Wild Card

PROLOGUE

Morpaign supposed he might have known it would turn to his advantage. When all was said and done, he could rely on his sharp nose for profit, and his knack for finding opportunity even in ill circumstance, to take him far along in the world.

Looking out over the water, Lord Claude Morpaign truly might have realized the flames would burn a pathway to bigger and better things. But he didn’t pause to consider the larger picture, not right at once, standing there in his moment of stunned discovery. His thoughts, like the merchant vessel, were on fire, seething with inexpressible anger. There had been no call for the sea wolf to flex his muscle in so brutal a manner. He could have made a persuasive offer without setting the ship ablaze and, worse, putting two able-bodied slaves to their violent deaths. Whatever the reasons, his tactics were excessive… unless the killing and destruction were carried out solely for his own relish, putting his bloodthirsty nature into full view.

While Morpaign would never have certain evidence of this, the suspicion later grew strong within him. And no man’s heart would prove more like Redbone Baxter’s than his own in the final reckoning.

Leaving the main house at twilight, Morpaign had anticipated an uneventful, matter-of-course run. His chief overseer, Didier, had met him at their prearranged spot with a team of slaves handpicked for their trustworthiness and experience working in the tunnel. As usual, a separate pair of slaves had brought a horse-drawn wagon around the skirts of the forest, ready for their fellows to emerge from down below. Once the load was on the wagon, the entire group would ride a short distance up the strand and transfer the barrels from their carriage to waiting longboats. From there the laden boats were to head out toward the New England — bound merchant vessel under Morpaign’s attentive eye.

Routine as routine could be, such was his business at the start.

The head of the tunnel was just past the edge of the woods near the southern boundary of Morpaign’s vast estate, its opening screened by tropical underbrush and covered with a mat of packed sod and twigs. Thirty or forty feet beyond the entrance a stone chimney top projected from the forest floor amid the obscuring vegetation.

Didier had led the group through the woods in his tattered, begrimed muslins and laborer’s cap, a lantern swaying in his hand as dusk fell heavily over the island. He’d come to the loose section of turf, flapped it back, raised the hinged trapdoor underneath, and descended some narrow wooden stairs, followed in single file by the slaves.

Morpaign took up the rear, careful to avoid brushing his embroidered silk dress frock against the moist, grubby walls of the passage. Although he’d rather have worn clothes more befitting the night’s task, an unexpected late-day visit by his father-in-law, the Spanish governor, had left him rushed and unable to change into them before his rendezvous, squandering much of the afternoon besides.

As he reached the tunnel floor, Morpaign had taken some fair consolation knowing his night would not be likewise wasted.

Still leading the rest by several paces, Didier had moved on through the gloom, removed the candle from his lantern, and, one at a time, lit the oil lamps hanging in niches along the masonry walls to either side of him. Their rag wicks ignited with little flumps of displaced air as he went down the line.

“These lamps are quick to take and brighten, never mind the dank,” he said to Morpaign. “The stuff fueling’em ought to be bottled and sold.”

“So you’ve urged in the past.”

“And will again, seigneur. You could price it cheaper than whale oil an’ still outprofit those who market it abroad… cheaper by more’n half, I’d think,” Didier said. “The pitch lake’s near bottomless, and skimming barrels of mineral oil from its surface would take naught but labor that’s already been put t’work there dredging caulk. Best of all, you’d have no middleman showing his eager palm for a commission.”

Morpaign gave the Breton a look of mildly amused condescension. In his hire for many years, Didier spoke a coarse rustic French that still sometimes thwarted an ear attuned to the more refined speech of Versailles aristocrats. Yet for all his lowbred crudity he was valuable for his protective instincts — like some loyal and duteous mongrel dog.

“It is one thing to separate enough of the bitumen for our own use,” Morpaign said. “Show me how to filter it from that stinking tar in volume and I’ll heed your suggestion.” And praise the superior intellect behind it, he thought with a pinched little smile. “Until then I shall be content to market the spirits we’ve drummed up beneath the ground.”

He waved a fleshy hand toward an archway in the wall to his right. Large enough for three big men to pass through abreast, it was swamped with shadows, as was the recess beyond.

The overseer merely shrugged and then turned into the darkened chamber. Putting his candle to its lamps, he motioned for the carriers to join him.

Again, Morpaign went last, in his perpetual caution.

An approximate rectangle, the chamber was much deeper than wide. Charred oak casks lined the walls to either side of Morpaign, resting on their flat, round heads in even rows. In a corner near the entrance was a stall holding some open-framed wooden pushcarts.

Morpaign paused beneath the arch, his nostrils tickled by the smell of burned tinder… and more faintly underneath it, the pungent, mingled aromas of cinnamon and bay.

He strode past the carts in the lamplight then, his gaze reaching out to a pair of great brick kettles across the chamber. The double firebox base on which they stood off the dirt floor had been similarly built of bricks; behind it, a shared flue rising aboveground matched the sooty gray stone-and-mortar construction of the tunnel walls. Two wooden barrels, each taller than a grown man, stood flanking either end of the base, their lids connected with an array of thin, curved iron pipes.

Morpaign went over to the assembly and regarded it with quiet satisfaction. His pot distillery was small, its production far surpassed by others in the islands — but it had been barely a year since he’d relocated from Haiti at his father-in-law’s invitation, and most of his efforts since had been directed toward settling his household. Even when the still reached peak output, moreover, there would be limits imposed by the need to keep it buried out of sight. While the British navy and Morpaign’s hosts from the Spanish capital were generally at violent cross-purposes, it was ironic that they might have a common will to block his illicit trade.

He rubbed his chin in thought, his back toward Didier and the slaves. “How much of our stock is ready to go tonight?”

“There are twenty-two aged barrels in the storeroom, besides the fourteen you see around us,” Didier said.

Morpaign did a hasty mental computation.

“Over six thousand liters of spiced, total,” he said. “Very good.”

“Oui,” Didier said. “We’ll be moving the rum in two or three trips. And I expect those rowers will have to do the same before our full cargo’s loaded aboard their ship.”

“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 négresse 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 désolé. Permettez-moi de me présenter—”

“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 befalls afterward, I have no doubt that George the Third’s import taxes will be crammed up his royal arse, rendering extinct those who now profit from running contraband.” Baxter paused, showed a hint of a smile. “It would be wise of you to make the most of the present, m’lord… and wiser still to prepare for changes that are bound to occur in the future.”

Morpaign continued standing there in silence. He had been tempted to give vent to his fury, reject Baxter outright no matter the consequences — but something made him hesitate.

“Let us allow your remarks for a moment,” he said. “What have I to gain from linking myself to a bandit’s fortunes?”

Baxter returned his stare, his smile growing in size.

“It is through this bandit that you can expand your trade beyond measure,” he said. “I have picked my way along smuggling routes known only to a shrewd and adventurous handful, and made contacts who will be become indispensable when the black marketeer’s day is done in the Caribbean. The quantity of spiced rum you sell the northern colonists is but a fraction of what I can move. Double your production, triple it, you’ll gain buyers from Rhode Island to Georgia. And it needn’t end there. Give me raw cane by the cropload, hogsheads of molasses to fill a ship’s hold from top to bottom. I can guarantee their ready distribution.”

“And your share of the take?”

“An equal cut… no more, no less.” Baxter’s eyes gleamed. “You see, lord, I am ready to check my natural greed for our common purpose.”

Morpaign had fallen still again, hands clenched into tight balls at his sides, beads of perspiration gathering in the furrow above his upper lip. His hatred of having to stand at another man’s mercy was almost choking in its intensity, matching only his disdain for the brigand’s swagger. And yet…

And yet despite all that, he could not have pretended to ignore the sharp bite of curiosity, and the tantalizing sense that it might be pursued to some unforeseen and illimitable gain. No, not even at point of gun, with the dead still pouring their blood into the ground under his feet.

“You fail to account for British maritime patrols,” he’d said in a deliberately hedging tone. “The cargo once aboard that merchantman is in your hands. Should you have found undeclared goods aboard, they would have been limited to inconspicuous quantities, stowed where they might have slipped past inspection. But a pirate vessel loaded with contraband… how could it elude the admiralty?”

Baxter laughed. It was a cold, somehow arrogant outburst that would echo in Morpaign’s thoughts very often in times to come, always inseparable from his recollection of molten red fireglow that had risen high into the black roof of the night.

“Now there’s the tickler,” he said. “I have become the admirality’s arm, lord. No longer pirate but privateer in its service. With the King’s colors flying from my masthead, and a letter of marque in my breast pocket, I am warranted to board vessels hostile to the empire and seize any illicit freight for a prize.” He grinned broadly, nodded in the direction of the torched vessel below. “Nothing could be safer from interdiction than a shipment carried under my banner.”

Morpaign looked at him for a long moment, opened his mouth to speak… and then shut it, his attention drawn by a sudden movement over to his right.

Didier, he realized. The impulsive, loose-lipped fool had turned from the bodies of the slaves, his face contorted with anger.

“That what cleared him to blow the brains out o’ our two best and strongest, seigneur?” he blurted, pointing at Baxter. “Or was his trigger finger actin’ on its own?”

Baxter’s grin pulled in at the edges but remained on his lips. He straightened, whirled on his heel, and swung his pistol toward the gesticulating overseer.

“Noise for noise,” he said.

His gun crashed and spouted flame. The horses tethered to the wagons reared up with fear, their tails flicking, front hooves kicking at the air. Morpaign heard Didier scream, saw him fall to the ground clutching his kneecap with both hands.

Baxter spared a moment to glance down at his whimpering victim, gave out an audible cluck of his tongue. Then he lowered the gun’s smoking barrel and turned back to Morpaign, his expression that of someone who had tolerated a fleeting, barely consequential interruption.

“Patch the sorry creature and he will survive — lame but better behaved,” he said. “Now I’d hear your response to my offer.”

Still struck with astonishment, Morpaign raised his eyes from where the overseer lay bleeding and crumpled near the murdered slaves.

“And if I decline?” he said, gathering himself together.

“I’d consider it a business decision and bear no grudge,” Baxter said. He nodded back toward the wagon, the flintlock resting against his hip. “That shipment of rum would adequately curb my disappointment as we part ways.”

The two men did not speak for a tense minute, the silence about them penetrated only by Didier’s sobs, the stamping and snorting of the horses, and the whispered exchanges of the stunned, frightened laborers inside the cave. They were peering out its mouth at the latest victim to fall before the gun, and Morpaign again found himself doing the same. Writhing in agony, his knee gushing, the overseer was a bad sight. If his wound was not tended soon, he would suffer the worst for his impulsive mouthings.

There was, however, a decision that needed to be reached first. His mind working, Morpaign gazed past Baxter at his ragtag band of sea rovers. Gathered around the wagon and its agitated team of horses, they returned his scrutiny with hard stares, the light of the flames over the water glinting off their blades.

Through me you can expand your trade beyond measure, Baxter had said. It was a bold declaration, yes. But could anything have made it easier to believe than the brazen ruthlessness of his actions?

Finally Morpaign returned his attention to Baxter, his bunched fists loosening at his sides.

Through wreck and violence, through blood and fire, his path had become clear. And more than that, or so it felt.

In the unreality of the moment, it all might have been a consecration of his destiny.

“Doing business with you,” he said with intent slowness, “shall be my pleasure.”

Redbone Baxter smiled. Then he holstered his flintlock, slipped another from his bandolier, and held it out by the long gold-plated barrel. Its elaborate scrollwork was similar to what Morpaign had seen on the first pistol, but here he also noticed a gleaming silver butt cap cast as a demonic face with narrow eyes, grotesquely distorted features… and, Morpaign thought, a grin of cold, insolent delight eerily similar to the one on Baxter’s face.

Or so it appeared to him, at least, in the tricky light and shadows hurled by the soaring, distant flames.

“Take the pistol as a gift, and consider it a symbol of our newborn alliance,” Baxter said. “May it endure for many long and profitable years.”

Morpaign nodded and accepted the gun.

“Long years, indeed,” he said, wrapping his fingers around its demon-headed stock.