Caribbee Part 75

"I knew him many years past, Bartholomew. I hope he remembers me better than you do. Though I'm not sure he still considers me a friend after our little falling out."

"Well, sir, I can tell you this much. Things have changed mightily since the old days. Back then he only stole from the pox-eaten Spaniards. Now he and that French b.a.s.t.a.r.d de Poncy rob us all. They take a piece of all the Spaniards' booty we bring in, and then Jacques demands another ten percent for himself, as his 'landing fee.' He even levies a duty on all the hides the hunters bring over from Hispaniola to sell."

De Fontenay glared. "There must always be taxes, anywhere. Jacques is commandant now, and the Chevalier de Poncy has ..."

"Commandant?" Bartholomew snorted. "My lads have another name for him, sir. If he ever dared come down here and meet us, the Englishmen in this port would draw lots to see who got the pleasure of cutting his throat. He knows we can't sail from any other settlement. It's only because he's got those guns up there at the fort, covering the bay, and all his d.a.m.ned guards, that he's not been done away with long before now." He turned back to Winston. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's made himself a dungeon up there beneath the rock, that he calls Purgatory. Go against him and that's where you end up. Few men have walked out of it alive, I'll tell you that."

De Fontenay shifted uneasily and toyed with a curl. "Purgatory will not be there forever, I promise you."

"So you say. But you may just wind up there yourself one day soon, sir, and then we'll likely hear you piping a different tune. Even though you are his _matelot_, which I'll warrant might more properly be called his wh.o.r.e."

"What I am to Jacques is no affair of yours."

"Aye, I suppose the goings-on in the fort are not meant to be known to the honest ships' masters in this port. But we still have eyes, sir, for all that. I know you're hoping that after Jacques is gone, that Frenchman de Poncy will make you commandant of this place, this stinking p.i.s.s-hole. Just because the Code of the _boucaniers_ makes you Jacques' heir. But it'll not happen, sir, by my life. Never."

"Monsieur, enough._ Suffit_!" De Fontenay spat out the words, then turned back to Winston. "Shall we proceed up to the Forte?" He gestured toward the hill ahead. "Or do you intend to stay and spend the night talking with these Anglais _cochons_?"

"My friend, do beware of that old b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Bartholomew caught Winston's arm, and his voice grew cautionary. "G.o.d Almighty, I could tell you such tales. He's daft as a loon these days. I'd be gone from this place in a minute if I could just figure how."

"He tried to kill me once, Master Bartholomew, in a little episode you might recall if you set your mind to it. But I'm still around." Winston nodded farewell, then turned back toward the longboat. John Mewes sat nervously waiting, a flintlock across his lap. "John, take her on back and wait for us. Atiba's coming with me. And no sh.o.r.e leave for anybody till morning."

"Aye." Mewes eyed the drunken seamen as he shoved off. "See you mind yourself, Cap'n. I'll expect you back by sunrise or I'm sendin' the lads to get you."

"Till then." Winston gestured Atiba to move alongside him, then turned back to De Fontenay. "Shall we go."

"_Avec plaisir, Capitaine_. These Anglais who sail for us can be most _dangereux_ when they have had so much brandy." The young Frenchman paused as he glanced uncertainly at Atiba. The tall African towered by Winston's side. "Will your . . . _gentilhomme de service_ be accompanying you?"

"He's with me."

"_Bon_. "He cleared his throat. "As you wish."

He lifted his lantern and, leaving Bartholomew's men singing on the sh.o.r.e, headed up the muddy, torch-lit roadway leading between the cl.u.s.ter of taverns that comprised the heart of Ba.s.se Terre's commercial center.

"How long has it been since you last visited us, Capitaine?" De Fontenay glanced back. "I have been _matelot_ to Jacques for almost three years, but I don't recall the pleasure of welcoming you before this evening."

"It's been a few years. Back before Jacques became governor. "

"Was this your home once, senhor?" Atiba was examining the shopfronts along the street, many displaying piles of silks and jewelry once belonging to the pa.s.sengers on Spanish merchantmen. Along either side, patched-together taverns and brothels spilled their cacophony of songs, curses, and raucous fiddle music into the muddy paths that were streets.

Winston laughed. "Well, it was scarcely like this. There used to be thatched huts along here and piles of hides and smoked beef ready for barter. All you could find to drink in those days was a tankard of cheap kill-devil. But the main difference is the fort up there, which is a noticeable improvement over that rusty set of culverin we used to have down along the sh.o.r.e."

"I gather it must have been a very long time ago. Monsieur, that you were last here." De Fontenay was moving hurriedly past the rickety taverns, heading straight for the palm-lined road leading up the hill to the fort.

"Probably some ten years or so."

"Then I wonder if Jacques will still remember you."

Winston laughed. "I expect he does."

De Fontenay started purposefully up the road. About six hundred yards from the sh.o.r.eline the steep slope of a hill began. The climb was long and tortuous, and the young Frenchman was breathing heavily by the time they were halfway up.

"This place is d.a.m.nable strong, senhor. Very hard to attack,

even with guns." Atiba shifted the cutla.s.s in his belt and peered up the hill, toward the line of torches. He was moving easily, his bare feet molding to the rough rock steps.

"It could never be stormed from down below, that much is sure." Winston glanced back. "But we're not here to try and take this place. He can keep Tortuga and bleed it dry for all I care. I'll just settle for some of those men I saw tonight. If they want to part company with him . .

"Those wh.o.r.esons are not lads who fight," Atiba commented. "They are drunkards."

"They can fight as well as they drink." Winston smiled. "Don't let the brandy fool you."

"Your _brancos_ are a d.a.m.nable curiosity, senhor." He grunted. "I am waiting to see how my peoples here live, the slaves."

"The _boucaniers_ don't cut cane, so they don't have slaves."

"Then mayhaps I will drink with them."

"You'd best hold that till after we're finished with Jacques, my friend." Winston glanced up toward the fort. "Just keep I your cutla.s.s handy."

They had reached the curving row of steps that led through the arched gateway of the fortress. Above them a steep wall of cut stone rose up against the dark sky, and across the top, illuminated by torches, was the row of culverin. Sentries armed with flintlocks, in helmets and flamboyant Spanish coats, barred the gateway till de Fontenay waved them aside. Then guards inside unbolted the iron gate and they moved up the final stairway.

Winston realized the fort had been built on a natural plateau, with terraces inside the walls which would permit several hundred musketmen to fire unseen down on the settlement below. From somewhere in the back he could hear the gurgle of a spring--meaning a supply of fresh water, one of the first requirements of a good fortress.

Jacques had found a natural redoubt and fortified it brilliantly. All the settlement and the harbor now were under his guns. Only

the mountain behind, a steep precipice, had any vantage over Forte de la Roche.

"Senhor, what is that?" Atiba was pointing toward the ma.s.sive boulder, some fifty feet wide and thirty feet high, that rested in the center of the yard as though dropped there by the hand of G.o.d.

Winston studied it, puzzling, then noticed a platform atop the rock, with several cannon projecting out. A row of brick steps led halfway up the side, then ended abruptly. When they reached the base, de Fontenay turned back.

"The citadel above us is Jacques's personal residence, what he likes to call his 'dovecote.' It will be necessary for you to wait here while I ask him to lower the ladder."

"The ladder?"

"_Mais oui_, a security measure. No one is allowed up there without his consent."

He called up, identified himself, and after a pause the first rungs of a heavy iron ladder appeared through an opening in the platform. Slowly it began to be lowered toward the last step at the top of the stair.

Again de Fontenay hesitated. "Perhaps it might be best if I go first, Messieurs. Jacques is not fond of surprises."

"He never was." Winston motioned for Atiba to stay close.

De Fontenay hung his lantern on a bra.s.s spike at the side of the stairs, then turned and lightly ascended the rungs. From the platform above, two musketmen covered his approach with flintlocks. He saluted them, then disappeared.

As Winston waited, Atiba at his side, he heard a faint human voice, a low moaning sound, coming from somewhere near their feet. He looked down and noticed a doorway at the base of the rock, leading into what appeared to be an excavated chamber. The door was of thick hewn logs with only a small grate in its center.