The Creole Princess (25 page)

And where was Lyse to go now? She could hardly stay in the Redmonds’ house alone. She could go back to her father’s crowded little place on Bay Minette, but that would mean giving up teaching the town children. Lyse would be crushed.

And perhaps most critical of all, how was Daisy to deal with her growing restlessness in the face of her duty to her father? Holding her tongue about her libertarian convictions might become an impossible task. If that happened, would her father reject her? Expel her from the fort? Arrest her?

Dear God, what was she to do?

12

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1778

In the five months since Rafa had returned to New Orleans with Simon Lanier, the city had become even more a hive of intrigue. He meandered along the muddy brick streets of the Vieux Carré, whistling a ditty he’d heard an Acadian flutist playing on a corner just that morning. Perhaps he would sit down and dash off some words to the tune, after he completed this evening’s errand for Pollock. A love song, forsooth. Lyse would like a song in her honor.

That is, if the piratical elder brother could be persuaded not to part Rafa’s head from his body in the interim.

The short voyage from Mobile to New Orleans had been completed with a minimum of fuss, considering Lanier’s volatile nature. Rafa had used the time to get to know the fisherman-pirate and found him, naturally, not so easy to charm as Lyse. Simon was intelligent, fiercely independent, suspicious of everyone except his closest vanguard. That he had agreed to the temporary alliance with Rafa spoke to his desperation regarding that shipment of gold.

Rafa’s gold.

But repining was a waste of energy. Half a shipment was better
than none. And if Lanier could be turned for the cause, all the better.

But first, this meeting with the American agent, Captain James Willing. The Natchez storeowner had defected to the American cause early in the war and acted as a node in the secret supply chain to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. When British officers in Natchez discovered his perfidy and booted him out of the city, he’d returned to his native Pennsylvania and joined the rebels with the rank of captain. Subsequently, because of his familiarity with the southern end of the Mississippi, Willing was given leave to raid British settlements southward along the river, forcing their Loyalist citizens to take oaths of neutrality or be taken prisoner.

Rafa had yet to become acquainted with Willing, but Pollock seemed to consider him an asset to the cause. Word had circulated that the British command in Pensacola were outraged that Gálvez had not only consented to harbor Willing in New Orleans, but allowed him to auction off the property of British citizens in front of their very eyes. Pollock, ever practical, had worked out a deal to maintain half the profits as a way of recouping some of what was owed him by the Continental Congress—funds which, he more and more strongly suspected, would never be repaid.

With a mental shrug, Rafa swung round the corner of the Rue Baronne. The noise from the Saturday morning market reached ear-splitting levels, a mélange of the squawking, bleating, and lowing of animals, human shouts and laughter, and the general blaring dissonance of commerce. The accompanying smells he supposed he’d never get used to, but they were all part of life in New Orleans. The general atmosphere here was always lively, but customers trying to complete their Saturday purchases before sales were halted for the holy day jammed in front of the stalls like packs of jackals around a carcass.

He pushed and shoved his way through increasingly dense
crowds until he reached the slave auction. It was a distasteful and depressing location that he generally avoided, but Willing had insisted upon meeting here so that he could oversee the dispensation of the last of the contraband taken in his river raids. Rafa took up a spot on the gallery of a drinking establishment across from the Exchange which was slightly elevated above its neighbors, and leaned upon the rail to search for Willing in the crowd.

No one around him paid him the least attention. He’d dressed for anonymity in a plain brown coat and waistcoat, with buff-colored breeches tucked into the tops of his oldest boots. His tricorn shaded the upper part of his face, and he kept his mouth turned down in not entirely feigned disgust. The stench of body odor and animal waste was more noisome than usual.

Resisting the urge to hold his nose, he turned his reluctant gaze to the auction block, where an auctioneer in an oversized coat stood arguing with an obviously British gentleman distinguished by his enormous height and missing left arm. Though he couldn’t hear the words, Rafa could imagine the man’s distress that his belongings were about to come under the hammer.

“Good to see these Royalists finding out what it feels like to have one’s belongings stripped away without notice, ain’t it?”

Rafa turned to find a small-statured man, maybe a few years older than himself, leaning upon the gallery rail and watching the auction scene with all apparent satisfaction. Rafa hazarded a guess. “Willing?”

“At your service.” Willing reached into his pocket for a cigar, offered it to Rafa first, then, when Rafa refused, stuck it into his own narrow mouth. “I take it you’ve heard of me,” he said as he lit the cigar.

“Pollock said I was to meet you here.” The Irishman had actually said little about the American captain, a sure sign of his distaste. Now he saw why. “He says you have a requisition for the supplies needed.”

“Yes. The transfer needs to be completed quickly. I’ve important things to take care of in the city today and need to be on my way north tomorrow.”

Willing’s arrogance was absurd, considering the debt the Americans owed to Spain already, but Pollock wouldn’t thank him for being rude to the agent.

“Of course. Where shall I . . .” He stopped as a line of slaves emerged from the holding pen, herded by a handler toward the platform where they would be auctioned off. As they filed up onto a set of shallow stairs, Rafa strained to see the third woman in the line. Her face was now obscured by the gathering crowd, but he could have sworn she looked familiar.

“What’s the matter?” Willing stood on his toes, trying to see what had caught Rafa’s attention.

Rafa shook his head. His longing for Lyse had him seeing her image in every beautiful octoroon who passed. “Nothing. It was just—” The crowd had shifted again, giving him a clear view of the young woman’s face. “Willing, I’ll be back. Don’t go away.” Rafa vaulted the gallery rail and ran toward the Exchange.

He shoved his way past three vegetable stalls and a hatmaker’s booth and came out in front of the Exchange, an enormous four-foot-high platform constructed of patched timbers. By now the crowd had become even more dense as word got around that the slave auction was about to begin. Rafa shouldered through a surprising number of women mixed with the men, heading directly toward the holding pen, until he finally stumbled into the rope holding back the crowd. He proceeded to jump it.

Someone grabbed his arm. “Here now, you can’t go that way!”

Angrily he snatched away from the guard. Scarlet had turned at the commotion—all the slaves had—and her mouth was open in shock. She had recognized him.

“Scarlet!” He struggled to get to her. “How did you get here?”

“Didn’t you hear me? You can’t go past this rope. Time to examine the merchandise is over. If you wanted to see her, you shoulda come early this morning.”

Snarling in frustration, Rafa turned to the man, a burly Englishman with a two-day beard mostly covering a dark, pock-marked face. “I don’t need to see her. I know this woman. She’s—she’s a relative, of sorts. This is a mistake!”

The guard gave him an evil smile. “Know her, do you? I just bet you do. But I got her papers, and she’s for sale—so if you want her, get in line and bid for her just like everybody else. Now move!” With a shove he sent Rafa reeling back against the rope.

Rafa scrambled to keep from falling on his rear, as infuriated as he had ever been in his life—mainly with himself. How could he be so stupid as to lurch into action without a plan? Now he had drawn attention to himself—a disaster in itself—and probably ruined any chance he’d had of getting Scarlet released.

Think, think, think. What was he to do?

Slowly he straightened, drawing on every drill he’d ever endured in military school, every evening spent attending his mother’s endless receptions for dignitaries. He allowed his face to freeze over. “My dear fellow,” he said coldly, “you seem to have misunderstood my intent. I shan’t
bid
for this woman, because she belongs to the governor, and she has gotten into this lot by mistake.”

“The governor?” The Englishman roared with laughter, but when Rafa continued to stare at him stone-faced, his amusement faded into uncertain bluster. “The governor, you say? I suppose you can prove that?”

“As it happens, I can.” Rafa pointed across the esplanade to the tavern, where James Willing still stood, scratching his head. “You know that gentleman, I hope?”

“That’s—that’s Mr. Willing, the fellow what brung in all this to be sold.”

“Yes. And Mr. Willing sent me to make sure this woman is
pulled from the lot and sent to General Gálvez as his wife’s personal servant.”

“I can’t do that! The auction has already started!”

Rafa resisted the urge to look over his shoulder at the platform, where the auctioneer was rattling off bids for the first slave in line, a tall, well-built young Negro male. He would undoubtedly fetch somewhere near twelve hundred pounds, and the bidding would be lively.

He flicked a glance at Scarlet, just to make sure it was her. Because if he had made a mistake, this was going to be one fine mess.

The girl’s thick, curly hair was a wild mess, her skin was dull from malnutrition, and there was a distinct bulge at her abdomen under the neat but ugly dress they had put on her. But it was Scarlet all right. The distinctive tip-tilted brows, the pointed chin and lush mouth—so much like her cousin that he wanted to howl with fury that she had been mistreated so.

He thought of Lyse’s mother and Scarlet’s mother, probably standing side by side, right here, all those years ago, one to be ransomed by a lover and one to be enslaved by a vindictive shrew for life.

He couldn’t rescue all these people right now, but God help him to take this one to safety.

Giving Scarlet a warning look, Rafa spread his hands and played his trump card. “Mr. Willing will be unhappy if his desire to please the governor is frustrated in this—though I do see your dilemma. Perhaps the decision will become a bit more palatable if I . . . make it worth your trouble.” He reached inside his coat for the purse he carried for just such emergencies and opened its drawstring. The sweet rattle of golden coins sounded as he dropped a few, well beyond the usual price of a young female slave, into the handler’s palm. “There will be twice this, if you’ll meet me at the Pelican this evening.” He nodded at the tavern where Willing still waited. “I’ll put in a good word for you with my captain. He says he plans to make another raid up the river soon.”

All three of those statements were individually true, even if the sum of them was not.

The handler jingled the coins in cupped hands. He glanced at Scarlet, who stood stoic, eyes on the ground, hands clasped in front of that rounded stomach. He dared another look at Willing, then seemed to make up his mind. With a muffled curse, he stuffed the coins into his waistcoat pocket, pulled a knife from his belt, and swiftly bent to cut the rope around Scarlet’s ankles.

Rising, he pushed her, stumbling, toward Rafa. “Take her and hurry, before I change my mind. Tell Mr. Willing he owes me a favor.”

“I think it’s the other way round.” But Rafa took Scarlet by the arm and led her away as quickly as possible through the milling crowd. There was very little time. James Willing was waiting for him to return, and Rafa was going to need some explanation for this display of lunacy. When one was forced to lie, one had best stick as closely as possible to the truth.

When he and Scarlet were at a safe distance from the Exchange, but still well away from the tavern, he slowed, sliding his hand to her wrist. “Scarlet, tell me how you came here.”

When her eyes met his, he was surprised to see tears forming. “I prayed for someone to come,” she said. “I didn’t know it would be you.”

He shrugged. “Why not me?”

“It’s for Lyse, isn’t it? You love her.”

“I—Never mind that. Did Willing really bring you here?”

“The little man on the big boat? I don’t know his name. But he rolled into Natchez like a cannonball. Took all us slaves and anything else valuable to sell here, burned everything else in sight. Made the white masters prisoners so their families would promise loyalty to the—the other British—” She looked at him, eyes suddenly ablaze with hatred. “They’re free. Why do they fight each other?”

Rafa started moving again. “It’s complicated. At any rate, Willing will not be particularly happy to find out that I have bought you with his name.” He glanced at her. “So, stay quiet and follow my lead in the conversation to come. Understood?”