Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel (33 page)

‘No man was harmed,’ Devlin said.

‘That is of little consequence. You will hang, but first I must discuss your parole if no more of your men are to die this day.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come: you should get changed. I will not take you seriously in this garb. It will degrade my table.’

Devlin looked over his men held along the gangway. Trouin had kept them above to run the ship and to keep as hostage meat. The others he supposed were either kept below or on Trouin’s ship. He never thought them dead. His men looked back at him. A long expectant look. He walked behind Trouin to the cabin that had once been his castle. He threw one glance back to Peter Sam and Hugh Harris and they held his eye until the cabin door closed behind him.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Devlin, no qualms about dressing in front of Trouin and two of his marines, strode across the cabin that had once been his. From his broad locker seat he took a slow time in changing from the poor sailor back to the bold pirate, a quixotic knight donning his poor but trusted armour. Holland shirt, Damask waistcoat, dark twill coat, all stolen, fitted for other men. His ancient boots. The same he had worn since taking them from a dying Frenchman on an African archipelago three years gone. He stamped them on, looking to the luck in their soles. His favoured left-locked pistol lay patiently. Devlin let her lie. He dumped his slops into the locker, the diamond bundled within, and slammed the lid. He faced Trouin. Devlin was the pirate again.

Trouin, sat in one of the only two chairs and looked disagreeably about the cabin.

‘I notice comfort is something you pirates do not seem to favour, Captain,’ he indicated with a glove the empty room.

One table, two chairs, books and bottles in equal abundance, the bindings and glass the same green, reds and browns as if they were chosen to match.

‘It is quite touching. It is as if, in her sparseness, she is only half-finished, fresh and new. A ship cut back to the bone.’

Devlin stepped forward. ‘You wanted my parole,’ he said.

‘Indeed,’ Trouin brushed some dust from Devlin’s table. ‘To look at you I’m sure I have it. To begin well I should like to know how it is that you know me. I am sure it is not from statues and paintings. I do not know myself from them.’

‘Time ago I saw you paraded in Paris. During the war.’

‘Ah,’ Trouin sat back. ‘And some time after you signed to the Marine Royale?’

Trouin’s small revelation of his past was subtly given out to let Devlin know that any cards he might try to conceal would have backs made of glass.

‘My belly inspired me. There were many Irishmen signed.’

‘Yet you joined the English when it served to save your skin. You are a cuckoo with your loyalties.’

‘I was captured. I helped save my officers’ lives by translating for the English captain.’ That had been John Coxon. The man had made post-captain on the Irishman’s information.

‘And no doubt offered as much treason as you could to preserve yourself.’

Devlin had heard enough of his past. That young man was but a distant cousin to him now. The same blood, some features similar, but uncomfortable to shake hands with.

‘What now, Milord? You have my ship, my men. Where do I sign for your mercy for them?’

Trouin ran a thumbnail down his face as he studied the man before him. It had only been two days since he had captured the
Shadow
and that had not been too difficult. He had given Bill his hoop to jump through and Bill had done so and fallen against the rocks just as Trouin had planned.

There had been blood, but the
Shadow
was outmanned and outgunned and too wounded. Black Bill had sworn he was Devlin and that Trouin had done a great deed – one which the best English navy bloods could not. But sly Trouin knew he had stumbled on a larger game; he knew that he was not facing the pirate who had eluded the world.

The real pirate captain was gone; a French tartane’s crew was present with only their ship missing, and their bellies fuller than they had ever been; on a promise that they would have their ship back in time, and the fact that they were taken near Le Havre. Black Bill had sweated enough for Trouin to suspect that all he had to do was return to Le Havre and wait.

Now he had the pirate: now he had the final page. Still missing was the first.

‘You seem to accept your fate most willingly for one who has commanded so many and been free for so long. And you pirate in
my
waters when your own Caribbean is so rich and so much easier. Suppose you tell me, Captain, what is your real purpose on this little sea?’

Devlin looked at the guards. Soldiers, just soldiers. He could take them both in the same time it took to count them. He would have a gun, a shield in the old captain at his table, enough of his finest men to take back the ship.

Trouin watched the pendulum swinging across the pirate’s thoughts and Devlin snapped back to the sound of a pistol cocking to his guts.

Trouin grinned. ‘I insist, on your parole, to enlighten me.’

The cabin door opened and Trouin’s gun stayed on the pirate as Albany Holmes was escorted in. The escort saluted, backed out and closed the door.

Trouin noted both the pale face, distinctive against the rest of the dark crew, and the narrowing of Devlin’s eyes. This fellow was not one of them and Trouin knew a wedge when he saw one. And this man had been on the tartane. His presence could be entertained.

‘Who are you to disturb me, sir?’

Albany brushed down his poor cloth and bowed with the faintest respect. He ignored Devlin and squared himself before Trouin, speaking loud and slow for the foreigner to understand.

‘Your Honour, Captain. My name is Albany Holmes. I present myself to you as a representative of His Majesty’s government. This ship is under privateering rules of the King, an ally of your own. I insist that this ship is released under my own cognisance and is allowed to continue on its way. Any manner of affront may be taken up with his Lordship Townshend at a later date when we return to England under my honour.’ He straightened as best he could in his ill-fitting wool. ‘I’m sure your admiral would prefer that you respect your own code of trade with regard to His Majesty’s privateers.’

Trouin uncocked his weapon. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure
my
admiral would concede such rights to your king. That is if I
had
an admiral. Or if I needed to make concessions. Unfortunately – for your plea – I am burdened with being in entire command of the waters beneath your feet, and the captain and I were about to discuss the day. He at least had the decency to be aware of the man he was addressing before he opened his mouth.’

Albany sniffed, looked sheepishly at Devlin’s anger but held his ground, as all gentlemen do with regard to those who must work for their bread.

‘I did not catch your name?’

Trouin smiled as he might at a capon presented as a hen for his supper. ‘If you have privateering papers, let me see them. But I do not think that, however voluminous they may be, there will be any line in them that allows you to pirate a French vessel in her own waters.’

Albany haughtily agreed as if he were not at fault. ‘Quite so. Nevertheless I insist that this vessel return to England. We are on a mission that will benefit the whole of Europe and for which you will only be rewarded for allowing us to continue.’

Devlin sprang forward. ‘Albany!
Enough
!’ He could have still won this day if the damned Englishman had not flapped his tongue. The guards put out their muskets and the pirate stopped.

Albany waved him away. This was his stage now. The Irish bog-trotter did not understand politics. The boldness of an English gentleman impressed lesser nationalities throughout the world, and his voice was his letter of introduction.

‘The captain is ignorant of the larger purpose for which both our crowns are in jeopardy if we are not allowed to cruise on.’ He stepped to the table.

‘I only require enough men to take the ship in. You can take the pirate as reward. His captaincy is no longer needed and he has broken his orders in taking one of your ships. He would be disavowed and hung on his return at my insistence for such an act. You may have my assurance as a gentleman on that fact.’

Trouin dropped a glove to the table, the draught of which caused the single candle on the table to crackle and suffer. It grew again as his breath fanned it. ‘Thank you, sir. It may have taken me hours to remove from the pirate that which you have given with such grace. But perhaps I need to know one thing more.’

He stood slowly but his pistol swiftly reversed so that the cap and butt became a bludgeon, and he scraped it against the overhead beam as he brought it down across Albany’s temple just hard enough to crack him to his knees.

He gripped a spluttering Albany by his wool slops and pulled him up face to face. ‘What,
sir
, for your king, and
my
country are you doing in
my
waters!’

‘
Trouin
!’ Devlin yelled, and the chef d’escadre dropped Albany and span his pistol back to the pirate.

‘He’s just a long-coat fop! Sent to watch and note, that’s all.’ Devlin stabbed his finger at his own chest. ‘I’m the one. I’ll show you what we’re doing if it’ll give my men a month’s trial. Breath to make their ends to a priest.’

He turned away to the locker-seats. The guards cocked their muskets at the sudden movement but Trouin put up his hand for them to hold back.

Devlin plucked the diamond from his rags and tossed it to the table where it bounced and chimed joyously. Trouin clapped a hand over the spinning gem and then slowly uncovered it.

Devlin saw all their eyes fall to the stone, saw it capture them all as it had always done since it had been wrenched from the mud of the Parteal mine’s walls.

Distraction enough.

He flew at both guards, using their muskets as their weakest points. Their faith in their iron vanished in such a small space.

He pushed the long guns up into their faces, forcing their skulls against the bulkhead where their hats fell across their eyes, and then he swept their feet away with his leg. One of their muskets Devlin grasped upended in his fists and he cracked it down into their noses one by one, again and again as if shovelling a hole until they stopped trying to get up.

He knew Trouin would have his gun on him, would be crouching and aiming at his back, and he knew Albany would not take any advantage. He dropped against his cabin wall and rolled up one of the bodies to cover himself, flung the musket away and shouted for his life. English now, knowing Trouin would understand, gambling that his men would not.

‘You and me, Trouin! Talk this out! Shoot that ponce, but that diamond is Philippe’s stone! The King’s stone for his crown. I’ve got it. I’ve taken it. That’s what I’m doing here. You can take it back.’ He breathed deep, let the sight of the diamond do its work. ‘How would you like to be a hero again, Milord?’

Albany squealed from where he cowered on the floor. ‘
Devlin
! You betray your king! God damn you, sir!’

‘Shut your hole! I’m trying to save your life! What’ll it be, Milord? Will you hear me out or will we die slapping at each other in my cabin?’

Trouin’s pistol swung first at Albany then towards Devlin crouched behind one of his semi-conscious guards.

‘You have my ear, Captain. You have no weapon?’

‘None.’ He rolled the body aside leaving his head and belly exposed to Trouin’s pistol and repeated his word distinctly. ‘None.’

Trouin was ready to shoot the pirate now, more so than before when he came aboard and ploughed through his men. Why let him live? Devlin’s only hand, although meaner than any of Trouin’s cards, was that the death of Bill had stirred the pirates. If he gave them now the death of their captain the order he had gained would be lost. And then the diamond presented itself. Perhaps it was the missing page Trouin was looking for. Devlin had given Trouin a mystery, a question, the word ‘hero’ mentioned once and enough.

Trouin lowered the doghead of his pistol but kept it in his hand. ‘Then we will talk. On this diamond and your word.’ He turned to Albany. ‘And you will be quiet until spoken to. King or no king, you will wait.’