Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (146 page)

Félicité prepared for bed, washing as best she could in a butt of stale water. Ashanti picked up the chamber pot the two of them used in the privacy of their cabin rather than resorting to the head of the ship, preparing to take it topside to empty it over the rail. At the same time, she gathered up the scraps of their evening meal to fling to the gulls. Going out, she closed the door behind her.

Félicité climbed into her bunk. Lulled by the faint rock of the ship, she closed her eyes, dozing, waiting to let Ashanti in before she locked the door for the night. The maid was taking her own good time about returning. It didn’t matter, of course; she was as entitled as anyone to stargaze. It was a little odd that she had never shown any tendency in that direction before. If was as if she had dedicated her life to serving Félicité at the expense of her own existence. It was disconcerting that it should be so. Félicité had, done nothing to make herself worthy of such a sacrifice, and yet, what could she do to prevent it, especially now? She must be grateful, and vow to see that Ashanti did not go unrewarded.

An hour passed, and another. Was it possible that Ashanti had found someone to dally with in some dark corner? The idea was so unlikely that Félicité got up from the bunk, pulled on breeches and shirt, and stepped into her shoes. But though she walked the decks looking in every nook and cranny that she dared, even going so far as to descend the gangway and glance into the fetid hole of the forecastle where the crew slept in bad weather, Ashanti was not to be found. Had she gone ashore then on some errand of her own? Had she decided to look further into the possibilities of an eating house, or even a place they might use to conceal themselves from Valcour? Had she seen Captain Bonhomme from a distance, perhaps, and made up her mind to speak to him? Or had she felt the urge to walk along the beach?

Each idea seemed more fantastic than the last, though the fact remained that Ashanti was not aboard the lugger.

Félicité had almost made up her mind to venture into the town on her own when she heard voices approaching and saw Captain Bonhomme nearing the gangplank with his boatswain. The second man had a crude jest for Félicité’s concern and Ashanti’s possible occupation at the moment, along with a warning that young François should have taken better care of her. The French captain questioned Félicité closely, however, then gathered up enough men for a search party and set out to look for the maid.

They combed the ship from stem to stern, from the masthead to the bilges. They fanned out along the beach in both directions, and made a sweep through the town, peering into alleyways, huts, and unlocked warehouses, and scanning the faces of the women in the taverns. They upturned barrels and flung beached boats over backward, and at the end of it, found nothing except indignant iguanas and disgruntled crabs.

Milk-white dawn was reaching into the sky when they turned back toward the Raven. As they climbed the wobbling plank, they heard a curse and a cry.

It seemed one of the crew, too rum-sodden the night before to join in the search, had crawled from his pallet to relieve himself over the railing. He had seen the body of a woman being towed by a great turtle. It was Ashanti, quite dead. She had been brutally raped and torn, and finally killed by a gaping wound in her throat that ran from earlobe to earlobe.

The tall ship hove into view with white-bellied sails set and pennants flying. It ran free toward the harbor with the wind only a few points off her stern. She was French-designed and Spanish-rigged; so said the salts who lined the water’s edge. A two-masted brigantine with fore and aft sails, she had black paint with a broad scarlet stripe bleeding backward from the bow, gilt-touched ornamentation, and a rearing horse as a figurehead. White sails shivered as she entered the lee of the harbor. Men like monkeys, dark with distance, swarmed into the sheets, slapping the sails, beating at them with their fists as they tugged, shortening sail. Onward she came, cleaving the water, the figurehead plunging over the waves, rising and falling, riding with a speed that made it seem impossible for her to stop without running aground. Nearer she drew, and nearer still. The forms of men grew clearer, could be plainly seen.

Abruptly the anchor chain ran down with oiled precision. The ship pulled to a halt, her bow swinging so that the name in gold lettering could be spelled out for the first time. It was the Black Stallion, making port with a skill and panache that the onlookers saluted with a lusty cheer. Two things only kept the crew of the Raven from running pell-mell to man their own ship’s guns to take the prize. The first was the Raven’s lack of readiness, and the second was the black flag, solid sable and without insignia, ancient symbol of piracy, that flew at the Black Stallion’s masthead.

They had buried Ashanti that morning, and Félicité was in no mood for empty, heroic gestures, but even she had to recognize the quality of daring and seamanship just displayed. She stood listening to the praises of the French captain while the Black Stallion’s crew lowered a boat to the water. Since the Raven was already lying alongside the wharf, there was no room for the larger ship to tie up. Every man jack of her crew would have to pull for the dubious delights of the shore.

Not so her captain. He was entitled to be carted about with all the care of a nursemaid for a mewling babe. Félicité followed with her eyes the progress of a tall, broad-shouldered man as he descended from the quarterdeck, stepped to the side, and climbed with swift agility down the rope ladder to the boat. An odd frisson ran over her nerves. The boat pushed away from the side of the ship and started toward them in great surging bounds as the men bent to the oars.

Captain Bonhomme lifted a hand to his eyes, scowling seaward. “Name of a name, it can’t be! I thought that man scuttled years ago, on the bottom with Davy Jones.”

Félicité strained her eyes. The captain of the Black Stallion stood with one foot on the crossbrace of the longboat’s prow. The ruffles at the open neck of his shirt and the gathered fullness of his sleeves fluttered in the wind. His breeches were black, tucked into the turned-down tops of jackboots, and banding his waist was a scarlet sash that held the wicked length of his sword. He was sun-bronzed and hard, this brigand, with a mane of mahogany-russet hair flowing backward in the wind, cropped short like that of a felon or a man ready for the executioner’s block and blade.

“Mon Dieu! I knew I could not mistake. It’s the devil’s own, returned to haunt us. It’s that cursed Irish corsair, Morgan McCormack!”

Whooping and hollering, the gathered hawkers, prostitutes, pitchen, and beggars converged on the spot where the boat would land. The sailors were not far behind. Félicité, stunned into immobility, did not move. A hand fell on her arm, and Valcour was beside her, swinging her around, herding her in no gentle manner back toward the Raven.

She went without protest or backward glance. The last thing she wished at that moment was to face Morgan. The fact that he was here, in command of a pirate vessel, was more than she could grasp. How had it come about? How had he changed himself from a respected officer in the pay of Spain to a pirate captain overnight? And most important of all, why?

13

THE EVENING MELTED AWAY and became night. Félicité lay on her bunk with her arm across her eyes. She was locked in; she had discovered that hours ago. From the sound, she thought the ship’s officers and the majority of her crew had returned. Still, the Raven made no obvious preparations for departure with the morning tide. What was happening otherwise, she could not tell, though it seemed something was in the wind. From the quarters of the captain came the sound of raised voices with the timbre of disagreement. Footsteps came and went along the companionway to the cabin next door, from which she was certain she had heard Valcour’s voice in a cutting rebuke.

That it concerned Morgan’s arrival she had no doubt. Her adoptive brother would be ablaze with the need for revenge, and anxious to fall to it here, just beyond the reach of the lengthy arm of Spain. As for the others, hadn’t she seen the greed for the other ship shining in their eyes? They were fully alive to the advantage of taking the brigantine, a much larger vessel with heavier guns. The question of honor would not arise; the captain who could not hold his ship did not deserve to keep her. The single argument for prudence might be the presence of Morgan’s followers, and yet with such men, doubtless recruited in haste, how much would loyalty weigh?

Would Morgan recognize his danger? He must if he had followed on the heels of the Raven, if he knew Valcour’s connection with the ship, knew the big island of Las Tortugas was one of her favorite ports of call. But did he?

Was it accident or design that he had arrived so close behind her? Had he, in fact, come in pursuit of her? Was he on the track of Ashanti, Spanish property now, that she might have been considered to have stolen? Or was it, could it possibly be, that his reasons were more personal?

It made no difference. Her hate for the man was a living thing. It had tentacles like those of some sea creature that were wrapped around her heart, squeezing out all gentle emotion. She cared not a whit what Valcour might do to him. More, she cared even less what happened to anyone else, herself included. The buffeting of the last weeks, her father’s arrest, Valcour’s defection, her own ravishment and position of degradation, the ostracism by former friends, the trial and deaths of the conspirators, her father’s suicide, had left her drained. The murder of Ashanti in such a barbaric fashion, throwing her body to the fish and turtles like so much carrion, had been the final assault. Her feelings were too dulled with pain to accept anything more.

What was Morgan doing now? Was he cavorting with the island wenches, flinging his money away in the drinking houses? How long would it be before such amusement palled? Not soon, she suspected. The women would flock to him, such a change from the rough-and-tumble sailors. And for him, such enthusiasm would be vividly different. His last bed partner had not been so responsive.

She slept finally, only to awaken within the hour to the racking shudder of sobs and the salty overflow of warm tears, tracking into her hair.

Day came. The ship was quiet, ominously quiet. A meal was brought to Félicité by the captain’s cabinboy at midmorning, and another in the afternoon. He professed ignorance of what was going on, though he did not quite meet Félicité’s eyes. In the morning hours, he agreed to deliver a message from her to Valcour, requesting him to come to her. Later he told her that he had spoken to Murat and got a cuff for his pains. From now on, anything she wanted said to the mean-tempered bastard she could jolly well say herself.

The opportunity to do so did not come until near evening. Valcour unlocked the door, swung it wide, and stepped inside without so much as a pause for a knock. Pushing the panel to behind him, he sauntered toward her with a sardonic smile lighting his yellow brown eyes. From his right hand hung what appeared to be a woman’s velvet gown. “Good evening, ma chère.”

“Good evening,” Félicité returned, her tone even. She swung her feet off the mattress and came slowly upright. She would have stood, but Valcour put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her back down before he moved to take a seat opposite her on the bound chest fastened to the floor. He draped the gown he carried to one side.

“I trust you have had everything you need? Meals? A relaxing rest?”

“Those two things, yes. Otherwise, my amusements have been somewhat — confined.”

“Too bad. And you look as if you could use a hot perfumed bath, too.”

She flung him a glance of acute dislike. “Could not everyone on this ship?”

“One of the drawbacks of going a-pirating. The lack of bathing facilities, I fear, accounts as much as the tropical sun for the teak-colored swarthiness attributed to most of our calling. What say you to bathing in the ocean? So refreshing, this time of day.”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had the privacy to partake of such delights.”

“We must remedy that.”

“How — kind of you,” she said, her voice taut, expressionless.

Reaching into his clothing, he withdrew his snuffbox with its cross-and-skull bones enameling. Flipping it open, he took a pinch, holding it ready between thumb and forefinger with a delicate gesture. “You mistrust me, I see. I wonder why?”

“Experience is a formidable teacher.”

“You are right,” he said, and snapped the snuffbox closed, inhaled, then tended his nose. “There is an unfinished reckoning between us, one that I shall enjoy pursuing. But for the moment, there are more important matters at hand.”