Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (14 page)

Bliss laughed and shook his head. “No, thank you, sir. I don't mind helping out when and where I can, but I'm afraid I'm just a simple sailor at heart.”

Simple sailor indeed, Bliss thought, regarding Sir Theodotus from under hooded eyes. Simple enough to understand the potential value to the French of an island like San Sebastian, and shrewd enough to accept a most handsome reward for neutralizing British power when the moment for the French coup should arrive. Not that his task would be difficult. Sir Theodotus relied on him exclusively for advice and counsel as he became daily more removed from reality. He was not a well man. His eyes were sunk deeply in his head and the skin of his face was tight and mottled. His hands trembled as he reached for his wineglass, and his breathing was heavy and labored. All told, he looked more like a man in his seventies than his fifties. “Just give me a decent ship and a crew of stout British lads, and I'll happily leave the business of governing to you older and wiser chaps,” the young captain added unctuously.

“Good thinking. Good thinking,” Sir Theodotus grunted. He finished his wine, banged the glass down on the table, and motioned curtly. The serving girl, dressed in a white blouse and a bright-red skirt, hurried out of the shadows, refilled the men's glasses, and slunk away again. “Mark my words, though. You've the talent. Another twenty years of seasoning and you'll make a fine governor yourself—and of a far better place than this hellhole,” he added darkly.

“Really, sir—”

“Don't contradict me, young man,” Sir Theodotus growled. He sagged in his chair, then suddenly jerked upright. “Oh, damn. Contradict me if you wish. No one else does. I enjoy a modicum of contradiction from time to time.” His voice slurred with fatigue and the effect of too much wine. “‘Strouble with being governor. Every mother's son agrees with every damn thing you say. A man needs someone around to contradict him once or twice a week …” He trailed off and focused with difficulty on Bliss. “How long did you say you'd be in port?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, not long,” Bliss answered. “Time enough to reprovision and give the men a taste of life ashore. Then I'm off on patrol again.”

“Good. Good!” Sir Theodotus thumped the table with his fist, adding fatuously, “Vigilance, by God, is the watchword of the empire!”

“Suh?”

Sir Theodotus squinted into the darkness. “What do you want?” he barked at the dark-skinned servant who hurried in from the front of the house.

“News, suh,” the servant said. He went to Sir Theodotus's side and spoke to the governor in such a low voice that Bliss could distinguish no more than an occasional word.

An immediate and dramatic change came over the governor. He sat up straighter and color appeared in his cheeks for the first time in days. “Good Lord,” he breathed, suddenly sobered. “At last. I'd begun to lose hope.… Captain,” he added, standing so abruptly he almost knocked over his chair, “I'd like you to accompany me, if you'd be so kind.”

“Of course, sir,” Bliss said, patting his lips with a napkin and standing. “Might I inquire where?”

“To meet a ship.” Sir Theodotus turned to the servant. “Have my coach brought around. We'll be leaving immediately. Tell Louisa that I'll return shortly, and shall want everything prepared as ordered. Hurry, now. Get moving, man.”

“Yes, suh!” the servant said, already on the move.

“And you, Captain—I'll meet you at the front door in two minutes.” Discarding the lightweight lounging jacket he'd worn for dinner, Sir Theodotus hurried down the hall to his study. A moment later, he was spinning the dial of his safe, from which he withdrew an obviously heavily weighted carpetbag. In the hall again, he accepted from a waiting servant a coat more suitable for outside wear. “Where's the coach?” he snapped as the servant handed him his chapeau bras.

“Comin' roun', suh. Be here by the time you out the door.”

So it was. With Bliss right on his heels, Sir Theodotus plunged out the door at the same instant the coach rounded the side of the mansion. “I hope you don't mind my saying so, sir,” Bliss said after he'd helped Sir Theodotus into the coach and had climbed in himself, “but I'm puzzled.”

“The harbor!” Sir Theodotus called. The coach leaped forward. “I don't mind at all, Captain, but you'll understand soon enough,” he added as the motion threw him back in the seat.

The coach descended the hill where the governor's mansion perched and rolled swiftly through the streets of San Sebastian. It was not a large island. The product of twin volcanoes, it vaguely resembled two irregularly shaped coins joined by a narrow isthmus. The eastern volcano had long since sealed itself off and eroded away. The western volcano, called The Sleeping Giant, was younger and occasionally belched a cloud of sulfurous smoke or rocked the island with gentle quakes that were so much a part of life on San Sebastian that the citizens no longer took alarm. The geography of the island's two halves differed radically. The eastern half was lower and well suited for agriculture. The western was wildly precipitous and impossible to cultivate commercially because of the volcano and the thick forest that carpeted the jumbled slopes. The eastern half was populated by the plantation owners, their employees, and their slaves. The western half boasted the town and port of San Sebastian with its population of fifteen hundred, not counting sailors ashore for a night or two. Travel between the two halves of the island was limited to a single poorly constructed road, without which the plantations could not function, for the port was the entry through which most of their lifeblood flowed.

The town of San Sebastian had been a pirate haunt a hundred years earlier, but time and economics and the British Navy had transformed it into a proper outpost of civilization. The streets were narrow and the tile-roofed buildings crowded close together. Lights from the pubs and coffeehouses provided sporadic illumination that, with a half-moon halfway up the eastern sky, lighted the way for horses and carriages.

The first view of the harbor, obscured by buildings until the coach turned onto King George Street, was a narrow slot of water that widened as they neared the waterfront. “I trust we can use your gig, Captain,” Sir Theodotus said, trying not to sound nervous.

“Certainly,” Bliss replied as they turned onto the broad board roadway that paralleled the harbor. “Sir?”

“Yes?” Sir Theodotus grunted.

Bliss gestured toward the harbor. There, in the center, a ship with no discernible flag and with signal lights hung fore and aft lay at anchor. Directly behind it, the
Druid
was sliding slowly into position to deliver a broadside. “We're going out to meet
that
ship?” Bliss asked tightly.

“We are, Captain. It contains priceless cargo.”

Bliss ordered the coachman to stop, and no sooner had he and Sir Theodotus alighted than a midshipman ran toward them. “Sir!” the boy called. “Midshipman Holmes, sir!” Spine stiff and heels clicking, the youth snapped to attention before Bliss.

“What is it, lad?”

“It's a pirate ship, sir. The man calls himself Sanchez, and says he has been given safe passage by Governor Vincent! Lieutenant Meecham told me to get you as fast—”

“Enough, Holmes,” Bliss interrupted. “Who has the duty on my gig?”

“Able Seaman Stone, sir.”

“Very well. Tell him to make ready to shove off immediately, if you please.” Midshipman Holmes raced back to the gig. Bliss's face was indecipherable. “I find it difficult to believe,” he said in a voice as cold as ice, “that the governor is engaged in commerce with a pirate. I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid I must demand an explanation.”

Sir Theodotus hadn't divulged his plans to Bliss earlier because he knew the officer would be outraged. Now that the time had come, though, he did not flinch. “My grandsons are aboard that ship, Captain,” he said in a tone of authority that Bliss hadn't heard in months, “and I am in no mood for questions and answers. You will kindly lead the way. Immediately.”

Bliss opened his mouth to speak but abruptly changed his mind, turned on his heel, and strode out the quay toward his gig. His mind raced. A pirate in
his
harbor! The very idea was an affront, and yet.… Like a large painting being unveiled, the picture came to him. Sir Theodotus had related the tale of his daughter: her abduction by the American, the birth of her twin sons, and her death. The only possible explanation for the presence of the pirate ship in San Sebastian was that Sanchez had kidnapped the boys. If that indeed was the case—and he would know soon enough—Bliss had an unbreakable hold on Sir Theodotus. A hold, he told himself as he helped the governor into the gig, that he could exploit to great benefit when the time came.

The gig leaped across the water. “To the
Druid
first,” Bliss ordered. “Midshipman Holmes.”

“Aye, sir!”

“I want you to take this message to Mr. Meecham. Tell him that he's to stand by at ready and do nothing to exacerbate the situation, that I'll be aboard shortly, and that on my command of ‘Fire!' he's to blow that ship out of the water. Is that clear?”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Now, listen here!” Sir Theodotus sputtered. “You'll do nothing of the sort!”

“You have your orders, Midshipman,” Bliss said curtly as the gig nuzzled up to the
Druid
's ladder. “Smartly, now.”

The midshipman scampered up the ladder and Bliss ordered the crew of the gig to make for the pirate ship. His body aching with tension, Sir Theodotus clutched the carpetbag to him and prayed that the twins were safe. “I … I don't think I can climb a rope ladder,” he said in a subdued tone as the gig slowed and one of the sailors caught the ladder that was dropped to them. He thrust the carpetbag at Bliss. “If you would, Captain? My grandsons …”

Bliss took the bag and glanced up. A twelve-foot climb wasn't far, but with a heavy bag in one hand …

“Beggin' the captain's pardon, sir,” Able Seaman Stone said.

“Yes?” Bliss asked.

Stone's hands worked rapidly as he stepped forward and took the seat facing Bliss. “You can hang it on this, sir,” he said, holding out a piece of line he'd fashioned into a loop.

At the same time, a lantern floated down and stopped a few feet above the gig. “Welcome, Governor,” a voice said from the darkness. “Welcome aboard the
Red Dog Song.
”

“I can't make the climb, Sanchez,” Sir Theodotus called back. “I'm sending Captain Bliss in my place.”

“Captain Bliss? The scourge of Caribbean pirates, celebrated in song and a hundred drunken tales?” Mocking laughter floated across the water. “Come aboard, Captain Bliss, and don't forget my gold. We'll have a nice cup of tea.”

Bliss's eyes narrowed and a grim smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. Sir Theodotus Vincent, the embodiment of the king's law and authority, was a kidnapper, and not one whit better than Captain Trevor Bliss of His Majesty's Navy, who was, unbeknownst to everyone except the island planters, guilty of treason. The irony was too rich for words. He allowed Able Seaman Stone to adjust the loop around his neck and one shoulder and tie the bag so it wouldn't knock against his legs, then grabbed the ladder and stood.

“There's, ah, one other thing, Captain,” Sir Theodotus said as Stone retreated to the stern of the gig. “You've got to promise Sanchez that you won't bother him for six months if he cooperates and doesn't raid any British ships. That was part of the bargain I struck with him.”

Bliss stiffened. There was no way on God's earth that he could keep the events of this night secret. The word would spread and he'd be the laughingstock of the fleet. Of course, he did have other plans, come New Year's Day.… “As you say, sir,” Bliss replied coldly. “And now, if you don't mind, I'll be on my way. I've been invited for tea, don't you know.”

Bliss climbed rapidly, caught hold of a helping hand, and leaped over the rail to the deck.

“Well, well! So this is Captain Bliss!” Onofre Sanchez, wearing a British officer's hat and coat for the occasion, stepped forward. “We meet face to face at last, no? It is an honor. Not many of your officers step aboard the
Red Dog Song
. Those who do …” He shrugged and a look of immense sorrow darkened his face as he flicked a speck of dust from his coat. “But then, why should we be sad, eh? You, at least, will be fortunate enough to leave unharmed, no?”

“I had better,” Bliss answered, his scorn for Sanchez evident. He gestured to the
Druid
, whose gun ports, even in the darkness, were obviously open. “If not, my first officer has explicit orders to blow you out of the water.”

A flurry of whispers passed through Sanchez's crew. Roughly dressed and cutthroats all, they pressed more closely around Bliss until Sanchez waved them back. “Some of them speak English, Captain Bliss,” he explained, “and they have translated your threats for the others. I, on the other hand, see those threats as nothing more than the words of a prudent man.” His smile faded as fast as the light under the dark clouds of a summer squall. “Until you have the boys, of course. And then, Captain, I too must wonder what will keep your jack-tars' hands from their guns.”

Bliss's voice was brittle with contempt. “You have my word, Sanchez, the word of a British officer. You also have the word of the governor of San Sebastian.”

Sanchez regarded Bliss, read in his eyes the overweening pride that was the product of a code as stringent as any blood oath a pirate took. Just as he, Sanchez, would give the dead Fouchet's woman triple the share due her, Bliss, no matter how much it pained him, would keep his word.

“Very well, then,” Sanchez agreed. “Let us see the gold and have done with it.”

Bliss kept a firm grip on the carpetbag. “I want to see the boys first,” he said. “If they're safe and healthy, you shall have your gold.”