Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel (19 page)

‘The stone. If you please,’ Devlin said and waited.

Albany went to his effects, took out a small black velvet bag and conceded it to Devlin’s open palm which rested on the conference table. ‘On your honour,’ he demanded.

Devlin coaxed the soft velvet and the stone slipped into his hand like running water; his fingers at once alight with its brilliance as if a star had fallen into his grasp. Even the stoic and mighty Peter Sam softened, gazing into its deep mystery, sure that every violent act of his life would be wiped clean from his soul as long as he stared upon it. And this the replica, he thought. What heaven could make the real thing if this is but its mirror?

Devlin placed the stone on its flat side, its table, where it danced in its release. The stone sucked the light from the lantern overhead to coruscate between all their faces.

‘Good man. For both of us.’ Devlin directed Albany and Peter’s eyes back to the map.

‘For your own mind, and so you can tell Walpole that I kept nothing from you, Law’s intention was for me alone to travel with him to Paris,’ he touched the map where the Palais Royale stood. ‘The regent has the diamond here. Law would have us steal it when it reaches the royal lapidary. I intend to take it from the palace itself.’

Albany looked down at the pirate’s dirty finger tapping on the square of the building. ‘Why? Surely that is a greater risk? Why deviate from the plan suggested by wiser men?’

Devlin let the insult pass. ‘Because time has some essence here. And neither Law nor Walpole have any notion of when the jewel is to be sent to the lapidary, only that it is to be set into a crown for the boy king any day. That could be tomorrow or it could be a month from now, and who’s to feed my men while we wait, or while your bubbles burst all around you? Easier for me to take it where I know it is now.’

Albany sneered, ‘I also take it that it does you no favour to sail a pirate ship around these waters for too long.’

Devlin could only agree. The Channel – La Manche, as the French knew it – was one of the busiest trading lanes in the world. The
Shadow
’s disguise would not last, for she would be less a cat amongst pigeons than a pigeon measuredly becoming encircled by tigers. ‘I have been given two weeks. I intend to be back in England in six days and then on my way back to the Indies.’

‘
Six
days! Are you mad? Have you ever been to Paris, sir? It will take us half that time just to get there!’

Devlin put away his map. ‘I have been there. Up the Seine it will take me two days. That gives me one day to meet Law and plan and three to get back to Walpole.’

‘Oh, that’s
it
, is it? One whole day to plan and steal the most famous diamond in the world from the pocket of the man who rules France! How I have underestimated your genius, sir!’

Peter Sam rushed forward to get at Albany’s throat. Devlin held him back with just his palm across Peter’s leather-wrapped chest.

‘Six days,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be on my way.’ He picked up the fake gem. ‘Watch me.’ He turned to leave, Albany’s voice holding him back.

‘In which case I insist on accompanying. I’ll not wait on this ship with your men in fear of my throat being cut every night.’

Devlin looked Albany up and down. A fine strong gentleman. A few years younger but with that born-and-bred confidence of his kind that was as ageless as it was sickening to men like Devlin. And for that he probably would not live too long without Devlin’s protection amongst a ship of men who shaved others’ necks more than their own beards.

‘All right, Albany. You may come. But you’ll do as I say. And pack for the dawn. We’ll take a fishing boat on the tide.’

‘
Take
a boat?’ Albany queried.

Peter Sam grinned through his red beard and followed Devlin to the cabin door.

‘You’re about to become a pirate, Albany. Look lively now.’

Chapter Fourteen

Thursday

Jean Minot, captain of the
Vendeen
, had convinced his crew that to report the presence of a plague ship could only go in their favour, and that it would certainly go against them if it was discovered they had spied the ship of death and ignored its potential threat. The reality, however, of sitting deep inside the Citadel of Calais awaiting an audience with the chef d’escardre, the commodore of the Marine Royale, had produced a black ring of sweat that stained his steinkerk.

Minot wiped his forehead constantly, pointlessly, as rivulets of perspiration ran out of his hair and down his cheeks. Merchant traders and the austere navy rarely liked to mix. To deliberately approach now seemed ludicrous when at any time a white uniform could requisition your ship just because it looked pretty.

He began to look to the door and think of escape, and his mind was almost made up when the loneliness of the anteroom was cracked by the opening of another door and well-polished shoes rang across the stone floor.

‘Captain Minot? The commodore will see you now.’

Minot shambled up, humbly thanked the man, put his hat on his head and then quickly removed it again as he followed the officer in white.

For the sake of his courage he tried not to think of the man he was meeting as he was led through one stone room after another. His heart still banged against his chest when his journey ended abruptly before a table at which the great René Duguay-Trouin, in shirt and tucked cuffs, busily masticated his way through a boiled hen. A brief, disinterested look rose over the leg of the bird working through his hands. Minot visibly shivered at the glance.

To a Frenchman, any Frenchman, not just those Malouines from his Brittany homeland, Trouin was a god amongst men.

He had begun as a young corsair of St Malo, the proud sea-wolves who answered to no king yet served their country in every war in defence of their beloved Brittany. Hundreds of British, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch ships had fallen to his guns over the decades. Now, at forty-seven, the peace of February and the honour of chef d’escardre drowned him in paper and audits. The only resemblance to the Lion of Breton of old was the wig that curled and tumbled over his shoulders.

‘Who have you brought me, Fossart?’ he asked his clerk with his mouth full, as if Minot were dessert.

‘A Captain Minot, Commodore. He wishes to report that he has seen a quarantined ship nearby.’

Trouin wiped his hands and chin as he spoke. ‘Ah, good, good.’ He reached for a glass of wine. ‘When did you see this vessel, Captain? What was its course?’ He indicated his clerk for paper and pen and pushed away his charger.

Minot held his hat close to him like a shield, twisting it through his sweaty hands. ‘Yesterday, Your Grace. I thought it prudent to report such an incident, Your Grace.’

‘Indeed,’ Trouin began to ink in the details, feigning gratitude. Just more useless paper to be filed and ignored, but it would not hurt to show the gallant captain that he valued his sagacity. ‘Describe the ship for me if you would be so kind, Captain.’

Here Minot grew braver, for he was sure that the ship had some significance out of the ordinary and he was proud of this assertion.

‘That is the thing, Your Grace,’ he took a step closer. ‘It was a large ship. Square rigged. Three masts. And even in the fog I could see she carried many guns.’

Trouin looked up. ‘
Guns
?’

‘Yes. More than a merchant, Your Grace. Many swivels too. Perhaps twenty or more guns altogether.’

‘You could see that? Or a guess?’

Minot shook his head. ‘It was easy: her wood was red, blood red and black. I could make out the gunports clearly.’

Trouin put down his quill. ‘A name? A flag?’ The old feeling crept over him like a teasing caress. Instinct and a thousand experiences suddenly filled him more than his simple dinner. The light that sparked in his eyes was not missed by Minot and he courted it lavishly.

‘None but the yellow. But she was as a frigate. A fighting ship I am sure. Or trying to be, Your Grace.’

‘Or trying not to be,’ Trouin spoke only to himself. He sat back, his eye to the window thoughtfully. ‘Black and red you say? You are sure of this, Minot?’ He graced the captain with his name. Jean Minot would tell his grandchildren of this moment.

‘Yes. With grey sails, Your Grace. A dark ship. I gave five Hail Marys when I left her.’

Trouin nodded, scratched his quill across the paper. A black-and-red frigate. Armed to the gunwales according to the sweating merchant in front of him. Some memory of a black-and-red ship drifted in and out of fog in his mind. Some crime against the crown. He bit his lip in thought – the fog was lifting, the memory almost there. Minot shuffled his feet and coughed politely. Trouin looked up from his reverie.

‘You have done well, Captain Minot. Return to your work. We will keep watch for this plague ship. Good day to you, Captain.’

Minot bowed. His head was no longer sweating but glowing gloriously. ‘My honour, Your Grace.’ He left the room beaming like a butcher’s dog.

Fossart closed the door and waited for his commodore to speak. He knew the look on his commander’s face from long ago. Trouin did not make him wait long. He jolted up, his words firing out of him like a flowing broadside.

‘Records, Fossart! Bring me the commandant records for 1717.’ He quaffed his wine like water, a satisfied gleam across his face.

‘Commodore?’

Trouin laughed, a sound rarer in these days of slumber than a swallow’s walk. He poured more wine, a salute to himself. ‘I recall three years ago, Fossart, a black-and-red frigate with grey sails assaulted one of our islands in the Caribbean. Men – our brothers – killed, a fortune in gold stolen. Twice, I recall, orders have been signed against such a ship. Confirm that with the orders you will bring me. I need to remind myself of her captain and crimes.’

‘Crimes, Commodore? She was not a ship of war, an enemy?’

Trouin looked hurriedly around his chambers searching for his coat and his red sash of office. He needed to ready himself. Here was an opportunity for action. ‘No Fossart, better! A
pirate
! I am sure of it – if memory serves – but we will confirm. Go, man! She will not hold long in these waters.’

Fossart backed from the room leaving Trouin to his tiger’s pacing. For thirty years he had been a warrior of the sea. A privateer captain at twenty, son of the great Luc Trouin, he had joined a vessel at sixteen and had fought almost every day of his life with the smut and stench of cannon all around and a cutlass forever in his fist.

The wars were his playground and he had trumped the blue-bloods who would have him remain beneath them with successes that could not be ignored. But at long last they had won. He had captured Rio de Janeiro and made his king rich again, but with the monarch’s death, five long, long, years now, his patronage had ended. And now the Breton boy was put back in his place, his glories forgotten by all but the people and those captains who served him.

His rank was honorary, perhaps, but still a rank, still with ships to command and none could say that he would be in error to chase a pirate from his coast, his citadel.

Others may have found such retirement welcoming. Bask in the sun by all means but do so from a lounge chair. Put away your sword in a box and lock your past shut.

His eyes locked on his own cutlass resting above his mantle. Not in a box. Not put away. He lifted it tenderly from its place, its gleam reflecting more than light across his face.

He had dozens of ceremonial swords presented to him by the king, the best his king could do next to granting him a captaincy when he had dragged home dozens of English ships. He had been a titan with a hawser chain over his shoulders pulling them into Brest and barely grunting with the effort.

‘It cannot be, Your Majesty,’ the men in red robes or cloaks and blue sashes insisted. ‘We cannot make a captain of a corsair,
of a
despicable
.’ Even the heroic Forbin, who Trouin had rescued from the English, could not see beyond his aristocratic blinkers.

‘He is not of the blood. He is a lucky merchant sailing under his father’s purse.’ A pension instead. A thousand livres. But stay from our court. No uniform.

But Trouin did not falter, did not bow. His king knew merit but although he commanded gentlemen in white, had squadrons of ships, still they kept closed their court until it could be kept closed no more – his triumphs, his name written in more English captains’ log books than any other Frenchman. When he petitioned to lead a force to capture Rio de Janeiro from the Portuguese, the Minister of Marine withheld sanction. Privateers did not capture cities despite what English pirates had achieved. The English did not understand nobility. They knighted farmers who had turned pirate.