Читать книгу Princess of the Blood - Roxana Malaventura - Страница 7

My Sailing-Master was the first to answer. “How do ye even know, Ma’am, that the wretch is French?”

“That, Mr. O’Sullivan, is plain logic. His note was written in Spanish and he sought to trap me aboard an English ship. He can only be French.”

Bonaparte, the Quartermaster, interjected. “Beg pardon, Ma’am, but how could a Frenchie know the Orion would have been deserted that night? Or that a squad of Royal Marines would be there to arrest ye on the dock and cart ye back to Kingston?”

“Obviously they were there to arrest whomever came ashore alive – my enemy did not expect it to be me. Commodore Barnet is ambitious – that much is common knowledge – and hopes for the hand of the Governor’s niece. Barnet is as low-born as either of you, and His Excellency detests him, so it pleased him, I’m certain, to order the Commodore to put Orion up as bait. Never under-estimate the Governor – he knows perfectly well the tale I told him was a parcel of lies; he is as ruthless as a Mongol and twice as cunning. What he wants is to see Barnet chasing me all over the ocean while he gets his precious little niece married off to someone with a seat in the Lords.”

Nebuchadnezzar O’Sullivan’s bearded face wore a perplexed expression – “Beg pardon, Ma’am,” he said, “but how does any o’ that bear on this unknown Frenchie’s plan to trap ye aboard Orion with a note writ in Spanish?”

“Ned, do not act the dunce,” I snapped, “Polly, fetch me my note-case at once.” Polly was at that moment reclining on his couch, a thin trail of perfumed tobacco-smoke curling from his perfectly oval nostrils as he stared languidly into the bubbling water of his elegant Moroccan sheeshah. Leaping to his feet with the grace of a cat, in a second he had placed my note-case before me. Opening it, I withdrew the Spanish note and unfolded it upon the table. Written by an elegant hand in flawless Castilian, on thick, white, watermarked paper; it was signed Su amigo secreto.

As the language was unfamiliar to my companions, I began to pronounce a translation – keeping as close to the literal words of the original as sense permits:

Most esteemed Señorita of beauty most terrifying,

From my patron, his Grace the Duke of X, whose identity I would give my life to keep secret, greetings.

“And who in all the seven seas might the Duke of X be?”

I met the lanky quartermaster’s interruption with a look, and continued:

As a sorry consequence of treason and treachery erupting from the late wars, my master invites the Lady Malaventura to meet both his ambassador and that of a power soon to achieve greatness. The meeting will take place within the great cabin of a certain man’o’war berthed at Montego bay tomorrow evening, at eleven o’clock. The matters to be discussed will be of immense interest to a Lady with the means to take advantage of an unlikely alliance.

I beg to remain, Señorita, your obedient servant and

Your secret friend.

Turning to the Quartermaster, whose eyes showed clearly that he had no intention of speaking again before being invited to do so, I said, “Mr. Bonaparte, the mystery is not the identity of the enigmatic Duke – I want to find the man who wrote this note. My reason should be obvious – there was no Duke; it was the most blatant trap and I walked into it.

“Begging’ yer pard’n, Ma’am,” he replied, tugging his forelock.

“Yes, Mr. Bonaparte?”

“Beg pard’n, but what if there were a mysterious Duke, he’d be a foreign gentleman, now would he not? Who’s to say there b’ain’t some game afoot, and we’d by right unlucky not to be a-playin’ it, don’t ye say?”

This was Hasdrubal Bonaparte’s way of saying that every endocrine gland in his body was pumping furiously at the faintest hint, however deeply buried in falsehood, of the prospect of loot in the words “immense interest.” I choose not to comment on the irony, given his own incomprehensible parentage, in his use of the phrase “foreign gentleman” and neither should the Reader. One must accept certain prejudices as they arise – to a buccaneer like Bonaparte, or anyone in my crew, for that matter, “foreign” merely meant “not English”. “foreign gentlemen” were almost by definition scheming and untrustworthy, while an Englishman was so hopelessly addicted to fair play he would always come at you, gun-ports open, in broad daylight, with good cause or without it.

“Bonaparte, please, if you have something to say, please say it.”

“Well, Ma’am, d’ye see, methinks we’d better lay off a lee shore and await the Orion. She sails at dawn – one of her midshipmen mentioned it to me while I held a gully knife agin his ear…”

“Whither was she bound?”

“That the boy did not know, Ma’am, of that I’m sure. But once she sets a course, ye may choose whether to stalk her or o’ertake her –Hecate can give her three or four knots an any weather – the choice’ll be your’n.”

“Permission to speak, Ma’am?” Ned O’Sullivan was an infrequent talker; when he had something to say it was generally worth one’s bother to listen.

“Go ahead, Sailing-Master.”

“Ma’am, I think what Mister Bonaparte is like to say, only his words lack a wind, if ye follow me, is that it may make for a happier voyage if we were after some grander prize, as well as vengeance, Ma’am.”

“You insolent, mangy, scurvy, disloyal dogs!” I cried, outraged. “Do you think Hecate sails for the sake of your purses? Is your loyalty so slight I must nail a doubloon to the mast to bring ye with me?” Not that I would, of course, but it’s a cracker of an idea for a sea-story.

“Nay Ma’am, nay, never! You know full well there be not a man among us would not bleed and breathe his last to see you avenged, nor a man will not follow any course ye set, to Hell or worse, if ye but set it. ‘Tis only that ye have not set a proper course – Tortuga, ye called for, and aye, to Tortuga ‘tis we sail now, but Ma’am, to what end? In Tortuga we may find good rum a-plenty, and bad women to help us drink it, and every cut-throat dog in the world if we bide there long enough. What worries Mister Bonaparte and me,” here he paused to look for encouragement from his shipmate, who gave it with a nod, “What worries Mister Bonaparte and me is a certain man on Tortuga who will be more pleased to see ye than is decent, and, begging your pard’n, Ma’am, who…”

“Go on, Ned,” said I, my voice low and as icy as I could make it. Hasdrubal Bonaparte nodded again, sucking his teeth in dread anticipation of my wrath, but determined to ride out the storm he was sure would break.

“Aye, Ned, go on,” he repeated.

“Well, Ma’am, it’s this man, this Cap’n Bonnet. We know your business is your own affair…”

“It is well, O’Sullivan, that you did not choose those words in the contrary order, for the dagger of my wrath hangs over your head by the slenderest thread.”

“Aye, Ma’am, but ye know me well enough these many a year to be sure that to be sayin’ what I’m a-sayin’ is like rowin’ a laden boat upriver ‘gainst a gale. If ye choose to flog me for what I say, I’ll take ev’ry stroke ye give me, and with a light enough heart, but I beg ye but to hear me out.”

“All right, O’Sullivan, but remember, no man knows better than you that I am known for neither leniency nor mercy.” Of course, I knew full well what he would say, and in my heart I knew he was right, but I would as soon fall overboard as let any man know it.

“Ma’am, this Cap’n Bonnet ye spent so much time with at Michaelmas – we cannot blame him for being a rogue and a thief, but Ma’am, he’s nowt but a farmer’s son with a bit o’ genteel blood. I’ve heard tell, Ma’am, that the ship he sailed were not even won in a fight – she were bought, from a broker,” here, O’Sullivan’s lip curled into a murderous scowl of disbelief and his voice lowered by a full octave, “from a broker, for cash.”

In his understanding, not the blackest flag could hide such a stain.

If I learned one thing from my mother, it was to know the difference between wanting a man and needing one. I need no man, but when I want one, he needs neither brains nor breeding – he needs fresh linen, coherent speech, clean fingernails, plenty of stamina and no conscience. Stede Bonnet was perfect, a man with enough wind in his jib to close with me, grapple and board me, but a man I could cast away with the galley-slops when I chose. But if one thing on earth could strike fear into the hearts of my crew, it was the thought that I might become the servant, or slave, of any man. I choose to let that fear dwell in them, for it is no fear of mine. Ned was half-right, of course – Bonnet was no seafarer: he had, I knew, bought himself a command, probably with money he got from his wife, after making a failure at crop-farming in Newfoundland, or some such place. What Ned did not know was that Stede Bonnet had in his possession a scrap of parchment on which was marked one part of a document of greater worth than any treasure in the Spanish Main.

What neither Ned nor Hasdrubal knew was that I had glimpsed the corner of a similar scrap when the Governor of Jamaica opened that mahogany chest he kept by his side.

What none of them knew was that there was a matching scrap hidden in my cabin, and what I did not know was whether Bonnet or His Excellency knew the meaning, or the value, of their scraps of parchment.

“Polly!” I called, “Where are you?” In a moment he appeared, his costume augmented by a magnificent double-starnd pearl necklace and a fathom of gold chain. One hand held a slender Cuban cigar, the other a long rawhide whip. I swear, that young man will die trying to impress me.

“Fetch everything from my bookcase that deals with the ruling houses of Europe,” I ordered, “family trees, treaties, marriages, obituaries, that sort of thing.”

“Past, present, or future?”

“Current.”

“Aye, Ma’am.”

A minute later he returned, with half-a-dozen thick volumes and a wad of loose papers. These we spread about the great table, seeking amongst their tables of genealogy and inheritance, their treaties and marriage-contracts, some clue to the identity of my enemy, my anonymous nemesis.

At this point it would be possible, but not profitable, to bore the Reader with a narrative of significant events which shaped the history of the decades closing the seventeenth century and opening the eighteenth. They were decades of wars won and lost, of alliances made and broken, of royal marriages and royal murders, a tale too convoluted to abridge and too muddled to tell in full. I must ask the Reader to comprehend that for the space of a lifetime the thrones and crowns of Europe were prizes in a game played by a generation of inbred and incompetent princelings who carelessly squandered fortunes, fleets and armies trying to sire heirs on each other’s sisters and steal each other’s mistresses at the same time. Every one of these petty despots would cheerfully sacrifice his nearest rival to his deadliest enemy. If sense can be made of a time when upon the English throne sat a protestant Dutchman whose first language was French, while the Catholic Spanish were ruled by a bastard who swore fealty to a Holy Roman Emperor who was the German vassal of an Italian Pope, it cannot be made in these pages. Dear Reader, if you must read about it, go away and do so, but I vouch not to say where I shall be when you return.

After several tedious hours wandering through the labyrinth Polly had spread before us, I swear by Hecate’s figurehead each of us was as perplexed as another, until finally Ned spoke up:

“Beggin’ yer pard’n, Ma’am, but ‘tis sure thirsty work we’re about, and one or twain o’ these papers be a mite difficult to digest with a dry throat.” As he spoke, the Sailing-master was leaning back in a chair, both boot-heels on the table, turning this way and that a parchment upon which were delineated the intricate interweavings of the Hohenzollern family tree. Ned’s utter illiteracy being an open secret aboard Hecate, and the falsehoods embodied in the genealogy of that famous family being an open secret all over Europe, the irony of this remark was not lost.

My Quartermaster, who for all I knew was a graduate of a dozen different universities, was at that moment cross-referencing the casualty-lists of the battles of Ushant, Quiberon Bay and Cape St. Vincent, seeking any plausible candidate for my vengeance. Doubtless his research preferred those with portable fortunes above those with ancient titles, but so far his enquiries had been unrewarded. “Aye Ned,” he replied, “Ma’am, perhaps something to lubricate the investigation?”

“Polly!” I called, and in an instant my cabin-boy, who can only have been listening at the key-hole, drove his cocktail-trolley into the cabin. This astonishing vehicle he kept, by some Polynesian magic, ever stocked, ever at the ready to deliver whatever refreshment a circumstance demanded. Neither blockade nor embargo ever prevented Polly from procuring copious supplies of the most exotic spirits, elixirs and garnishes. Nor did he fail to appear bitterly crestfallen when, as ever, he was required to prepare rum-and-water for my lieutenants, and my own dirty martini with a pinch of pepper and a fat Aleppo olive. Polly’s dissatisfaction was mended by my invitation to make something for himself, though he could not do so without dashing away to change into a rather fetching emerald-green negligée trimmed with blood-red marabou, topped with a sequin-encrusted turban. Thus attired, he contentedly occupied a quarter-hour compiling a rainbow-hued concoction from which he sipped deliriously.

Some hours later, after sufficient rum had traversed Bonaparte’s tonsils to allow him to forget entirely that it had been his idea in the first place, I gave orders to come about and anchor in a sheltered cove scarce a league from the entrance to Montego Bay. There we would lie in wait for Orion, see whose pennant waved from her fore-top, and follow her whithersoever she went. I dispatched O’Sullivan and Bonaparte to their hammocks, bade Polly get into my own bed to warm it, and took a turn on deck alone.

Had I skill in words, I might attempt to describe the sensations perturbing my pounding heart. The moon had lately set below the horizon; uncountable stars glittered enchantingly in the heavens and the long, steady swell of the Caribbean sent a rippling phosphorescence across the waters, casting glistening spears of multi-coloured light that shattered like tiny, silent icicles against the hull. The rhythm of that unending swell pulsed like a heartbeat through the soles of my boots, drumming in the sinews of my calves and thighs, singing in my loins the sweet, stirring song of revenge. The mingled scents of salt and blood were in my nostrils and lust was in my heart.

Without a thought, without a reason, without a glance, I found the little dagger in my boot-top, and pressed it to my palm. Pricking with a tiny thrust, I bared a breast and smeared my own blood against it, swearing to Hecate, the witch-queen-goddess, that I would grasp my enemy’s heart in my hands and offer it, still beating, to her, her to choose whether to let it beat on, or to still it forever.

Inflamed, enraptured, I returned to my cabin. Polly lay asleep in my bed, a single fragrant candle illuminating his innocent face and the counterpane arranged around his magnificent torso creating a picture so enticing no artist could resist, or reproduce it. Shrugging off my blouse and skirt, I studied my reflection: a woman’s body, no longer a girl, but still firm and proud, a mass of jet-black curls cascading down my shoulders and a bloody hand-print on my naked bosom.

“Help me off with my boots, Polly,” I asked. With exaggerated courtesy, and with quaint contortions intended, I am certain, to keep hidden the fact that he was – there is no more polite expression for it – aroused, he peeled my boots off while pretending not to look at those parts of me with which I wield a power I can readily command, but not always control. I stretched back upon the mattress – indicating the stain on my breast, I begged him do what he might to cleanse it. I suppose he may have paled, or even blushed, but the effect of either under his nutmeg-coloured skin was imperceptible, and with a square of linen moistened at the gorgeous (if anachronistic) Sèvres ewer on my nightstand, he bent over me and dabbed tenderly at my bosom. In this posture it was futile to conceal the now much-amplified state of his excitement.

* * * * *

“Off you go now,” I said at last, “breakfast at six bells, thank you. Coffee, toast and marmalade, perhaps a boiled egg if there is one.”

And you, Dear Reader, may imagine what lies behind that modest curtain of asterisks, but never know.