! Go!”

  “You are making a mistake, one you will regret, my friend. You just whisper the name Félicité in your captain’s ear and see how fast he comes running.”

  The man at the rail above them was joined by others, and others still, until they lined the side of the ship. They muttered among themselves, then one among them noticed Félicité’s bound hands. They passed Rabelaisian remarks then that made her cheeks burn. How could such noise go unnoticed? she wondered. Perhaps Valcour’s scheming would be for nothing, perhaps Morgan was not on board?

  Abruptly he was there. “What is this, you scurrilous sons of Neptune?” he demanded. “The way you are gaping and gawping, a man would think you had spied a mermaid at the very least.”

  “There’s an old brothel bitch down there, captain,” the first man began.

  Another broke in, “Got a female with her all right, even if she don’t be one of them half-fish sirens. And the old lady’s got her trussed up and right ready for plucking, you being the lucky man they got picked out for the job!”

  “Name they gave for the piece was Félicité,” a third chimed in. “They thought you might be interested.”

  Morgan’s head and shoulders sprang into view. He gripped the rail, staring down at them.

  “Ah, Captain McCormack,” Valcour crooned. “I thought you might like to say goodbye to Félicité.”

  Even as her brother spoke, Félicité drew in her breath. “No, Morgan! It’s a trap!”

  Valcour shot his hand out in a vicious blow that made the pirogue roll. It caught her in the small of the back, sending her diving forward, toppling head first into the water. Even as she fell she heard the crashing explosion of the pistol as Valcour fired.

  Down and down she went, with her breath, hastily caught, aching in her lungs and the burning of salt water in her nose. She struggled frantically to free her hands, wrenching against the bonds, twisting, jerking at them. The velvet skirts were clamped to her, muffling her kick, weighting her so she was carried deeper and deeper still. The sounds of shouts and cries, of heavy splashes and sodden thumps, radiated through the water, receding. She knew that high above her, on the opposite side of the brigantine, the men of the Raven were swarming upward on grappling nets thrown from a pair of longboats. Under the cover of darkness, with muffled oars, they had slipped from the shore, waiting for the diversion she had been forced to provide.

  Such things had no reality for her as she swirled slowly in the water. To die in the darkness with the turquoise sea of the Caribbean filling her lungs for so mean a cause seemed a wretched and debasing absurdity.

  How long it had been since she had sneaked away to dog-paddle in the river with Valcour and his friends! She had not forgotten how to swim, but she lacked the strength to try for long against such odds. She righted herself, pushing, straining upward against the drag of her skirts and the hampering awkwardness of her bound arms. But she could feel the tiredness of that tremendous effort pulling at her. It was as though there were stones fastened to her ankles and a steel hoop about her chest, pressing on the tight-held air, trying to force it from her body. The world was an infinite swirl of water, one she had been suspended in for eons of time. It seemed that if she would cease fighting, would let herself float free, after the first sharp pain she might breathe the sea and become one with it.

  A long gliding shape brushed past her, roiling the water. She cringed as she felt a touch on her arm. An instant later, she was clamped in a hard, encompassing hold. She surged upward with dizzying speed, trailing the fine-jeweled air bubbles of the last of her pent breath.

  Her head broke the surface. She gasped, choking, coughing. She nearly went under again, only to find the support of strong hands at her waist. She opened her eyes.

  Morgan was beside her, his face no more than a blur with a trace of dark red running from the nicked lobe of one ear. He shifted his grip, reaching lower, and with a great upward heave somersaulted her into the empty boat floating beside them. For the merest flicker of time, he stared into her face. Reassured, if not overjoyed, he kicked away, the sweep of powerful arms taking him through the water to the rope ladder that dangled over the side. He went up it hand over hand, but even as he climbed there came the cry of “Quarter! Quarter!” The rattle of musket fire and the clatter of cutlasses faded, dying away. Morgan disappeared over the bulwark. A voice called, sharp with warning, and suddenly everything was quiet.

  Félicité lay gazing with wide eyes at the stars, panting, unable to accept either the reprieve or the certain knowledge that ebbed through her brain. She was alive, but Morgan had saved her at the loss of his ship. Without their leader, his men had thrown down their weapons and given up the Black Stallion with the seaman’s ancient cry for mercy. But would there be any mercy, any quarter, for the ship’s captain?

  It was Captain Bonhomme who came for her at last. With Gallic curses, he slit her bonds and pulled the boat nearer the ladder so she could gain a foothold. He steadied the swaying hemp for her assent, then climbed up with careless agility. He gained the deck in time to step near, steadying her as she swayed.

  It was over. A wounded man groaned here and there on the decks, but otherwise all was still. It would not have been difficult to tell who was the victor, even if she had not guessed. The men of the Raven held their weapons; the men of the Black Stallion had none. And the former master of the brigantine lay on the deck not far from Félicité’s feet with his arms outstretched, his sword still in his hand, and his hair matted with blood at the base of his skull as if he had been struck from behind.

  Valcour rose from his seat on the capstan and strolled forward. Flicking Félicité a look of malicious amusement, he drawled, “Now that the most important member of the audience has arrived, we may begin. Would someone be so good as to throw a bucket of water over our good Captain McCormack, the former lieutenant colonel under the Spanish dons, and let us see how bright shines the spark of life left to him?”

  Félicité sat down suddenly on a great coil of rope. Seawater dripped, trickling from the seaweed fronds of her wet hair and oozing from her skirts, turning pink as it joined the trail of blood on the deck, Morgan’s blood. Unconsciously, she began to massage her wrists, looking from the inert form of the man at her feet to her brother’s pockmarked face.

  A sailor dumped water over Morgan and then stood back. For long moments, nothing happened. Then as Valcour was on the point of commanding another drenching, Morgan made a low sound like a stifled groan.

  Valcour stepped close to the prone man, prodding at him with his sword. “Up, dog, and face your punishment as best you can, like the canaille you are.”

  Félicité slanted a quick glance at Captain Bonhomme, a question in her eyes. The Frenchman allowed his dark gaze to slide away.

  Morgan raised himself to one elbow, shaking his head in what
appeared a vain effort to clear it. He looked to Valcour, and then beyond to the crews of the two ships drawn up around him. Finally, his green eyes came to rest on Félicité.

  “Take him, men,” Valcour screamed suddenly. “Tie him to the mast, and we will see how he answers to a touch of the cat!”

  The cat, the dreaded cat-o’-nine-tails with its multiple ends to flay a man. It could leave no more than reddening stripes or cut to the bone, depending on the strength and skill and state of mind of the man who wielded it. Her eyes wide with horror, Félicité sprang to her feet as Valcour brought out a scourge with nine rawhide ribbons that were each loaded with bits of iron and glass at the tips to rip find tear the skin.

  A squad of burly men jerked Morgan to his feet and hauled him stumbling to the mast. They wrapped his arms around it and tied them with tarred rope, then ripped his shirt asunder, exposing the scarred brown skin that covered his broad back.

  “It seems this will not be his first encounter with a flogging. That he knows what to expect should make it more interesting!” Valcour dangled the whip from his hand, dragging it over the deck so it spread out, rattling on the boards as he moved closer to Morgan.

  “No,” Félicité whispered, taking a step toward him. “No!”

  Valcour sent her a glittering smile. Drawing back his arm, he brought it down with a triumphant grunt, laying the cat-o’-nine-tails across Morgan’s back.

  The weighted thongs bit deep. Morgan stiffened, his head snapping back as gouts of blood appeared across his shoulders and ran downward in quickening streams.

  “No! Wait!” Félicité screamed, and spun around to face Captain Bonhomme. “Is this your idea of fairness? What of your fine articles of agreement and your boast of justice on the seas? I heard the cry for quarter from the crew of the Black Stallion, and you must have granted it. Doesn’t it extend to this man?”

  “Murat is the quartermaster. To order a flogging is his right.” The captain’s face was pale. His dogged words were echoed by the whistle of another stroke of the whip.

  “His right? For no reason except revenge? That’s what this is, I swear it. That’s all it is!”

  “I don’t know—” the captain began, his eyes troubled.

  Félicité swept a glance at the crew, at Valcour carefully disentangling his bloodstained implement. An idea darted across her mind, and though it was a desperate chance, she seized it, words tumbling from her lips with fervid eloquence.

  “You say you always offer a captured crew the chance to join you. No man here, I think, has been, or could be, so foolish as to refuse, least of all the captain, a man long familiar with the laws of the seas. Members of your crew, all, must settle their personal differences with sword and pistol on land, I believe the articles read. Isn’t that so?”

  “Mais certainement.”

  “Then why not in this case? Why should the quartermaster be allowed to use his authority to gain an advantage denied to the rest? Why should he be any different?”

  “You are right, mademoiselle, but—”

  “You are the captain!” she cried as the whip rose and fell once more and she heard Morgan’s short and sharp exhalation of near-unbearable pain. “Order this stopped. Enforce the articles of agreement!”

  There was a stirring among the men, a murmur of concurrence as they cut their eyes toward Félicité, devouring the picture she made with the wet and heavy velvet dragging the low bodice lower still, until the pink aureoles of her breasts began to show. Murat was not a popular man with them, being ugly-tempered and finicking, and this François miraculously turned into a half-drowned mermaid, even saying she had no business being there, was a right telling advocate. The Black Stallion’s crew stood with grim faces and clenched fists, their attention on their captain. Among them Félicité registered with scant surprise the features of Juan Sebastian Unzaga.

  Only Valcour, concentrating with moist lips and glazed eyes on the helpless man before him, did not appear to notice what she was saying.

  “Stop!” Captain Bonhomme shouted, striding toward Valcour. Lifting his hand, he caught the cat and tore it from the other man’s fingers.

  There came a soft breathed sigh from the men. Félicité looked down at her hands. They were trembling uncontrollably, and she clasped them together before her.

  The French captain stood firm on the gently rocking vessel. “It is as Fran — the beautiful mademoiselle — says. This is no way to satisfy a personal vendetta. It should be decided on shore in the usual manner.”

  “You fool!” Valcour snarled. “Why do you listen to her? What can she know of it? Return my cat and let me get on with it!”

  The face of the French captain turned glacial. Softly he said, “You call me, Jacques Bonhomme, captain of the Raven and of this captured prize, a fool, m’sieu?”

  “A — slip of the tongue made in the heat of the moment, one for which I apologize,” Valcour, master of himself once more, said with smooth plausibility. “But for this McCormack, it is not worth the trouble of arranging a meeting of equals.”

  “Not worth the trouble? I disagree,” the captain, unmollified, replied. “This is a man’s life, m’sieu, and such a man! I knew him some years ago as a most glorious son of the seas, one successful at his trade of piracy. He would be a valuable addition to our company if the dispute between you, whatever its nature, could be settled.” The captain cast a quick look from Morgan to Félicité before looking back to Valcour.

  Valcour also flung a hard stare from Félicité to the man tied to the mast. His narrow yellow-brown eyes surveyed with disdain the bleeding shoulders, the wet, blood-dotted hair, the etching of pain and shock on features that were pale beneath the overlay of burnishing from the sun.

  A low laugh broke from him. “I withdraw my objections,” he drawled. “By all means let us continue this lesson with pistol and cutlass. Captain McCormack and I crossed swords once before in the dark. It is time and past that we meet again.”

  He had, of course, seen the advantage to himself in the proposed contest. Morgan had powder burns blazing on the side of his face and an injured ear; he had expended strength to raise Félicité from the sea’s depths, sustained a cracked head that left him groggy, and steeled himself against the flaying of Valcour’s devilish scourge. After so much strain, so much loss of blood from so many wounds, how could he match blades with the other man in a fair encounter? It might well be, Félicité saw, that she had condemned him to death as surely as if she had allowed the flogging to go on to its inevitable end.

  The French captain saw it too. His brow creased in a frown. “There is no need to rush the matter. Morning will do as well as this midnight.”

  “There is nothing in the articles,” Valcour pointed out as he drew a scented handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe Morgan’s blood from his fingers, “about waiting. In fact, the sooner the discord is over, the better.”

  He was right; Félicité saw the answer in Captain Bonhomme’s face before he gave the slow nod of agreement. Swinging hard around, the burly, once-handsome Frenchman bellowed the order to cut Morgan down.

  The two men did not meet in complete darkness. A single lantern, shielded from the wind by a metal shade, sent its shimmering rays over the stretch of shore. Its yellow gleams turned the sand to gold dust and probed into the shadows that lurked at the palm forest’s edge. The sea rolled in with crashing waves that hissed up onto the beach and sighed as they expired without quite reaching that burning glow.

  They had come to this deserted length of sand by longboat. A seaman had sponged Morgan’s injuries with salt water, pushed a ration of rum into his hands, and given him another shirt. His hair had dried on the pull to shore, sculpting his head in russet waves. His eyes as he stood to one side were jade-hard and alert, though there was a hint of gray about his firm mouth. Deliberately, or so it seemed, he refrained from glancing toward where Félicité waited.

  Though the night wind against her damp velvet was cool, she did not feel it. There w
as an arrested sensation inside her, as if time had stopped. She was aware of Valcour taking snuff, of Captain Bonhomme on one knee before a pistol case checking the priming of the matched weapons it contained, of the sputter of the lantern and its smell of hot whale oil, of the rustle of encroaching palms, the hollow slap of the waves against the hull of the longboat, and the mumbling undertone of the men who had manned the oars to bring them. Out on the dark sea-face was another boat, filled doubtless with men who had decided among themselves that this show was much too promising to miss.

  The crewmen’s disapproval of Félicité’s presence was a palpable thing. They felt she had no right to be there, but she had insisted. Valcour, for his own dark reasons, had supported her. He surveyed her now with feline gratification and the slightest hint of impatience.

  Captain Bonhomme did not wait for the remainder of the audience. With a brusque gesture, he motioned both men forward. Handing a chased silver pistol, butt first, to each in turn, he set them back to back. That each knew what was expected was plain. Holding their pistols pointed skyward, they stepped out as the French captain counted off the first pace.

  In measured cadence, the men drew apart, their steps parallel to the water’s edge. The wind snatched at the dry sand they dislodged, sending it blowing, whispering, across the beach. Six, seven, eight paces were counted off, doubling the distance as each man moved to twelve, fourteen, sixteen paces dividing them. Twenty paces. They stopped, dark statues with the lantern light fluttering over their backs. For the space of a heartbeat the wind died and it was still.

  “Fire!”

  They turned together, spinning, bringing the muzzles of their pistols level, squeezing the triggers with no time allowed for aiming on pain of having their weapons knocked from their hands. Valcour’s pistol belched smoke and flame. The ball flew wide, singing away to clatter among the underbrush. Morgan’s weapon struck sparks, but did not go off.

  Captain Bonhomme swore softly. “A miss and a misfire! You will proceed to cutlasses, gentleman!”