Cross of Fire (7 page)

No need for Devlin to answer. Bartholomew Roberts had become a pirate of infinite success. He had taken over Howell Davis’s crew almost two years since and, after exacting bloody revenge on the Portos that had killed him, he had treated the Caribbean and the Spanish Main like his own garden. It was rumoured he had taken four hundred vessels in those two years. He had now come to Africa, like the rest of them, except for Roberts it was more home than climate of death and disease. He had been on a slaver before being pressed into piracy, knew the coast well, and his constitution matched the baneful tropic.

‘What of Roberts?’ Devlin put his pistol down heavily on the table. The rum and mugs jumped, as did Cracker at the closeness of it. A Bohemian pistol with a left-sided lock and octagonal barrel, at least a half-inch bore. Its shot had almost split Cracker’s shin and the pain of it came back upon him like sympathetic magic of a voodoo poppet at the sight of the gun.

‘Nice pistol, Cap’n.’

Devlin placed his hand over the stock, his finger tapped the guard. ‘No it isn’t. Talk.’

Cracker looked between the two, sure that what he had was worth his life, not so sure that he would be allowed to keep it after he had spilled his guts – and hoping that the phrase was just a metaphor.

‘Well, I sees Roberts only last week, Cap’n. And he’s in a fury. He’s on his own, see? Just the one ship. His mate, Anstis, makes off with his consort in the night on his own account, and this after last year and his other captain, Walter Kennedy, doing just the same.’ A flash on Devlin’s face at the name Kennedy but Cracker was animated now, his forehead glowing, paying no mind to the flies dancing on him.

‘Now, turns out Roberts needed Anstis because old Bart Roberts has never dropped anchor in the East Indies and Anstis was an old hand and—’

His voice was cut by the flying away of Peter Sam’s stool and the click of the Sibley’s lock as the giant towered over him, the blunderbuss filling his vision.

Cracker could see the paper wad down the gaping barrel, holding back the shot.

‘
Enough
! You’re wasting! Tell, you bastard!’ Peter’s arms shook.

Devlin saw that Cracker’s life would end and he had been foolish to forget why the big man had become so.

Three years ago Peter Sam had been held by chain, his freedom taken, his great body thinned and broken, a world of darkness and beatings until he felt that he deserved them and even liked the man that hurt him when he did not punish him.

All was reconciled now, but Devlin had not realised the power of the sound of chains.

Devlin rose, used the voice he had found in the garden in Charles Town that had brought Peter back from his abyss.

‘Easy there, Peter. I need this man for a while, mate. Easy, brother.’

Peter Sam’s fist tensed on the gun. Cracker closed his eyes, couldn’t remember a single word of prayer. He blathered out some plea, Peter Sam was clearly a softer man than he looked when it came to the slave.

‘They be pawned by their own kind some of ’em! They’re proud to wear the chains for their family’s debts, I swear!’

The shot blew the stale air from the room like a bellows.

Part of Cracker’s wooden wall behind his head vanished in splinters and the green shone in through the gap as a new window lit them all.

‘A
million
!’ Cracker screamed. ‘A million! At least! Roberts is going after The Buzzard!’

Devlin gripped Peter Sam’s arm, pulling him back from the cringing Cracker.

‘Levasseur? Olivier Levasseur? Roberts knows where La Buse is?’

‘Aye,’ Cracker shivered. ‘The Buzzard. The treasure of the
Virgin
. A million and more!’

The
Virgem do Gabo.
In almost two months the haul had already become legend. The largest prize ever taken on any sea.

Ever taken
.

Large words for a pirate, and all without a single shot. And all of it gone silent. No trace of it in the whispers around the taverns. Levasseur and Taylor the pirates who had done it, and them gone too.

‘Tell. Make sure I believe.’ Devlin let go of Peter Sam and sat back down. Cracker watched Peter Sam slowly reload, and desperately gave all that he had.

Olivier Levasseur, one of the pirates at Providence when Woodes Rogers arrived with the king’s proclamation of amnesty. Dyed to be a pirate, not one who saw its drunkenness and easy living as the reason for the life. He was just a captain without a war, too frayed a coat for the Marine Royale. A Calais privateer in the wars, on the right side of the world as long as the cannon was hot and the English and Spanish needed cold steel to cool their blood.

His father had been an administrator in the court of Louis XIV and had garnered for his son a privateer’s commission so that he might make the family rich from the wealth flowing through the Mediterranean. He had been a learned young man of formidable strength and without fear; one of his more rugged interests as a youth was to descend rockfaces into valleys and climb back up again. Alone. A climbing accident had damaged his right eye but not his lust for pitting himself against mountains.

But like the hundreds of captains who found not even the shake of a hand in gratitude after the peace of Utrecht and only unemployment their future, Levasseur saw some sense in the Devil’s lot.

Levasseur. La Bouche, La Buse, la Buze. The Mouth, The Buzzard, The Nozzle. Whatever the name, he had been a pirate of moderate success under the flag with Ben Hornigold’s rogues until the new ownership of Providence sent him to Africa and the Indian Ocean with the rest. By then the injury to his eye had festered and forced its removal. An eye-patch did not harm his standing amongst his brothers even though the manner of its gaining would have impressed them less.

For a time he joined up with Howell Davis and Thomas Cocklyn and that could have been the end of the world with the terror that three pirate crews, a force of over six hundred men, could have blasted upon the bastions. But, as ever when pirates combine, the enterprise went the way of argument and braggadocio.

Levasseur coursed to try his luck in the East Indies with Edward England and John Taylor and that may have been history’s last call for Levasseur, if not for one Portuguese carrack anchored off of Bourbon after becoming holed east of Madagascar.

Levasseur was now single partner with Taylor after marooning Captain England on Île de France, the former Dutch colony of Maurice where two failed attempts of patronage had only resulted in the extinction of an indigenous flightless large bird and gave the world a phrase that would come to exemplify anything dead and gone. The pirates were now almost living up to the legend themselves as the world grew smaller around them.

The stranded ship that Levasseur and Taylor happened across, the
Virgem Do Cabo
, carried two imperious men: the archbishop of Goa and the departing viceroy of Portugal; and like the Moguls they were also escorted by their wealth.

The arrogance of the appointed was always that the lowly should know their place. Even pirates would understand the sanctity of the noble. They had even waved the two black ships in to assist them.

‘More than a million, Captain,’ Cracker swore again. ‘Levasseur and Taylor went their ways. Parted for retirement and cream and wine, all their crew rich as lords. Three times what Avery caught from the
Gunsway
thirty years gone,
and Avery almost a
king
!’

Cracker lowered his voice, slowly dragged his words as if telling a fairytale to children.

‘Taylor to Panama and vanished. The Buzzard gone from the earth! Spirited himself away to the east they says. On his own island they says.’

Devlin grew less impressed. To say that Levasseur had hidden himself in the Indian Ocean would hold no bones. Its islands were as numerous as the stars that shone down upon them, set in fifty million square miles of ocean.

‘What of Roberts? What is he in this?’

‘I had Roberts here ain’t I? He himself tells me about his mate slipping cable. Him all alone and asking Old Cracker if I knew any that could make the islands. So Old Cracker says Levasseur be the man for that and Roberts gives me a laugh, says it is him he’s after! Says he knows where he be but not the shaping of it nor the men to do it, down to one ship and all!’

‘How would Roberts know?’

Cracker laughed, Peter Sam raised his gun at the sound but Cracker did not drop his merriment.

‘He sailed with Davis didn’t he? When Levasseur was his partner. Long nights on a ship, Cap’n. Long time to tell of where you’ve been and what you’ve seen!’

True enough but Devlin had heard the end of it. Time to leave. Too long would bring some ship into the bay and company to Cracker, the
Shadow
seen. Cracker could tell all when they had gone.

Or not.

Devlin looked at Peter Sam then to Cracker’s nerves. His cold expression was like a door slowly closing in Cracker’s face.

‘Ain’t that all to the good, Cap’n?’ he pleaded through wide rotten teeth. ‘You kept Old Cracker from those blacks. He tells you what he knows.’

Nothing from Devlin. Peter Sam’s impatient breathing was the only draught in the baked, quiet room. Cracker’s hand went carefully to his rum, trembling as he raised it, and Devlin tapped again at his pistol. If Cracker had known him better he would have known the thinking stillness of the pirate as the sign of promise more than threat.

When he moved was the time to worry.

Roberts alone, Devlin thought. Him of no mind to shape the islands. Looking for a partner to go against The Buzzard and relieve him of the largest fortune ever to cross a pirate’s palms. A good year to be a pirate.

‘The ships’ names?’

Cracker did not need to think. ‘The
Victory
for La Buse. The
Royal Fortune
for Roberts. He left a week yesterday, Cap’n. Third of his crew be black now Anstis be gone. He needs white sailors and company.’

Devlin watched Peter Sam’s cooling. The big man at the door, looking down at the
Shadow
, and keeping a watch for any bodies on the grassy paths. He turned as Devlin’s stool scraped.

‘We’ll be off, Peter Sam. Old Cracker has given us something that might be of use. We’re back to the boat.’

Hugh Harris and John Lawson were at the beach with the longboat and the rest of Cracker’s coin, their triggers itching with waiting for Peter Sam and Devlin to return. Each delayed minute could bring a sail. Any and all company was the wrong company for pirates.

Peter Sam looked down at Cracker then back to his captain picking up his sack of coin.

‘You believe that shite?’

Devlin reflected on Peter’s doubt as he shouldered his bag.

‘I’m inclined to it, Peter. Who’s to say that Levasseur isn’t burdened with all that gold? He may need some friends to help him spend it or protect himself. Protect himself from his sin.’

Peter Sam’s beard rose. ‘You sound like Dandon,’ he said. ‘And what about
him
?’ The grin gone.

Cracker gulped his rum.

‘Now now, Cap’n!’ His voice grabbed the back of Devlin’s coat. ‘I told you all I know. Catch up with Roberts and all. Find The Buzzard. And his treasure.’

Devlin tugged gently at Peter Sam’s leather.

‘Come Peter. We’re away.’

Peter’s gun sank despondently.

Cracker went to stand, then his shin reminded and he winced back down again.

‘Wait! Cap’n! Don’t be leaving Old Cracker without any penny surely? Leave a man a something!’

Devlin turned his head from the door.

‘The gall of it! Here’s me leaving the man his life’s work and a tale! Come now, Cracker. Don’t be greedy there.’ He dipped his eye to the bloody stocking. ‘It don’t suit your shoes. I’ll let you tell anyone what we’ve relieved you of, and how. But not where we be going. If I finds a ship to my quarter I’ll know who sent them.’