City of Glory (8 page)

A man appeared, making his way through the dockside crush as if it did not exist. There was menace in his every step, and the porters took pains to move out of his way. Vinegar Clifford had been the public whipper until three years earlier, when the city abolished flogging as an official punishment. Cruel and unusual, the judges said, a violation of the Constitution. Clifford might no longer be in the public employ, but he still clutched his whip, holding it fully coiled under his right arm, close to his body, and he could release it in full snapping fury as fast as an eyeblink. Joyful had seen it on a number of occasions. He took a quick step deeper into the shadows.

O’Toole and Clifford met at the foot of the gangplank. A pair of bulls, looking for a moment as if they might lock horns. They exchanged a few words Joyful couldn’t hear, then O’Toole nodded and handed over the ebony chest. Clifford lodged it under his left arm—his right still cradled his whip—and turned and left.

Bloody interesting, Joyful thought. He turned up the collar of his cutaway against the driving rain and strode forward.

“So how’d you know I was captain o’ Blakeman’s
Star
?”

“I know a lot of things these days. I’ve become good at listening.”

“Because o’ that?” Finbar O’Toole gestured toward the black glove.

“Partly that,” Joyful admitted. “I’ve had time to acquire other skills.”

“I never ’spected to see you a victim o’ your own knife, lad.”

They were in the Greased Pig, a grog shop on Dover Street, at a tiny table in the corner, surrounded by a noisy throng of wharf rats who had been laboring since before dawn and were intent on their drinking during this quarter-of-an-hour midday break, the only one they’d have until four o’clock, when their workday ended and it was time to eat. The dockhands concentrated on slaking their thirst, ignoring all else. It was a safe enough place to talk.

“I didn’t cut my hand off, Finbar. A blast from a poxed English carronade did that.”

O’Toole took a long pull at his grog, fiery rum made right here in New York with sugar brought up from the Caribbean, the result diluted with a half portion of water. “I can see as how folks wouldn’t want you cutting ’em up with only one hand, but all the rest o’ what doctors do, the purging and cupping and leeching and the like, that don’t need two hands, do it?”

“Tell me something, Finbar. In all your days, have you ever seen anyone cured of their ills by the purging and cupping and bloodletting?”

The Irishman shrugged. “Don’t go around asking, do I?”

“You don’t have to ask. Surgery is what makes the sick well. Everyone willing to calculate experience knows that. It’s fear as keeps them from the knife and gives them early death instead. But if people won’t trust a surgeon with two hands, they sure as all Hades won’t go near one that’s single-handed.”

“The herbs and simples your ma gave folks,” O’Toole said, “they was magic. They cured for sure. I saw plenty o’ that afore she died, St. Patrick guide her soul to rest.”

Roisin Campbell Turner had been a Woman of Connemara, a member of an ancient Irish healing society like her mother and grandmother before her. It was Roisin who cured the wife of the imperial governor of Canton when the woman’s stomach was swollen with a painful growth. In return, her husband, Morgan Turner, was allowed to build a house in Canton itself, where he and his wife and child could live year-round. All the other
yang gui zhi,
the Western foreign devils, had to live above their factories—their warehouses in the Canton trading strip. Moreover, they could reside there only from June to December; the rest of the year was spent at their homes on the Portuguese island of Macau. “My mother’s cures worked,” Joyful said. “But that’s not what I was trained to do. I don’t have her knowledge or her skills.”

The secrets of the Women of Connemara were passed from mother to daughter, never to a man, not even a son. O’Toole, for all his fierce American patriotism, was Irish enough to understand that. “Very well. But I still don’t see what we’re talking about.”

“Trade,” Joyful said. “If I can’t be a surgeon, I must be a trader, Finbar. It’s the only other thing I know.”

“The blockade’s put a mighty crimp in trade these days, lad. I ran it this time because the
Star
’s possibly the finest merchantman afloat, but no one can make a regular thing o’ running a bloody English blockade.”

“I know.”

“Then—”

“The blockade won’t be in place forever. Already there’s a British and American commission set up to talk of peace.”

“Talk didn’t blow your left hand off. And in case ye ain’t noticed, there’s like as not to be an army o’ redcoats right here in New York sooner rather than later.”

Joyful turned and signaled for the bowl of grog. “Nonetheless, peace will come. In the not too distant future, I believe. When it does, I’ll need a captain. I want it to be you.”

“I’m fifty-three years old, lad. You need a man with more voyages left in him.”

“I need a man I can trust.”

“Ships cost money,” O’Toole said. “More’n two thousand pounds.”

Joyful wasn’t surprised the Irishman knew exactly how much had been in the moneybag his father sent from Canton. Neither had he ever questioned Finbar’s assertion that every penny of what he’d been left had been put into Joyful’s hands. A man could be both trustworthy and curious. “The ebony box chopped with the red dragon, the one you handed over on the wharf today, how much did it contain?”

“Don’t know anything ’bout any ebony box.”

“I was there, Finbar. Filled with silver, was it?” Silver, measured out in a unit called a tael, each equivalent to a thousand coppers, was the trading medium of the powerful hong merchants of Canton.

O’Toole didn’t answer. The bowl of grog was passed to them by the men at the next table. Joyful put four copper pennies on the table, and the Irishman refilled both their mugs, then got up and carried the bowl to yet another table. “How are you planning to get a ship? Where’s the money for that going to come from?”

“I have the money. At least enough to get things started. I made some wise investments.” O’Toole didn’t look convinced, but Joyful offered no further explanation. “Gornt Blakeman’s making a run on Devrey scrip, buying it up for cash money.”

The Irishman lifted his drink and took a long pull, keeping his gaze fixed on Joyful all the while. Finally, he set the mug down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What do you care? I know Bastard’s your cousin, but the way I heard it, there’s no friendly feeling between Devreys and Turners.”

“None at all,” Joyful agreed.

“Then why?”

“Traders thrive by knowing things.”

The Irishman shrugged. “Maybe, but you ain’t a trader yet. Besides, the
Star
lades near to three hundred tons. There’s a goodly amount o’ cash money going to come from what was in her hold. Even without what’s in the poxed ebony box.”

“So you do know what it contains.”

Another shrug. “Not for sure,” O’Toole said. “I heard it was jewels, but you know Canton, I heard a lot of things.”

Joyful’s gut tightened with excitement, but his voice was level. “Jewels? Emeralds? Rubies? Where would—”

“Not no poxy colored geegaws,” Finbar said softly. “The real thing. Diamonds. Least that’s what I was told.”

Sooner or later, everything under God’s own heaven fetched up in Canton. And if diamonds had arrived in New York on a ship owned by Jacob Astor with his far-flung trading empire, that wouldn’t have surprised Joyful. But Gornt Blakeman…“Finbar, is there any reason to think Blakeman owns other ships? That he’s a bigger trader than he appears to be?”

The Irishman shook his head. “Ain’t nothing like that as is talked about in the factories or on the Bogue.”

That settled it. Nothing in the world of the China trade could bypass the collective knowledge of the traders’ strip and the Bogue, the harbor of Canton. But diamonds? Holy God Almighty, he’d been dealt a card he never expected, and one that made the others he held stronger than he’d dreamed they could be. He couldn’t ask for better. Joyful leaned forward. “Finbar,” he said softly, “listen carefully. A while ago you said there was no love lost between Turners and Devreys, and I said you were right. Now let me add this. I’m going to be the cousin who owns Devrey Shipping. Not Bastard, and definitely not Gornt Blakeman. Me.”

“Indeed? And when’s this miracle to come about then?”

“Soon enough. What you’ve just told me makes it even more certain.”

“Known you since you were no taller than your da’s knee, lad, and you were always as cheeky as you were smart. But that’s a big plan for someone as has one hand and whatever could be made of two thousand pounds. Big enough so maybe it’s sheer poxy madness. Leastwise some would say so.”

Joyful dropped his voice just above a whisper. “What do you know of the
Fanciful Maiden
?”

“Schooner yer da had back when he was privateering, when we was fighting the godrotting French and their godrotting Indians. What about her?”

“The voyage of ’59, when the
Maiden
came back empty and my father said he’d taken no prizes. You know about that?”

“Maybe I do,” O’Toole said.

“I know as well,” Joyful said softly. “Everything. My cousin Andrew told me.”

“Andrew Turner? What’s he to do with this? Your da told me he couldn’t remember where—Ach, all right. I know what happened in ’59. But Andrew Turner and your da were never close. It was your ma Andrew cared for. That’s why he took you in.”

“I know. Nonetheless, Andrew had the note my father wrote, the one that said where—” Joyful broke off.

“Had, you said. Who’s got it now?”

“I have.”

“So that’s where the money for a merchantman’s going to come from?”

Joyful shrugged.

“It’s a long odds wager, lad. Made a few o’ those in me day, God help me. It’s not often they pays off.”

“I know. But my ship and getting control of Devrey Shipping, that’s going to happen just the way I plan it. I feel it in my bones, Finbar.”

“Yer da wanted you to have the tr——, what we’re talkin’ about. That’s how come he told me about it. Said he knew he’d hid it for well and certain, but after the godrotting British finished with him on their poxed prison ship, he couldn’t remember where it was. Biggest sadness in his life, that was.”

“Then he will rest easier once this is done.” Joyful leaned forward. “What’s Vinegar Clifford’s connection to Blakeman?”

“No idea. Didn’t know his name neither, till you said it. Looked to put the fear o’ God into a heathen, he did. Rather face an enemy with a cutlass, even a pistol, than a bullwhip.”

“I agree. Take my word for it, Clifford’s a genius with his whip, and without a trace of pity for his victims. He’s called Vinegar because back when he was the town’s official whipper, as soon as his victims passed out, he’d revive them with a gallon of vinegar splashed over the wounds. More pain that way.”

The Irishman shuddered. “Worst o’ the world’s devils, them as enjoy other folks’ suffering. You think Clifford’s workin’ for Blakeman now?”

“I didn’t think so until this morning. How did you know he was the person sent to claim the box?”

“He knew the password. I was told to wait until we were an hour into the unlading, then bring the box ashore and give it to him as said
bei mat.
Then I answered
nang lik.
Then he said
wing yuen.
Long as he did all that, I’d know he was the right one.”

In Cantonese,
bei mat
meant “secret.”
Nang lik,
power.
Wing yuen,
forever. Secret power forever. Pretty fanciful, particularly considering Gornt Blakeman wasn’t Chinese. “As far as you know, has Blakeman ever been in Canton? He didn’t hire you in person, did he?”

The Irishman shook his head. “Never set eyes on him. It was his comprador as hired me.”

A comprador was usually Chinese, though the word was Portuguese. Come into use because the Portuguese had opened the China trade nearly a century earlier. A comprador was a facilitator, a man who could move easily in the Asian community but understood the business ways of the Europeans. He was a shipping company’s eyes and ears, and counted upon to be fiercely loyal because he had a substantial share in the company’s profits, and because the job was customarily passed from father to son. A few compradors were independents, men who worked for any shipper who offered employment on a given day. These men were also trusted to keep the shippers’ secrets; nonetheless, they were talking about Canton.
Bei mat,
secret, was written with the symbol for an open mouth.

“Forget about the poxed box and whatever’s in it,” O’Toole said. “Forget everything about this damned voyage, in fact. Bad joss otherwise.”

Joyful knew joss was more than luck, it was fate, something you had to accept. But in New York as in Canton, money trumped luck every time.

Chapter Five

New York City,
Maiden Lane, 2
P.M.

M
ANON VIONNE WAS TALL
and slender and remarkably pretty, with pale gold hair and eyes the color of dark purple pansies. She was also, at the advanced age of twenty-two, unmarried, thus marked for spinsterhood. Which did not seem to trouble her in the slightest in the early afternoon of this summer day. She was smiling and humming softly when she returned to her father’s house on Maiden Lane.