Tide of War (13 page)

Or perhaps, “What have you lost?”

He made his excuses and began to back out of the building. And then she gave him a toothless grin and said, “You will not find her here, my child.”

A raucous cackle shook her meagre frame and the cat sat up, startled and alert, and looked straight at Nathan and hissed. And Nathan smelt a sudden noxious stink—more noxious, less innocent than a fart—a terrible stench of decay that might have come from the very bowels of Hell. He turned and strode quickly back into the sunlight, shaken more than he would have cared to admit.

“I swear it was as if I had opened the lid of a coffin,” he told Tully when he met him later that morning on the roof of the consul's house.

“One of the decayed offerings they make to their heathen gods, perhaps,” suggested Tully. “I have heard they are quite gruesome.”

“Or something of my own imagining,” said Nathan, almost to himself.

You will not find her here, my child.

What on earth had she meant by that? Most likely she thought he was looking for a woman, a whore. La Princesa Negra perhaps. That was the rational explanation. But then there was the stench of death. And he could not help but think of Sara. Sara, after three months in the grave, or whatever foul place they had buried her …

He stood up quickly and walked to the edge of the roof, pressing his hands into the hot stone parapet, almost as hot as an oven. Pain, physical pain, anything rather than the agony in his mind. He had felt like this as a child when he had first thought on eternity. The concept of the never ending. His mind could not cope with it and he would pace about almost angrily, shaking his head to free it of that impossible thought.

“This place is beginning to plague me,” he said. “I will be glad to see the back of it.”

“ Well, we are ready to sail as soon as you are,” said Tully gently.

Nathan wondered how much he knew of Sara. He had not told him much. Only that he had met a woman in Paris, and that she had died on the guillotine, and that Alex was her son. But Imlay might have told him more.

“We will give it one more day,” he said.

Then, whatever objections Imlay might raise, they would sail for Jamaica and leave the whole unhappy business for Admiral Ford to resolve.

But now here was the major domo with Don Roberto's compliments and he would be happy to see the captain in the library when he had a moment.

Imlay was already there, looking bored.

“Good news,” exclaimed the consul as Nathan walked through the door. “My informant is back from the interior and has agreed to meet with us in the cathedral an hour from now.”

Nathan had not entered the cathedral during his wanderings about the city. Perhaps he feared to defile it as the Basilica of San Francisco had been defiled. Now, as his eyes adjusted to the poor light and the smoke from the guttering candles he gazed about him with interest. Here were the graven images he had been warned off by his Anglican tutors, but in more quantity and arrayed in even more finery than they had been described to him. The stations of the cross and the confessionals: grim little cabinets set at intervals along the walls. The huddle of crones in the Lady Chapel mumbling over their rosary beads like a coven of witches. And everywhere the gaunt figure of the crucified Saviour. On the altar where it might be expected, but also hanging from the walls and the roof: elaborate effigies and images, all painted in great detail and in vivid colours so you could not miss one small drop of blood, one precise degree of pain. Christ carrying the cross, Christ hanging from the cross, Christ taken down from the cross … Even the images of Christ sitting upon his golden throne in Paradise revealed him as if fresh from his terrible ordeal, dressed in a purple robe but with the wounds still raw about his wrists and ankles, while from beneath his golden crown the blood still oozed from the wounds made by the crown of thorns. Blood, so much blood, that to Nathan's reserved Anglican mind it more resembled a charnel house than a church; a charnel house with dolls.

“I see what you mean about the worship of the saints,” he murmured in an aside to Imlay for he had imbibed enough of the prejudice of his tutors to make him uneasy.

“Quite,” replied Imlay, not quite so softly. “And I am told that the Africans frequently conceal their own idols behind those on display so that though they appear to be worshipping Saint this or that, they are in fact paying their respects to Chango, the God of Thunder, or Queen Obatala or some other of their
orishas”

“Gentlemen, pray keep your voices down,” murmured the consul. “And pray do nothing to attract attention to yourselves.” This
to Imlay who was attempting to lift the skirts of a Madonna with his cane so he might peer into the recess behind.

“I beg your pardon,” replied Nathan, mortified. “I did not mean to be offensive.”

“There is no need to apologise to me,” said Portillo, “for I am not of their faith. By birth I am a Jew.”

Nathan could not help but show his surprise and Imlay started as if the roof might fall upon them.

“My family were displaced from Barcelona many years ago by the Inquisition,” the consul explained. “They made their homes in England at the time of Cromwell.”

Though he had discussed Chango and Queen Obatala with perfect equanimity the name of Cromwell, following so swiftly upon Jew, caused Imlay to start and look swiftly about him, as if the officers of the Inquisition were advancing from all sides.

“But I have many friends among the Catholic community,” Portillo continued, in the same low voice, “and they assure me that the saints are but a useful form of mediation between God and man, that the icons are mere aids to concentration, and that a prayer to Saint Francis or Saint Christopher is not at all to be confused with the worship of Chango the God of Thunder. Ah, Brother, were you looking for us?”

This in a slightly louder tone to a presence in black that had materialised beside them, much to Imlay's consternation.

“Don Roberto,” murmured the apparition with a bow.
“Señores.
If you will come this way?”

They followed the cleric along the back of the nave, down the side aisle and along a passage that opened, surprisingly, into a large open courtyard filled with tropical ferns and palms and with a stone fountain in the centre gushing water of a clarity that compared favourably to that of the Plaza Vieja. Here, after murmuring something in Spanish to Don Roberto, their guide left them and glided off into the surrounding cloisters. Looking up Nathan saw that the building rose above them to the height of several storeys, each with its familiar
balcony, and higher still, above the height of the roof, the fronds of the four palms moved gently in the slight breeze.

This was clearly a place of some magnificence and Nathan raised his brows enquiringly to the consul who smiled as if at some private joke and murmured, “The Seminary of San Carlos and San Ambrosio.” Then as another figure emerged from the shade of the cloisters, “And here is our host, Brother Ignatius.”

Their host, it appeared, was also their informant: a Franciscan monk of middling years with a long, thin countenance which, had it not been browned by the sun, would have resembled an icon of the early Christian martyrs or ascetics, Nathan thought. His first words, however, proposed a more genial nature.

“What will you have to drink?” he enquired in perfect English. “I usually have a
mojito
about this time of the day. The drink of El Draco, which would be appropriate to the occasion, do you not think?”

And so it was
mojitos
all round—a blend of white rum, lime juice and sugared water with a sprig of mint which, legend had it, Francis Drake had introduced to Cuba. It was served to them at a small wrought-iron table by the first monk who glided back with a tray bearing an elegant pitcher and four tall Venetian glasses.

“To His Majesty, King George” said their host, raising his glass. “I understand it is appropriate in the service to deliver the loyal toast seated.”

Clearly Brother Ignatius had been well briefed and not only regarding the loyal toast.

“I am told,” he continued after setting down his glass, “that you are interested in the movements of a certain French frigate and the nature of her business in the region.”

Nathan inclined his head politely, while privately wondering at the nature of the monk's own business for clearly it was not directed entirely towards religious matters.

“I regret that I can add very little to what Don Roberto has already told you,” continued Brother Ignatius, “and my information is now somewhat dated. However,” he drew his hands together as if in
prayer, “the vessel was first mentioned in a despatch to the Captain-General, sent by the Governor of New Orleans early in July.” The hands opened and closed like the wings of a butterfly. “He did not then know her name but it was reported that a French ship of war had landed men and a quantity of arms upon the coast of Louisiana, in a small inlet known as the Bay of Saint Louis, off the Mississippi Sound.”

Nathan exchanged a glance with Imlay. This was a significant addition to what they had learned from the consul. There was more.

“The arms were delivered to a group of French settlers who moved south from the region of Acadia, on the Canadian border. They are normally referred to as Cajuns. You are familiar with the breed?”

Nathan nodded. The Cajuns were from the onetime French colony of Acadia, just south of the Canada border. Many of his grandfather Boucher's servants and farm labourers on his estate on the Hudson had been Cajuns—refugees driven from their homes and their homeland by the persecution of the British colonial governor and by the Scottish and German settlers brought in to replace them. Many more had made the long trek south by oxcart and flatboat down the Mississippi to New Orleans and Louisiana. A restless, restive, romantic people. As a child, Nathan had heard their stories and learned to speak their tongue. They had sung him their songs. He still heard the rhythms in his head.

“Only a handful of men were landed from the ship,” the monk continued, “but we believe their intent was to make a study of the terrain between the coast and New Orleans. And possibly to train the Cajuns in battle, though I would have thought they require very little tuition. As you may be aware, they are organised in military bands, each led by a captain or chief. Many are experienced Indian fighters and some have fought the British.”

“And this was in July?”

“About the second or third week.”

“About the time the
Unicorn
was anchored off Ship Island,” Nathan mused.

“A little earlier than that. I believe the
Virginie
had been and gone before the
Unicorn
arrived.”

“You have heard about the
Unicorn,
then, and the mystery of her missing captain?”

“ I have. Mainly from Don Roberto here. I am afraid I know no more than he has already told you.”

“Leaving the
Unicorn
aside for a moment,” said Imlay, a trifle impatiently, and with a sidelong glance at Nathan, “what of the French settlers? And the agents that were put ashore. Is there any further news of
them?”

“None. They have, as you say, gone to ground.” The monk's command of the English language was near perfect. “Certainly there has been no report of any unusual military activity, though the Governor in New Orleans has warned of the dangers.”

“And there is no further news of the
Virginie?”
Nathan persisted.

“None. Other than that she has been attacking shipping further to the south, in the region of Panama. However, if you will permit me to speculate, I would say that having dropped off the men and weapons, her commander took her out of harm's way until such a time as her assistance was required. And so she avoided the hurricane that struck the region in the second week of August.”

Unlike the
Unicorn.

“It is the Governor's belief—based either upon information received or his own reasoning—that she will return when certain preparations, or dispositions, are made and throw her weight into the equation.”

“So the Governor is convinced that an uprising is inevitable.”

“ Well, he has certainly taken precautions against such an event. He has strengthened his fortifications in New Orleans and is presently on a tour of the forts along the coast.”

“And the reinforcements from Cuba?”

“No. Not as yet.”

There was something in his tone that hinted at criticism here, or more to be said on the subject.

“Do you have any idea why not?” Nathan pressed him.

Brother Ignatius inclined his head towards the consul with an indulgent smile. “Don Roberto thinks it is because the Captain-General is preoccupied with the danger of a revolt among the slaves here in Cuba. I think he has other concerns.”

“Such as?” Imlay's manner was more direct than Nathan would have preferred—or countenanced had he been able to check him without embarrassment.