Wild Card

“My only concern is that the lute has arrived without delay.”

“Be a foul surprise if it hasn’t… though you’d imagine Javier and Leon would’ve reported such news to us.”

Morpaign considered that and nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “One would imagine so.”

The overseer remained standing behind him. “Will you accompany the first haul, sir, or wait here till the last?” he said.

“I’ll go out with the first.” Morpaign finally turned from the platform. “It’s a pleasant evening, and I would much prefer the ocean air to the closeness of this tunnel.”

Didier nodded, grunted his hurried orders at the slaves. “These hard-muscled bulls should get it done in here,” he said to Morpaign. “Meanwhile, I’d better take some of ‘em into the storeroom and fire up the lamps.”

A moment later he turned back through the archway, leading the rest of the men out.

Silent, his arms folded over his chest, Morpaign watched the slaves who’d remained behind with him stoop to their task. Whether on his estate grounds or the Tobago plantation, it was Morpaign’s strict rule of house to address the males in his workforce only through his overseers. The slaves for their part were forbidden from ever speaking a direct word to him, or so much as looking him in the eye. And while there were nights when Morpaign found himself gripped by the desire for a closer and more intimate contact with his negresse housemaid, Jaqueline — nights when he would slip from his wife’s side to her quarters, and tell her how to satisfy his cravings in clear and bluntly expressed terms — he considered this an exception that came with his privilege of ownership, a secret and guarded affair to be kept locked away as if in a hidden strongbox.

But such thoughts had no place in his mind during a run. A touch annoyed with himself for letting them enter it, Morpaign had watched his laborers boost the casks of rum atop the pushcarts, lash them securely together to prevent any from toppling over, and then roll them out into the passage. There they joined Didier and the others, who had left the second chamber with their own creaking, weighted-down carts.

Morpaign brought up the rear as they continued on into the tunnel, bumping through its curves and bends by the trembling light of Didier’s lantern.

Half an hour passed before they began their climb to the surface. Morpaign felt a trickle of ocean breeze against his cheek and knew they were nearing the tunnel’s outlet, a limestone cave worn into the hills above the beach by time, weather, and constantly percolating groundwater.

The passage floor soon grew steeper and less uneven, the dirt underfoot giving way to a sort of natural stone ramp. The slaves put their backs to hauling the loads the rest of the way up, pushing at the carts with increased effort.

They had been toiling over this last hump, the cave mouth just ahead, when Morpaign noticed an odd red- orange glow staining the patch of sky visible beyond its rough circle. While seemingly at a distance, it was brighter by far than the moonlight… bright enough to render Didier’s upraised lantern unnecessary.

Puzzled, Morpaign stopped flatfooted. The workers had also come to a sudden halt, jamming the passage before him, the wheels of their heavy carts ceasing to turn and rattle over its bare rock floor. Didier stood slightly below its exit sniffing the air.

Morpaign found himself doing the same. A thick, acrid stench had mingled with the smell of sea salt filtering underground.

“Smoke,” Didier said. He sniffed again, wiped his nose with his calloused knuckles. “From a great fire, I’d say.”

Morpaign gave no comment. The fool had stated the profoundly obvious. Something was burning. Something large. Not on the hills, or the beach, but beyond, upon the water.

He scuffed past the slaves and barrel carts, ignoring his own policy of address to urge them out of his way, heedless of soiling his fashionable coat against the cave wall.

“Move aside,” he said. “All of you, aside now.”

Pushing his ample frame around Didier, he hurried up the remaining few feet to the tunnel’s mouth, left it a step ahead of the overseer.

The sight he encountered outside the cave stole the breath from his lungs.

Just ahead of him, Javier and Leon lay sprawled on their backs near the horse carriage, blood sheeting over their faces from ugly gaping wounds between their eyes. Perhaps ten or twelve coarse, bearded men in short jackets and sailor’s slops ringed the wagon in a loose knot. All of them were armed with cutlasses — some of the blades drawn, some still in belt scabbards at their sides — and a few shouldered muskets or blunderbusses as well. Another man stood nearer the cave entrance, his poised appearance and almost officerlike garb distinguishing him from the rest. Clean-shaven, his black hair pulled into a pigtail under a colorfully plumed bicorn hat, he wore a single-breasted frock, waistcoat, breeches, and knee boots. Tucked into a leather bandolier across his chest were five flintlock pistols, three on his right hip, two on his left.

A sixth was in his hand and aimed at Morpaign.

“Damn my eyes,” Didier muttered. He pointed down at the murdered slave hands, his mouth agape. “Will you look at this?”

The man in the bicorn hat was silent, paying no attention to him, holding his weapon steady on Morpaign, keeping it level with his heart.

Morpaign lifted his gaze from its barrel to the gunman’s face.

“What have you done here?” he said, his lip quivering with shock and outrage.

A moment went by. The man creased his brow in mock confusion, as if only then becoming aware of the bodies.

“Ah, your chattel, forgive me,” he said in French.

“ ’Twas unfortunate they had to be put down, but I saw no surer way to prevent them from warning you of our arrival.” He shrugged. “My men were gentler with the sailors they took captive.”

It was Morpaign’s turn to stand without response, his eyes shifting back to the weapon that had been trained on him. He’d kept enough of his wits to notice the ornate cartouches on its gold-plated barrel… notice that and a good deal besides. At the extreme right corner of his vision, he could see the lute burning offshore, enveloped in fierce, ragged shrouds of flame, black blots of smoke swirling upward into the night from its lofty spars and crosstrees. A square-rigged brigantine with wide, sweeping sails sat in the water off to starboard, dark figures milling about its upper deck, cannons turned toward the beleaguered charter vessel.

Morpaign had instantly known there would be a Jolly Roger fluttering high atop the brig’s masthead, known it must have slipped into the bay to take the merchantman while it rested at anchor, coming up broadside with its batteries trained and ready…

“Permit me to introduce myself,” the gunman said, speaking English this time. Then he paused and seemed to catch his tongue: “Je suis desole. Permettez-moi de me presenter—”

“I know who you are, pirate.” Morpaign glanced at the flames out in the cove, felt a different sort of angry combustion inside him. “Redbone Baxter’s notoriety precedes him.”

The man with the flintlock shrugged again.

“The names of pirates and gentlemen carry many leagues in the wind, Lord Morpaign,” he said. “In fact, I’ve grown to believe they travel furthest going in a shared direction… but only while the wind continues to blow strong.”

Morpaign had managed to regain some of his composure. “You spout nonsense and riddles,” he said.

“No.” Baxter shook his head. “I make you a proposal. A straightforward offer of partnership.”

Morpaign stood looking at him with disbelief. The man had attacked his charter, brought a raiding party ashore to plunder his shipment, executed his slaves without apparent qualm. How dare he speak now of partnership?

“If this is true,” he said, “it merely proves your madness.”

Again Baxter shook his head.

“Mine is no lunatic idea,” he said. “There are stirrings in North America that cannot be quieted by all the rivers of grog the colonists pour down their throats. In Charlestown, where your barrels were to be smuggled past harbor agents to avoid the threepence duties, the Tea Act puts new heat to tempers certain to boil over into rebellion. Whether this comes in months, a year, or two years, I cannot predict. But come it will. And whatever