Corsair (7 page)

Balliardo turned his face away from Secco, spitting blood. He coughed a few times, shook his head and then muttered: “There have been rumours that the English governor has gone mad. I suppose the governor at Barranquilla is curious. The Viceroy in Panama even. It is a strange thing to do, you must admit.”

Secco laughed drily. “The English do strange things from time to time. But never rely on it.”

“I will not,” Balliardo said politely, “and thank you for the advice.”

“Where is the mayor’s house?” Ned asked.

“The big white building past the church.”

“And the priest’s?”

“Just before the church there are three big kapok trees. The priest’s house is right beside the middle one.”

“This comedian knows nothing,” Ned said in English. “He is just a parrot repeating words put in his mouth. I think we’ll call on the governor.”

Thomas nodded. “Just a moment. The governor wants to know about disbanding the Army, so do you think Spain intends to make our King give the island back – make him keep to that secret treaty?”

“Perhaps, though I can’t see the merchants in London staying quiet about it: they are investing money out here, and Jamaica is the key to the Caribbee.”

“Who does the governor of the province get
his
orders from?” Thomas asked.

“The Viceroy, I suppose, who hears direct from Spain.”

“I wonder how much the Viceroy told the governor.”

“Well, we can’t get the Viceroy, but the governor is ours for the taking. He’s an important figure: there aren’t many provinces, and this is the one nearest Jamaica.”

“Let’s hope he talks,” Thomas said.

“There’s no rush,” Ned said bluntly. “We can take him with us.”

“Yes, and the bishop; they would make good hostages. I wonder how much ransom they’re worth? What about this apology?” he said, gesturing at Balliardo.

“We’ll leave him here. Somebody will find him. What he did to Coles and Gottlieb – what he would have done to them in the end – doesn’t make me want to unlock him. In fact, I’d sooner throw the keys into the sea. Come on, let’s go.”

He led the way out of the dungeon, up to the courtyard and out to the shattered gate. “Leclerc,” he bellowed. “Where are you?”

The Frenchman answered from further along the wall of the fortress.

“It seems the governor of the province is here in town: I want fifty men to come with me and find him. And the bishop, too: he is staying at the priest’s house, which is beside three big kapok trees next to the church. Send another fifty men to surround the house, but don’t disturb the bishop: we’ll call on him after we’ve seen the governor.”

Leclerc laughed cheerfully. “All we lack is the Viceroy,” he said as he called to his men. “Shall I stay here?”

“Yes, guard the fort. The garrison commander is down in the dungeon.”

“From what I hear, that’s a good place for him.”

“Yes, you can go down and kick him when you feel bored.”

Ned waited until the men were ready and then led the way towards the mayor’s house. It was a wide track rather than a road and, from the smell, lined with rotting cabbage and heavily traversed by donkeys and pigs.

The air was hot and very humid: the high land and the trees on the other side of the river seemed to be blocking any night wind that might have cleared away the smell, which seemed to hover in the air, sticky and clinging, catching the back of the nose.

There was the church – and yes, the three kapok trees. Ned turned and called to the second group of men: “That’s the house. Don’t let anyone leave.”

A hundred yards further a high wall surrounded what was obviously the mayor’s house.

“Do we expect any shooting?” Thomas said.

“I doubt it. The explosion of that petard didn’t bring the townspeople rushing down to the fort with the mayor leading them… The sound of us forcing his gate open will by comparison sound like music. As soon as he heard the petard the mayor must have guessed what was going on.”

As they spoke three buccaneers were smashing down the wooden gate and as it collapsed inwards, it left a black hole in the wall.

Ned walked through the entrance and could see the house set back thirty yards from the wall. There were lights at several windows.

He walked along the path and up half a dozen wooden steps to the front door, banging on it with the hilt of his cutlass.

A man’s voice asked nervously in Spanish: “Who is there?”

“The buccaneers. Open up, or we smash the door down,” Ned answered in Spanish.

“But what do you want? What was that explosion?” the voice persisted.

“Open this door or we’ll cut your throat,” Ned said harshly.

The door creaked open and a man with a lantern cringed against the door jamb. “What do you want?” he repeated, unable to keep the despair from his voice. “That explosion – what is happening?”

Ned pushed into the house, seizing the lantern from the servant with his left hand and holding his cutlass in his right. “Fetch the mayor!”

“I am the mayor,” a voice said from the darkness at the back of the first room. Ned held the lantern higher and could just make out a figure standing beside another door. “What was that explosion? Was it the magazine of the fort?”

“You have the governor staying here. Fetch him!”

“I – er, well–”

“Fetch him!”

The figure scurried off.

Ned turned and asked: “Is Secco there?”

The buccaneers behind Thomas turned and called the Spanish captain, who hurried into the room.

Quickly Ned explained what was happening. “We can take this man – the governor of the province – back with us, but I want to get him to talk now: it may save us time.”

“At your service,” Secco said with a flourish. “I can guarantee that he will give no more trouble than that garrison commander. But it’s a pity we have no arm and leg irons. A man in irons feels very vulnerable…”

The mayor hurried back into the room, followed by a tall man fully dressed, with lace at throat and wrists and a heavily embroidered coat.

“Well?” the man demanded haughtily.

Ned stared at him for a minute or more, realizing he must have dressed after the explosion.

“Who are you?” he said casually.

“Don Esteban Sanchez,” the man said. “And you?”

“I am the Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast,” Ned said quietly. “We are the people who have just captured Riohacha. No doubt you heard us.”

“I heard an explosion, certainly,” the governor agreed. “The mayor thought there had been an accident at the fort.”

“No, that was a petard blowing down the doors. All the prisoners have been released. The only person left in the dungeon,” Ned added, “is the garrison commander.”

The governor shrugged his shoulders: it was a matter of indifference to him, he seemed to be saying.

Ned put down the lantern, as if indicating the preliminaries were over.

“Now we come for you.”

“Come for
me
? But I am the governor: you can’t bother me. After all, England and Spain are at peace.”

“But ‘No peace beyond the Line’,” Ned said ironically. “If we are all at peace, why did you give orders that my people should be captured and tortured?”

“I gave no orders about torturing.”

“You gave orders that they were to be taken prisoner and asked certain questions. The torturing just followed as a matter of course.”

Again Don Esteban shrugged his shoulders.

Ned tapped the floor with the point of his cutlass. “Don Esteban,” he said coldly, “I hope you have made your peace with God, because you are close to death.”

The mayor – who Ned saw was a chubby little man, greasy of face with darting eyes – gave a gasp. Ned turned to him. “And you, too. I’ll probably let the bishop live, because he had nothing to do with the torturing of my men. At least, I assume he did not.”

Don Esteban’s face was now grey in the light of the smoky lantern: he seemed to Ned to have shrunk a little. His shoulders were now hunched and he was looking down, so that he seemed less tall than when he walked into the room.

Ned turned to some of the buccaneers standing in the room behind him, and said in English: “Seize that man – the tall one.”

Don Esteban tried to cling to a semblance of dignity as two burly buccaneers seized him, one twisting his arm behind him and the other putting an arm round his throat.

“This is an outrage!” Sanchez spluttered, gasping for breath.

“Don’t use childish phrases,” Ned said coldly. “You are facing death, so don’t pretend to be offended.” He turned to the mayor. “Sit down on the floor out of the way; your turn will come.”

He faced Sanchez and said formally: “I am going to question you here, but there is a spare set of irons and chains in the dungeon of the fort. I have the key for them in my pocket. Which do you prefer, here or the dungeon?”

Sanchez shrugged his shoulders, as best he could. “It makes no difference to me; I am not going to answer your questions.”

“We shall see,” Ned said, looking round to Secco, and gesturing towards the governor.

Secco moved over until he stood a yard in front of the governor and tapped the wooden floor with the point of his cutlass. “You ordered the garrison commander to seize anyone in foreign ships who visited Riohacha. Why?”

Again the governor shrugged his shoulders as best he could. “The same order went out to Santa Marta, Barranquilla, anywhere there were likely to be smugglers.”

“What was the reason?”

“Orders from the Viceroy,” the governor said without hesitation, obviously glad to shift the responsibility.

“Why did the Viceroy give that order?”

“How do I know?”

And that is what he is going to do, Ned realized: answer the obvious questions and shelter behind the Viceroy for the rest: Sanchez has realized that his life is dangling on a thread.

“You wanted to know if the Army in Jamaica has been disbanded. Why?”

“Curiosity. We had heard rumours that the new governor was paying off the soldiers. This seemed a strange decision, so we wanted to know more about it.”

“And curiosity was the only reason for the question?”

“Of course.”

Secco took a step forward and slapped him across the face.

“You lie.”

Sanchez said nothing.

“Now give us the true answer. It wasn’t just curiosity, was it?”

“The Viceroy wanted to know. He gave no explanation.”

So we get the Viceroy again, Ned thought. The perfect excuse – at least, so Sanchez thought.

“Why seize our ships?”

For the third time Sanchez shrugged his shoulders and almost immediately doubled over as Secco punched him in the stomach. His arm would have been dislocated had the buccaneer holding him not eased his grasp.

Sanchez was gasping for breath and he looked round at the buccaneers, who were just staring at him.

“We have the whole night,” Ned said helpfully. “And tomorrow, too. In fact even longer; no one is going to come to rescue you.”

“Pay attention,” Secco said. “Why seize the ships?”

Sanchez shook his head and Secco hit him again.

The man began to wheeze, dragging in each breath as though he had a cloth in his mouth.

“Why?” Secco repeated, drawing back his arm once more.

“To stop them sailing again.”

“Obviously,” Secco said. “Why did you not want them to sail?”

Yet again Sanchez shrugged his shoulders and yet again Secco hit him. This time the governor collapsed, like a punctured bladder, and slowly enough that the two men holding him could let him go.

Secco turned to Ned. “No stamina, this one. A pity there’s no rack in the dungeon. Still, this might help,” he said, sliding a dagger out of a sheath at his waist. “We’ll see how he likes being used as a pin cushion.”

They all waited for the man on the floor to recover his breath. The lace collar at his throat was now creased and soaked with perspiration; his embroidered coat was riding up and tearing the buttons from his breeches; his breeches were marked with dust from the floor.

“Hoist him up,” Ned told the two buccaneers. There was no point in giving him too long to recover.

Once on his feet and held by the buccaneers, the man’s eyes moved slowly from Ned to Secco, obviously unable to work out the relationship and puzzled because Ned had spoken to him in good Spanish.

Secco resumed his position a yard in front of Sanchez, only now he deliberately sheathed his cutlass and held the dagger in his right hand. The blade was less than a foot long, and the metal glinted in the light of the lantern so that Sanchez now stared at it like a rabbit watching a ferret.

“I was asking you why you didn’t want the ships to sail…”

Sanchez said nothing, still staring at the dagger.

Suddenly the blade snaked out, stabbing Sanchez lightly in the left arm.

“So that they would not report movements of our ships.”

“Ships?” repeated a startled Secco. “What ships do you have?”

Watching the governor’s face, Ned thought: he let that slip. He did not mean to say that, but he is frightened of that dagger.

The dagger flashed again and Sanchez recoiled as the blade jabbed the fleshy part of his upper arm.

“We – we have a few ships in the coasting trade.”

“Have any ships come recently from Spain?” Ned asked casually.

“No, no, of course not,” Sanchez stammered.

So, Ned thought, ships
have
arrived from Spain. And they would be in the main port of Cartagena. What kind? Ships of war or a few trading ships with some long overdue cargoes?

“Why are you here?” Ned asked. “What made you leave Barranquilla?”

Again Sanchez looked at the dagger before answering. “The Viceroy ordered me to inspect the ports.”

“Inspect the ports?” Ned repeated dubiously. “What is there to inspect here?”

When Sanchez hesitated, Secco twirled the dagger and the governor said hurriedly: “It is just routine: inspect the fort, talk to the mayor and the garrison commander.”

“And tell them to prepare to receive some ships?” Ned asked on the spur of the moment.

Sanchez looked down at the floor and to Ned, who was watching him closely, the man seemed to have aged several years in a matter of moments. “No,” the governor muttered, “just the usual. Inspect the guns, look at the mayor’s accounts, see if there is any damage to the sea wall that wants repairing – the surf is bad along this coast.”