Pirate Latitudes Read online

  The Moor nodded, grinning. Then he frowned and pointed to Hunter. His face was questioning.

  “I came to see you.”

  The Moor shrugged.

  “We sail in two days.”

  The Moor pursed his lips, mouthing a single word: Ou?

  “Matanceros,” Hunter said. The Moor looked disgusted.

  “You’re not interested?”

  The Moor smirked, and drew a forefinger across his throat.

  “I tell you, it can be done,” Hunter said. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  The Moor made a hand-over-hand gesture, and shook his head.

  “I don’t mean a ship’s rigging,” Hunter said. “I mean a cliff. A high cliff — three or four hundred feet.”

  The Moor scratched his forehead. He looked at the ceiling, apparently imagining the height of the cliff. Finally, he nodded.

  “You can do it?”

  He nodded again.

  “Even in a high wind? Good. Then you’ll go with us.”

  Hunter started to get up, but the Moor pushed him back into his chair. The Moor jangled the coins in his pocket, and pointed a questioning finger at Hunter.

  “Don’t worry,” Hunter said. “It’s worth it.”

  The Moor smiled. Hunter left.

  . . .

  HE FOUND SANSON in a second-floor room of the Queen’s Arms. Hunter knocked on the door and waited. He heard a giggle and a sigh, then knocked again.

  A surprisingly high voice called, “Damn you to hell and be gone.”

  Hunter hesitated, and knocked again.

  “God’s blood, who is it now?” came the voice from inside.

  “Hunter.”

  “Damn me. Come in, Hunter.”

  Hunter opened the door, letting it swing wide, but he did not enter; a moment later, the chamber pot and its contents came flying through the open door.

  Hunter heard a soft chuckle from inside the room. “Cautious as ever, Hunter. You will outlive us all. Enter.”

  Hunter entered the room. By the light of a single candle, he saw Sanson sitting up in bed, next to a blond girl. “You have interrupted us, my son,” Sanson said. “Let us pray that you have good reason.”

  “I do,” Hunter said.

  There was a moment of awkward silence, as the two men stared at each other. Sanson scratched his heavy black beard. “Am I to guess the reason for your coming?”

  “No,” Hunter said, glancing at the girl.

  “Ah,” Sanson said. He turned to the girl. “My delicate peach . . .” He kissed the tips of her fingers and pointed with his hand across the room.

  The girl immediately scrambled naked out of bed, hastily grabbed up her clothes, and bolted from the room.

  “Such a delightful creature,” Sanson said.

  Hunter closed the door.

  “She is French, you know,” Sanson said. “French women make the best lovers, don’t you agree?”

  “They certainly make the best whores.”

  Sanson laughed. He was a large, heavy man who gave the impression of brooding darkness — dark hair, dark eyebrows that met over the nose, dark beard, dark skin. But his voice was surprisingly high, especially when he laughed. “Can I not entice you to agree that French women are superior to English women?”

  “Only in the prevalence of disease.”

  Sanson laughed heartily. “Hunter, your sense of humor is most unusual. Will you take a glass of wine with me?”

  “With pleasure.”

  Sanson poured from the bottle on his bedside table. Hunter took the glass and raised it in a toast. “Your health.”

  “And yours,” Sanson said, and they drank. Neither man took his eyes off the other.

  For his part, Hunter plainly did not trust Sanson. He did not, in fact, wish to take Sanson on the expedition, but the Frenchman was necessary to the success of the undertaking. For Sanson, despite his pride, his vanity, and his boasting, was the most ruthless killer in all the Caribbean. He came, in fact, from a family of French executioners.

  Indeed, his very name — Sanson, meaning “without sound” — was an ironic comment on the stealthy way that he worked. He was known and feared everywhere. It was said that his father, Charles Sanson, was the king’s executioner in Dieppe. It was rumored that Sanson himself had been a priest in Liège for a short time, until his indiscretions with the nuns of a nearby convent made it advantageous for him to leave the country.

  But Port Royal was not a town where much attention was paid to past histories. Here Sanson was known for his skill with the saber, the pistol, and his favorite weapon, the crossbow.

  Sanson laughed again. “Well, my son. Tell me what troubles you.”

  “I am leaving in two days’ time. For Matanceros.”

  Sanson did not laugh. “You want me to go with you to Matanceros?”

  “Yes.”

  Sanson poured more wine. “I do not want to go there,” he said. “No sane man wants to go to Matanceros. Why do you want to go to Matanceros?”

  Hunter said nothing.

  Sanson frowned at his feet at the bottom of the bed. He wiggled his toes, still frowning. “It must be the galleons,” he said finally. “The galleons lost in the storm have made Matanceros. Is that it?”

  Hunter shrugged.

  “Cautious, cautious,” Sanson said. “Well then, what terms do you make for this madman’s expedition?”

  “I will give you four shares.”

  “Four shares? You are a stingy man, Captain Hunter. My pride is injured, you think me worth only four shares—”

  “Five shares,” Hunter said, with the air of a man giving in.

  “Five? Let us say eight, and be done with it.”

  “Let us say five, and be done with it.”

  “Hunter. The hour is late and I am not patient. Shall we say seven?”

  “Six.”

  “God’s blood, you are stingy.”

  “Six,” Hunter repeated.

  “Seven. Have another glass of wine.”

  Hunter looked at him and decided that the argument was not important. Sanson would be easier to control if he felt he had bargained well; he would be difficult and without humor if he believed he had been unjustly treated.

  “Seven, then,” Hunter said.

  “My friend, you have great reason.” Sanson extended his hand. “Now tell me the manner of your attack.”

  Sanson listened to the plan without saying a word, and finally, when Hunter was finished, he slapped his thigh. “It is true what they say,” he said, “about Spanish sloth, French elegance — and English craft.”

  “I think it will work,” Hunter said.

  “I do not doubt it for a heartbeat,” Sanson said.

  When Hunter left the small room, dawn was breaking over the streets of Port Royal.

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS, OF COURSE, impossible to keep the expedition secret. Too many seamen were eager for a berth on any privateering expedition, and too many merchants and farmers were needed to fit out Hunter’s sloop Cassandra. By early morning, all of Port Royal was talking of Hunter’s coming foray.

  It was said that Hunter was attacking Campeche. It was said that he would sack Maricaibo. It was even said that he dared to attack Panama, as Drake had done some seventy years before. But such a long sea voyage implied heavy provisioning, and Hunter was laying in so few supplies that most gossips believed the target of the raid was Havana itself. Havana had never been attacked by privateers; the very idea struck most people as mad.

  Other puzzling information came to light. Black Eye, the Jew, was buying rats from children and scamps around the docks. Why the Jew should want rats was a question beyond the imagining of any seaman. It was also known that Bla
ck Eye had purchased the entrails of a pig — which might be used for divination, but surely not by a Jew.

  Meanwhile, the Jew’s gold shop was locked and boarded.

  The Jew was off somewhere in the hills of the mainland. He had gone off before dawn, with a quantity of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal.

  The provisioning of the Cassandra was equally strange. Only a limited supply of salt pork was ordered, but a large quantity of water was required — including several small casks, which the barrel-maker, Mr. Longley, had been asked to fabricate specially. The hemp shop of Mr. Whitstall had received an order for more than a thousand feet of stout rope — rope too stout for use in a sloop’s rigging. The sailmaker, Mr. Nedley, had been told to sew several large canvas bags with grommet fasteners at the top. And Carver, the blacksmith, was forging grappling hooks of peculiar design — the prongs were hinged, so the hooks could be folded small and flat.

  There was also an omen: during the morning, fishermen caught a giant hammerhead shark, and hauled it onto the docks near Chocolata Hole, where the turtle crawls were located. The shark was more than twelve feet long, and with its broad snout, with eyes placed at each flattened protuberance, it was remarkably ugly. Fishermen and passersby discharged their pistols into the animal, with no discernible effect. The shark flopped and writhed on the dockside planking until well into midday.

  Then the shark was slit open at the underbelly, and the slimy coils of intestine spilled forth. A glint of metal was perceived and when the innards were cut open, the metal was seen to be the full suit of armor of a Spanish soldier — breastplate, ridged helmet, knee guards. From this it was deduced that the flathead shark had consumed the unfortunate soldier whole, digesting the flesh but retaining the armor, which the shark was unable to pass. This was variously taken as an omen of an impending Spanish attack on Port Royal, or as proof that Hunter was himself going to attack the Spanish.

  . . .

  SIR JAMES ALMONT had no time for omens. That morning, he was engaged in questioning a French rascal named L’Olonnais, who had arrived in port that morning with a Spanish brig as his prize. L’Olonnais had no letters of marque, and in any case, England and Spain were nominally at peace. Worse than that was the fact that the brig contained, at the time it arrived in port, nothing of particular value. Some hides and tobacco were all that were to be found in its hold.

  Although renowned as a corsair, L’Olonnais was a stupid, brutal man. It did not take much intelligence, of course, to be a privateer. One had only to wait in the proper latitudes until a likely vessel happened along, and then attack it. Standing with his hat in his hands in the governor’s office, L’Olonnais now recited his unlikely tale with childish innocence. He had happened upon the prize vessel, he said, and found it deserted. There were no passengers aboard, and the ship was drifting aimlessly.

  “Faith, some plague or calamity must have fallen it,” L’Olonnais said. “But ’twas a goodly ship, sire, and I felt a service to the Crown to bring it back to port, sire.”

  “You found no passengers at all?”

  “Not a living thing.”

  “No dead aboard the ship?”

  “Nay, sire.”

  “And no clue as to its misfortune?”

  “Nary a one, sire.”

  “And the cargo—”

  “As your own inspectors found it, sire. We’d not touch it, sire. You know that.”

  Sir James wondered how many innocent people L’Olonnais had murdered to clear the decks of that merchantman. And he wondered where the pirate had landed to hide the valuables of the cargo. There were a thousand islands and small brackish cays throughout the Carib sea that could serve his purposes.

  Sir James rapped his fingers on his desk. The man was obviously lying but he needed proof. Even in the rough environment of Port Royal, English law prevailed.

  “Very well,” he said at last. “I shall formally state to you that the Crown is much displeased with this capture. The king therefore shall take a fifth—”

  “A fifth!” Normally the king took a tenth, or even a fifteenth.

  “Indeed,” Sir James said evenly. “His Majesty shall have a fifth, and I shall formally state to you further that if any evidence reaches my ears of dastardly conduct on your part, you shall be brought to trial and hanged as a pirate and murderer.”

  “Sire, I swear to you that—”

  “Enough,” Sir James said, raising his hand. “You are free to go for the moment, but bear my words in mind.”

  L’Olonnais bowed elaborately and backed out of the room. Almont rang for his aide.

  “John,” he said, “find some of the seamen of L’Olonnais and see that their tongues are well oiled with wine. I want to know how he came to take that vessel and I want substantial proofs against him.”

  “Very good, Your Excellency.”

  “And John: set aside the tenth for the king, and a tenth for the governor.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “That will be all.”

  John bowed. “Your Excellency, Captain Hunter is here for his papers.”

  “Then show him in.”

  Hunter strode in a moment later. Almont stood and shook his hand.

  “You seem in good spirits, Captain.”

  “I am, Sir James.”

  “The preparations go well?”

  “They do, Sir James.”

  “At what cost?”

  “Five hundred doubloons, Sir James.”

  Almont had anticipated the sum. He produced a sack of coin from his desk. “This will suffice.”

  Hunter bowed as he took the money.

  “Now then,” Sir James said. “I have caused to be drawn up the paper of marque for the cutting of logwood at any location you deem proper and fitting.” He handed the letter to Hunter.

  In 1665, logwood cutting was considered legitimate commerce by the English, though the Spanish claimed a monopoly on that trade. The wood of the logwood, Hematoxylin campaechium, was used in making red dye as well as certain medicines. It was a substance as valuable as tobacco.

  “I must advise you,” Sir James said slowly, “that we cannot countenance any attack upon any Spanish settlement, in the absence of provocation.”

  “I understand,” Hunter said.

  “Do you suppose there shall be any provocation?”

  “I doubt it, Sir James.”

  “Then of course your attack on Matanceros will be piratical.”

  “Sir James, our poor sloop Cassandra, lightly armed and by the proofs of your papers engaged in commerce, may suffer to be fired upon by the Matanceros guns. In that instance, are we not forced to retaliate? An unwarranted shelling of an innocent vessel cannot be countenanced.”

  “Indeed not,” Sir James said. “I am sure I can trust you to act as a soldier and a gentleman.”

  “I will not betray your confidence.”

  Hunter turned to go. “One last thing,” Sir James said. “Cazalla is a favorite of Philip. Cazalla’s daughter is married to Philip’s vice chancellor. Any message from Cazalla describing the events at Matanceros differently from your account would be most embarrassing to His Majesty King Charles.”

  “I doubt,” Hunter said, “that there will be dispatches from Cazalla.”

  “It is important that there not be.”

  “Dispatches are not received from the depths of the sea.”

  “Indeed not,” Sir James said. The two men shook hands.

  As Hunter was leaving the Governor’s Mansion, a black womanservant handed him a letter, then wordlessly turned and walked away. Hunter descended the steps of the mansion, reading the letter, which was drafted in a feminine hand.

  My dear Captain—

  I am lately informed that a beautiful fresh spring can be found on
the main portion of the Jamaican island, at the place called Crawford’s Valley. To acquaint myself with the delights of my new residence, I shall make an excursion to this spot in the latter part of the day, and I hope that it is as exquisite as I am led to believe.

  Fondly, I am,

  Emily Hacklett

  Hunter slipped the letter into his pocket. He would not, under ordinary circumstances, pay heed to the invitation implicit in Mrs. Hacklett’s words. There was much to do in this last day before the Cassandra set sail. But he was required to go to the inland anyway, to see Black Eye. If there was time . . . He shrugged, and went to the stables to get his horse.

  Chapter 9

  THE JEW WAS ensconced in Sutter’s Bay, to the east of the port. Even from a distance, Hunter could determine his location by the acrid smoke rising above the green trees, and the occasional report of explosive charges.

  He rode into a small clearing and found the Jew in the midst of a bizarre scene: dead animals of all sorts lay everywhere, stinking in the hot midday sun. Three wooden casks, containing saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur, stood to one side. Fragments of broken glass lay glinting in the tall grass. The Jew himself was working feverishly, his clothing and face smeared with blood and the dust of exploded powder.

  Hunter dismounted and looked around him. “What in God’s name have you been doing?”

  “What you asked,” Black Eye said. He smiled. “You will not be disappointed. Here, I will show you. First, you gave me the task of a long and slow-burning fuse. Yes?”

  Hunter nodded.

  “The usual fuses are of no use,” the Jew said judiciously. “One could employ a powder trail, but it burns with great swiftness. Or contrariwise, one could employ a slow match.” A slow match was a piece of cord or twine soaked in saltpeter. “But that is very slow indeed, and the flame is often too weak to ignite the final materials. You take my meaning?”

  “I do.”

  “Well then. An intermediate flame and speed of burning is provided by increasing the proportion of sulfur in the powder. But such a mixture is notorious for its unreliability. One does not wish the flame to sputter and die.”