“Perhaps m’sieur Maurepas, in the pure revolutionary spirit,” Charité 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,” Charité 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 Américains take all the Southwest from them.”
“Then where would we be?” Don Rubio grimly added, always eager to second anything Charité 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 t’ousand 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?” Charité 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 or 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 congé, 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, Jérôme. 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. Mlle Charité 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 Charité, 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 Bouré.”
“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 Charité, 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,” Charité 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,” Charité suggested. “Once we have the two schooners, of course. 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?”
“Assure
dly, Mademoiselle Charité,” 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,” Mlle Charité 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!”
She heaved another heavy, fetching sigh, nigh a hiccough.
“Forgive me, Capitaine Lanxade, but my lack is patience.”
“I quite understand, Mademoiselle Charité,” Lanxade cooed with a comforting, avuncular warmth to his voice. Had they been alone, without her brothers or calf-headed cousin or that prinking “dago” Don Rubio with his sheep’s eyes, he would have put a supportive male arm about her, offered a broad shoulder on which she could incline her weak head! “We all share your impatience, my dear.”
Lanxade did lean closer, like a parish priest taking confession in the open countryside on his rustic circuit.
Charité de Guilleri bestowed upon him a grateful, wide-eyed grin for his support. Then slithered to her feet in a rustle of satins and crossed to the sideboard for the glass of wine that Helio offered.
Bitch! Lanxade thought, seething; She did it to me again! The minx, the mort, the … Lanxade knew he was being played like a flute, but there’d come a time, someday, when he’d take what he wanted if—
“There is another matter, Capitaine,” Charité said, once she had taken a sip or two of an excellent and effervescent white wine. “That odious British trade ship from Panton, Leslie & Company has docked, and has more people aboard than usual. Helio has heard rumours that Panton, Leslie has close ties to the British government. Do you think they might be trouble, Capitaine Lanxade?”
“Oh, in the American War, they might have had a contract to the British Army in Florida,” Lanxade airily dismissed with a soft chuckle. “They still profit off the Indian trade, with the Cabildo’s connivance… the American trade up the Great River, too. But I myself have met many of them, sailed upriver or down, and camped with them many times, and there is nothing mysterious about them. If they have extra people aboard, perhaps it is to guard the mule trains or learn the trade.”
“Half a dozen hard, well-armed men,” Helio contributed, frowning in concern, “led by a man with fighting experience. I sent a slave to look the ship over, and he heard this man respectfully called capitaine. He has a scar on his left cheek, so he’s certain to have been a soldier, but he walks like a sailor … They all do. What need has Panton, Leslie of sailors to guard their trade by land?”
“Might the Anglais send a pack of cut-throats or spies to look for their missing ship and the ones who took her?” Jean-Marie cried, leaping nervously to his feet.
“A lone prize, taken so far from here?” Lanxade scoffed. “Not even the British are that vengeful! They’re fighting a war with both France and Spain. Their hands are already full.”
“Nonetheless, it is … disturbing,” Don Rubio said, slinking near Charité as if to offer needful male comfort to allay any fears. Which offer almost made Capt. Lanxade curl his upper lip, twirl at his mustachios, and sneer at the hapless, lusting fool. Or turn gruff at the importunings of a possible rival!
“Shouldn’t we look into it?” Hippolyte suggested fearfully, as if Jean-Marie’s dread was catching.
“Well, if you must,” Lanxade replied with a shrug. “This fellow and his bully boys will be easy enough to locate in a town as small as New Orleans, and if they are British sailors … sailors of any nation… they must come off their ship to get drunk and pleasured, must they not, hein? Watchers to track them, even talk to them once they’re in their cups? You can manage that, I expect.”
All five of them stared at him, as if silently demanding more.
“I can ask around as well,” Lanxade allowed them, shrugging as if it was a bootless chore, but one he’d do despite how futile such a task would surely turn out to be. He got to his feet at last, since it didn’t look as if his employers and fellow conspirators would offer him a glass of that white wine. “You should worry more about a crowd of Americans who just sailed down from Tennessee. Backwoods rustics in stinking skins, but they are led by a man who also has the bearing of a soldier. And he was asking about the procurement of large quantities of arms, powder, and shot. Another pack of would-be filibustero freebooters, by the look of them.”
“Let them have a slice of the east bank,” Helio sneered. “The damned Spaniards have all but given it away already! The Lower Muskogees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws will make short work of them.”
“They might be useful, though,” Lanxade tossed off as he gathered up his hat and cane from the commode table by the apartment’s door.
“Americans?” Helio and Hippolyte scoffed. “Hah!”
“Many of them war veterans promised land instead of pensions, but have neither,” Lanxade drolly pointed out. “Shuffling from one hard patch of ground to the next, when the land plays out… or the rich and powerful snap it up, messieurs, mademoiselle? Such motherless ne’er-do-wells will do anything merely for the promise of better. And if part of Lousiana was promised to them… far north of here, of course… what sort of army would they make to oust the Spanish?”
“They’re heathen Protestants!” Don Rubio exclaimed with all the disgust that both his hidalgo-Catholic-Spanish father and the French Creole Catholic Bergrands had drummed into him with his mother’s milk. “They’re Anglo-Saxons, and they have no Spanish, much less knowledge of our beautiful French.”
“We Creoles would be drowned in a flood of heretics,” Helio de Guilleri quickly added.
“Our glorious language, our genteel way of life, our people!” Jean-Marie Rancour piped up, turning even paler. “They’d swee
p us from the face of the world! They’re hideous, they’re—”
“Ambitious, and powerful in their numbers,” Lanxade interjected. “Draw a border far to the north, along the Arkansas River, let us say. The Yankees are not at war with France, not a real war, and are mostly of two minds about the French, or Creoles. Without us, they would not be free of the British, and for that they are thankful still. Their priests direct their anger at Spain and its Inquisition. Mon Dieu, Americans are so English, they still despise the Spanish for the Armada! The United States may end up with every last stick of Florida east of Pensacola, but with American settler-veterans fighting to carve out their own little empire in our service, in the northern half of Louisiana, all the way to Lake Michigan… hmm?”
“But, we’re so few, and those bumpkins breed like rabbits. They would swarm us under in a generation, Lanxade!” Don Rubio objected.
“Ah, but what if an entirely new country… Louisiana… came to be. For that, do you not think that the Directory in Paris might not suspend their wasteful war against the British… to recover just as much ’em pire’ as we lost in ’63? Steal it from the haughty Anglais and the grasping United States?
“The chance of such a coup would assure our reunion with France… that we all hold dear,” Lanxade dangled before them, almost playfully. “Hmm? Oh well, it’s just a thought… adieu, messieurs and mademoiselle. I will do what I can to sniff out those newly arrived and mysterious anglais for you, before Balfa and I take the silver down to pay our impatient sailors. I will send you a report before we go. Once more, adieu.”
“What an odious idea!” middle brother Hippolyte declared with a grimace once Lanxade was gone. “Even temporarily associated with those… brutish animals, pah!”
“The Americans press us so closely, even now, though, Hippolyte. The time may be shorter than we think before they march into Florida. The time we have in which to raise a rebellion,” Charité glumly considered, pacing the parlour with a silent, graceful gliding motion that her town clothes enforced upon her, the artful attainments drilled into her by her parents, tutors, and dancing-masters.
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