Rapscallion (15 page)

No
one answered. Several men exchanged wary looks.

"Cat
got your tongues?" Hawkwood gripped Juvert's elbow. "Point him
out."

Juvert
winced. His mouth formed an O. He looked petrified, but before he could reply, several
men stood up. They weren't empty-handed. Each was armed with what looked like a
heavy metal blade, about eighteen inches in length.

Well, Fouchet did warn us,
Hawkwood thought.
But swords?
He heard Lasseur mutter an obscenity.

Benches
slid back noisily. Dice and cards lay forgotten.

One
of the armed men shuffled forward. He was heavy set with bowed legs and a low
brow. "What's your business here?"

Lantern
light played across the speaker's face. A large, pear- shaped birthmark, as
dark as a gravy stain, covered his right cheek and jaw. His nose had been
broken at some time in the past.

Hawkwood
took a surreptitious glance at the blade in the man's hand. It looked like an
iron barrel hoop that had been hammered flat. The edge was a long way from
honed, but it looked as if it could still do considerable damage.

"You're
Matisse?"

The
man looked anything but regal.

"I'm
Dupin."

"Then
you're only the monkey. It's the organ grinder we want."

Close
to, Hawkwood noticed there was something different about Dupin's uniform. As
well as the arrows and the letters on the sleeves and thighs, the yellow jacket
and trousers were covered in an uneven pattern of small black dots. Some of the
dots were moving. Dupin's clothes were alive with lice. Hawkwood's skin crawled.
He resisted the urge to scratch and bit down on the sour taste that had risen
unbidden into the back of his throat.

Lasseur
had seen the infestation, too. The lantern illuminated his disgust. He
shuddered.

Hawkwood
said, "Tell His Majesty that Captains Hooper and Lasseur are here. He'll
know what it's concerning."

"Best
do it quickly," Lasseur said. "Otherwise stand aside."

Dupin
stared hard at the marks on Juvert's face. Then he turned. He jerked his head
at the men over his shoulder and as they moved apart another table came into
view at the back of the compartment. Five people were seated around it. There
was no throne, as far as Hawkwood could see; only benches. No crown or robes of
state, either. Bottles and jugs sat on the table alongside platters of half-consumed
bread and cheese.

The
figure at the centre of the table leaned forward, revealing a closely shaven,
oval-shaped head and a face empty of hue.

Lasseur
gasped. The privateer's reaction had come not from seeing the man's bald pate
but from his eyes. They had no discernible pupils. The centre of each eye was
not dark but shell pink, as if a thimbleful of blood had been emptied into a
saucer of milk. Even odder was the way the head appeared to be disembodied,
for the rest of the seated figure, from the neck down, looked to be swathed
entirely in black, save for one pale, slender arm which rested languorously
over the shoulders of the small, blond boy seated beside him.

"Matisse."
Lasseur made
the name sound like a whispered obscenity. He went to take a step forward only
to find his path blocked.

The
thin, bloodless lips split in two.

"It's
all right, Dupin. You can let them by. We've been expecting them."

Hawkwood
stared at the pink eyes and the shaven scalp and wondered about the colour of
Matisse's hair. There was a name given to people whose hair was so blond it was
almost white and whose red-rimmed eyes looked as if they were leaching blood.
Whiteface, some called it, though that wasn't its only name. Spain was where
Hawkwood had come across the phenomenon, for the first and only other time, in
the person of a small boy in an orphanage run by priests outside Astariz. The
boy had been abandoned in the confessional as a baby, wrapped in a blanket,
his only possession a small silver crucifix strung on a bootlace around his
neck. The child had been seven years old when Hawkwood had met him and
something of a miracle, for no one had expected him to live beyond his fourth
birthday. The boy's eyes had been sensitive to light, Hawkwood recalled,
forcing him to spend most of his waking hours in a darkened room. It was one of
the brothers who'd told Hawkwood that the word used to describe the boy's
condition had been borrowed from Portuguese traders. It was the name they gave
to the white Negroes they'd encountered on the coast of Africa. They called
them albinos.

The
colour of Matisse's eyes suggested he might be a victim of the same
abnormality. Maybe that was how the Romans' alleged preference for the dark had
got started. Maybe the stories were based purely on a distorted understanding
of the Roman leader's affliction.

Hawkwood's
thoughts were interrupted.

"Captain
Lasseur! This is an honour! It's not often we get to meet one of the republic's
naval heroes. Why, I was regaling my friends here only yesterday with tales of
your exploits. Very impressed they were, too; especially with your taking of
the British brig.
Justice.
Where was it now?
Off the coast at Oran?
I heard you
were severely outgunned. That must have taken some courage. We admire a man
with backbone, don't
we
, boys?"

There
was a curious rough yet sibilant quality to the voice. The mocking words were
heavily accented and didn't so much emerge as slither from the tip of the man's
tongue. Hawkwood presumed that was due to the speaker's Corsican heritage.
There was no response from the other men lounging at the table, who looked as
dissolute as their leader and decidedly unenthused by the prospect of receiving
visitors, irrespective of their reputation.

"And
you'll be our gallant American ally, Captain Hooper! I regret to say, due to an
oversight no doubt, Captain Hooper's reputation has failed to precede him.
My commiserations, nevertheless, on your capture, sir.
The
Emperor needs all the help he can get. My spies tell me you're newly arrived
from Spain; a bloody battleground, by all accounts. The newspapers here say
that Wellington's giving us a roasting. Is that true? Or are they
pamphleteering, I wonder?"

Hawkwood
ignored the question. He stuck out his boot and shoved Juvert forward.
"I'm told this belongs to you."

Surprise
and gravity did the rest. The trip sent Juvert flying. Forced to put out his
hands to save himself, he let out an undignified splutter as he slewed across
the deck, forcing several of the onlookers to scramble back from his line of
trajectory. The boy jumped nervously, his eyes wide. Shaken out of their
insouciance, the men on either side of him sat up. Shock lanced across their
faces.

The
shaven-headed man's pose did not change. It was hard to read the expression in
his eyes as he stared down at Juvert's prostrate body. Only the contraction of
his jaw muscles indicated the essence of his thoughts. He looked up, his arm
still draped across the boy's shoulders.

"You've
a flair for the dramatic, Captain Hooper, I'll grant you that. From the look of
him, I'd say Claude doesn't quite share your enthusiasm. It's
true,
he performs errands for me now and again. Not always
to my complete satisfaction, it has to be said." There was an undeniable
hint of menace in the last statement.

Juvert
got to his knees and winced. From the pallor in his cheeks, his ears had
obviously picked up the nuance in his master's voice. He looked like a man
trying to decide between advance
or
retreat, knowing
in his heart and from the mutterings and the looks he was attracting that,
whichever path he took, he was unlikely to recruit much sympathy.

The
shaven-headed man gave a jerk of his head. "Take him away."

Juvert
was afforded no opportunity to protest. Hauled unceremoniously to his feet, he
barely had time to throw Hawkwood and Lasseur a backward glance before he was
bundled through the curtain. No one looked sorry to see him go. A muffled grunt
came from outside and then there was the sound of an object being dragged away.
Then silence.

Matisse
sat back. He looked composed, at ease with his surroundings. His spidery
fingers played idly with the hair on the back of the boy's neck. "You'll
forgive us for not rising. We're not used to company. I apologize for the
inadequacy of the illumination, by the way. My eyes have an aversion to light;
daylight in particular. Even candle flames cause me some discomfort. An
inconvenient ailment, but I've grown used to it."

The
words confirmed Hawkwood's suspicions. They also explained the rags draped over
the scuttles.

"We
don't give a shit for your health," Lasseur snapped. "We're here for
the boy."

The
backs of the men seated around the table stiffened at this. The shaven head
tilted. Lucien Ballard sat unmoving; he looked terrified. The hand on his neck
stilled but did not relinquish possession.

Hawkwood
tensed.

"He
doesn't belong down here," Lasseur said.

"Is
that right? Who says?"

The
fingers resumed their fondling. It reminded Hawkwood of a cat being stroked.
Lucien Ballard was not purring, however. He looked mesmerized.

"I
warned Juvert what would happen if he showed his face again," Lasseur
said. "He disobeyed me - on
your
orders."

The
Corsican's hand froze once more. His chin came up sharply.

"Diso
-beyed
you?
Juvert is not yours to command, Captain Lasseur. He's my emissary. In case
you've forgotten, you're not on your quarterdeck now. This is
my
dominion.
You're the trespasser here."

"Commander
Hellard might have something to say about that," Hawkwood said softly. It
wasn't only the man's gaze that was disconcerting, he realized. Matisse hardly
ever seemed to blink.

"Hellard?"
the bald man sneered. "Hellard's a weakling. He's commander in name only.
I hold sway here, not him."

"King
Matisse?"
Hawkwood said, and wondered if that was the reason Hellard hadn't given the
order to fire on the well deck.

The
pink eyes shifted so that they were trained directly at Hawkwood. It was an unsettling
feeling. But from the exchanges so far, Hawkwood sensed that, behind the
grotesque facade, there was a dark, manipulative intelligence at play.

"Some
call me that. Though, to tell the truth, I can't even remember how it started.
Some would think it an indulgence, but why should I discourage it? It serves
its purpose, helping keep the lower orders in check."

The
words were spoken dismissively. Hawkwood wondered whether Matisse included the
men around him as part of the "lower orders", and what they thought
of it. There was no suggestion that any of them had taken umbrage. Maybe they
weren't sure what it meant, or else they assumed it meant the rest of the
Rafales.

A
thin smile played along the bald man's lips. "Personally, I like to think
of myself more as a pastor, a shepherd administering to the welfare of his
flock." His fingers resumed toying with the boy's collar.

Not
again
, Hawkwood thought. A cold shiver passed along his spine.
I had my fill of pastors and parsons the last time.

Maybe
that was why Matisse was dressed in black; to perpetuate the illusion, or
perhaps in some strange way to accentuate the ghostly complexion and make him
appear more striking. Matisse's attire was remarkably similar to a priest's.
There were no superfluous frills or finery or affectation, save for one: a tiny
tear-shaped object that occasionally caught the lantern light. Hawkwood hadn't
noticed it before. It was pearl pendant earring that dangled delicately from
Matisse's left ear.

Lasseur
growled, "For the last time. Hand the boy over."

The
earring danced as Matisse turned. "You know, when Juvert told me you'd
taken an interest in him, I confess I was rather intrigued. What were we
supposed to make of that? Perhaps you've designs on him yourself, Captain
Lasseur - is that why you're here?"