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  He tipped trash from a cane chair and sat down, thinking it was a mortal pity that his grand new bed-chamber could never be used for sport, but his master was…touchy, when it came to seeing his aide taking pleasures under his very nose, while his own tastes were so…outré. Darker recollections made Hainaut shiver. His master taking pleasure was not something he would ever wish to see; things best left in the dark, in prison cellars, with the younger, weaker, and frailer girls, the better. Mon Dieu, merde alors! Hainaut silently quailed, as some of the work gang came up to begin moving things around at his bidding.

  Well, with his naval salary and Le Maître’s now-and-then admiring largesse, he could hire a tiny but elegant pied-à-terre room in one of the better harbour lodgings for sport. And his off-duty, moment-of-arising view would be splendid, at any rate.

  Guadeloupe was nearly two islands, pinched in to a narrow causeway just north and west of Pointe-à-Pitre’s environs that linked Grande-Terre, on which he stood, and Basse-Terre. Grande-Terre ran East-West, low and lushly verdant despite its exposure to the Nor’east Trades, all the way to Pointe des Chateaux and the farther islet of Désirade where dark Atlantic rollers met the turquoise Caribbean.

  Basse-Terre ran North-South, also incredibly green but mountainous, dominated by the peak of the dormant volcano La Soufrière, tilled as orderly as terrace farms round Marseilles, its shore fringed with a series of neat little villages and white-sand beach hamlets along its eastern, windward shore across the great harbour in which he stood.

  Petit-Bourg, Ste.-Marie, where Christopher Columbus was reputed to have first landed, Capesterre Belle-Eau south of there, before the coastline curved about Sou’west, hiding Trois Rivières, the Vieux Fort, and the other, lee-side harbour of Basse-Terre.

  So beautiful, Hainaut marvelled, so pleasingly alien, for once. After the bleakness of the rocky, wave-punched coasts of Europe; Biscay waters, Baltic, the German Sea, or Le Maître’s beloved Channel ports in Brittany, even the softer Mediterranean or Italian shores, this was wondrous.

  A grand view, he thought; it would have to suffice. And did Le Maître’s plans spin out in even somewhat proper order, or yield success in half the measure he’d schemed, he would be worked so hard that a view might be all the satisfaction a harried aide might have.

  Though it had taken a fair number of kicks and slaps, the house was ready for its new master’s arrival. The jingle and rumble of the coach-and-four on the roundabout sand-shell drive brought out Hainaut, de Gougne, and the most docile, willing, and least threatening Blacks whom Hainaut had decided to employ. They had been sluiced down at the well in the back yard and hurriedly garbed in clean slop-clothing, to stand muster by the drive. Enticing aromas from the separate cooking shed wafted coach-ward, tall beeswax candles fluttered in the windows, and both closed lanthorns and open torches beamed welcoming cheer from the drive and the wide, deep veranda.

  The coach rocked to a stop and an armed guard in the uniform of Naval Infantry leaped down from the boot to fold down the metal step and open the near-side door before springing to rigid attention, his musket unslung and held at Present Arms, his face a patient blank no matter that the senior passenger took half an hour to alight; and God help the man who innocently sprang to assist him!

  The fingers of a left hand curled about the door frame, a brass tip on a stout ebony walking-stick, then a man’s right boot emerged, blindly groping for the step, as someone grunted to shift his weight.

  “Zut! Beurk! Ouf, ailé! Merde alors! Horreur…unebête!” Weak cries of alarm sussurated from the aligned Blacks, who to a man crossed themselves or made warding signs against the Evil Eye, wailing “Le Diable!” and making Hainaut turn to cuff or curse them to worshipful silence.

  Le Maître—Le Capitaine—in Paris and Toulon Le Hideux but never in his or his minion’s hearing—alit at last, standing on his own feet, surveying the house front with a suspicious scowl.

  Clump, shuffle, tick…clump, shuffle, tick on the firmly laid pavers of the sand-and-brick walk between the freshly pruned flowering bougainvillea, as Capitaine de Vaisseau Guillaume Choundas made a torturous way forward. His right foot in a regular high-topped boot almost demanded firm ground before the ham-strung left leg in an iron-braced-and-bound boot swished limply ahead, with the bright brass ferrule of the stout walking-stick swung out ahead for balance, to ring against the stones.

  Guillaume Choundas’s right sleeve was pinned up high under his heavily gilt epaulette, folded so it displayed gold buttons and wide oak-leaf embroidery, near where a sergeant would show chevrons. It was a full-dress coat more suited to a junior admiral, but very few in the Caribbean (or Europe, either) would dare to question his right to wear it. More gilt oak-leaf showed on the high red collar, and on the thighs of his dark blue breeches, too.

  A large and elaborate bicorne hat slashed fore-and-aft atop his head, raked aggressively low over his eyes; eight centimeters of gold edge lace, loop and button and tassels gilt as well, with a tricolore cockade on one side, and blue-white-red egret plumes nodding above the crease. Below the hat, though….

  Capitaine Choundas’s face was half-covered with a stiffened silk mask that disguised a cruel, deep-scarred ruin, the result of a ghastly wound suffered long ago, a sword cut that had slashed upwards to slice one eye and his brow in half almost vertically, shattered the eye socket, chopped off one nostril and X-ed both lips to a horror worthy of an Hieronymous Bosch painting of a demon. The mask had been expanded lately to cover the nose completely, but there was no concealing the split lips that had healed in a rictus of rage.

  “Welcome, mon Capitaine!” Hainaut exclaimed, stepping off the veranda to greet him and sweep an arm to encompass the house. “All is ready for you, in your grand new lodgings! Supper will be served just as soon as you wish, m’sieur!”

  “As I expected, cher Jules,” Choundas replied, almost registering pleasure for a glimmering moment, that just as quickly disappeared, “given your zeal. Though I have not yet seen inside…hein?” he came close to almost making a jest. “These dumb beasts are to be our house servants?” he concluded with a normal frown.

  “Such as they are, m’sieur. Best of a poor lot,” Hainaut told him, with a disparaging Gallic shrug. “I returned those that did not please to Governor Hugues, to make what use of them he will. Do a few more officials arrive in need of servants, he’ll be reduced to the very dregs of the government supply, n’est-ce pas, mon Capitaine?” he concluded with a devious simper.

  “Think I am Le Diable, do you?” Choundas asked the Blacks lined up for inspection, almost jovially, soft-voiced, as he clump-ticked to within a few feet of them, making them shrink back a pace. He removed his hat, baring florid ginger-red hair. “Ah, mais oui,” he said with a shrug. Hat tucked under his good arm, he lifted the mask. “I am!” he thundered, making the Blacks whine, cringe, visibly shake, and almost piss their slop-trousers.

  “I will be served with alacrity, with diligence, and with quiet! The one who raises his voice inside, who annoys me, he’ll be flayed to his bones and fed to the sharks…alive! Do not make me take notice of you, comprendez? You’ve had your one curious look, and last winces! The next one of you who looks at me askance and even thinks that I am disgusting I will have boiled in hot tar and crucified, head-down!”

  He let the mask drop back into place, shuffled its seating, and thrust his hat back onto his head.

  “You had better fear me, mon garçons,” he threatened. “and do my bidding as quietly and un-noticed as mice. Now, go! Allez, vite!”

  They scampered in a twinkling.

  Pleased with himself, Choundas turned once more to Lt. Hainaut. “Let us see what you have accomplished, Jules. By the way, we will be having dinner guests. You know the gallant Capitaine Desplan?”

  “But of course, maître. Capitaine Desplan? Welcome,” Hainaut piped up to the captain of the Le Bouclier frigate, as if they hadn’t spent nearly six weeks aboard her, in cheek-to-jowl company.

  Chou
ndas stomped up to the wood veranda while Hainaut made his welcomes to the other captains of their acquaintance off the 20-gunned corvettes that had escorted their older 28-gun frigate and a storeship; Capitaine de Frégate Griot of Le Gascon, a stout little fellow of dark features, and the much taller and paler Capitaine de Frégate MacPherson off La Résolue, an émigré Jacobite Scot whose family had fled to France after the failure of Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart in 1745.

  Another officer, a mere Lieutenant de Vaisseau, had alit from the carriage, too, one who hung back shyly. “Et vous, m’sieur?”

  “That is Lieutenant Récamier, Jules,” Choundas informed him as he stood, impatiently rapping his stick on the veranda to hurry them inside. “Formerly of the schooner L’Incendiare. He is most familiar with Caribbean waters, and has a most intriguing tale to tell. After dessert and brandy, we must avail ourselves of his experience. Come, messieurs…let us share a glass of wine, and discover what an island cook can do with victuals.”

  Ah, him! Hainaut thought with malicious glee, having read after-action reports of L’Incendiare’s loss. It was no wonder that the poor fellow was diffident! Hainaut wasn’t sure whether Lt. Récamier was to be the main course, the dessert, or the postprandial entertainment.

  “Bienvenu, M’sieur Récamier,” he said, though, putting his best face of ignorant affability on, and extending a proper Republican hand to shake. “I trust you’ll enjoy our offerings for supper.”

  They had sailed with an extensive wine cellar, and the casks and crates had been ashore long enough for ship-stirred lees to settle, or be carefully filtered when decanted, so Choundas set a good table. Lt. Hainaut saw to that. The soup was a bland, cool celery broth, the fish a fresh-caught pompano served with a local delicacy, crabes farcis. A locally grown salad course with onions, cucumbers, and carrots, zested with vinaigrette and lime juice. The main course chickens were on the tough, small, and stringy side, on a rice pilaf; still on the bone, but for Choundas’s plate, which had been picked off and diced for easier one-handed eating. A touch dry and over-cooked, pan-fried, but enlivened with enough exotic hot sauces and Caribbean spices to make an equivalent to a Hindee curry, normally used to mask a tainted dish.

  Hainaut, Griot, Desplan, and MacPherson dug in with a will, delighted with fresh shore viands after weeks of salt-meat junk, sending servants back for more crisp and piping-hot baguettes time after time, after the dreary monotony of stale or weeviled ship’s biscuit.

  Choundas occupied the head of the table, with Capitaine Desplan in the place of honour to his right, and Griot to his left. Récamier was to Griot’s left, opposite Hainaut, and—two empty chairs down—at the foot of the table sat poor clerk Etienne de Gougne.

  The little clerk abstemiously took wee bites, then chewed seemingly forever before swallowing, before the tiniest sips of wine.

  Hainaut had seen to it that his dishes had been over-seasoned, knowing the timid little clerk’s penchant for the blander and creamier Parisian cooking. Each bite seemed a torture of Hell-fire, though he would be loath to do or say a thing about it. And if he pushed his plate away, he wouldn’t get anything else!

  Lt. Récamier was another spare diner and imbiber, as if trying to keep his wits about him and hope to be forgotten, perhaps. Sooner or later, though, Le Maître would get around to him, Hainaut was sure.

  “Stupid waste of the fleet,” Choundas groused, on his favourite peeve for the umpteenth time, “when it would have been better to work them up with weeks of training at sea, before gadding off on their adventures. We will never meet the biftecks on an equal footing until our seamanship and our cooperation between ships and senior officers markedly improves. Been that way for years,” Choundas groused, shoving his food about his plate with his specially made all-in-one utensil, a pewter fork and spoon on one end, and a thin scoop on the other. “In the aristo navy,” he sneered, “we swung at anchor most of the time, convenient to shore comforts, and got sent out on overseas adventures by foppish, ignorant fools, trusting that time on-passage would smooth out the rough spots. What idiocy!”

  “If only our superiors would have heeded your suggestions, mon Capitaine,” Desplan of Le Bouclier sympathised, toadying up agreeably, as was his wont since they had first set foot on his decks.

  “One devoutly wishes that you could be appointed to the Ministry, Capitaine Choundas,” the dark-visaged, hawk-nosed Griot suggested. “Scourge out the useless place-keepers, and put real sailors in charge.”

  They were so obsequious that Hainaut had to stifle a groan of derision. Toadying was pointless for Griot. He was a Breton, one of Le Maître’s fabled Celts, descended from the bold seafarers of Brittany, of the same blood as Choundas, scions of the ancient Veneti. To hear Choundas tell it (and endlessly re-tell it!) the Veneti had been deep-water sailors in their stout oak ships, as daring as the Phoenicians, and might have crossed the trackless oceans to discover the New World long before Columbus; who had almost out-fought Julius Caesar’s fleet of eggshell-thin, coast-hugging, oared triremes during the Gallic Wars.

  No, Griot had no need to lick Le Maître’s arse; his heritage was his pass to promotion and favour.

  Desplan, too. Before the Revolution, Desplan had been a mere midshipman, a commoner who could not expect to rise much higher than Lieutenant de Vaisseau in royal service without money, connections, or the rare chance to shine with a spectacular feat of derring-do gaining him notice at the royal court. Desplan, however, was from Quimper, a fluent speaker of the ancient Breton tongue that King Louis’s officials had fought to suppress. He and Capt. Choundas had slanged whole afternoons away on-passage, Desplan even daring to compose heroic poems set in the glorious old days—then read them…aloud! first in Breton, then in French for the unenlightened.

  Capitaine MacPherson, though…hmmm, Hainaut considered, giving him a perusal under his lashes as he took a long sip of vin ordinaire. The man was tall, lean, and raw-boned, as gingery-blond as Choundas, but more weathered, his skin more amenable to harsh sunlight. Scottish; ergo, some sort of Celt. But most unfortunately and overtly Catholic, of the most egregiously self-effacing and devout kind.

  Not the best thing to be, or practice so openly, these days in a nation, under a regime, that had closed great cathedrals and tiny chapels, confiscated the great wealth and lands of Holy Mother Church, and turned them all into Temples of Reason, where the genius of Man was celebrated.

  His corvette, La Résolue, was a smartly-run ship, though, kept in perfect trim, her crew intensely drilled and disciplined with a gruff fairness. Their stormy passage had proved MacPherson to be a tarry, hoary-handed “tarpaulin man” as the British, the “Bloodies,” said. It was possible that MacPherson would prosper under Choundas’s command…but never shine.

  “…what Admiral de Brueys will accomplish with the Mediterranean fleet, well,” Choundas was raspingly continuing. He stopped in mid-carp, pressed his napkin to his lips to stifle a belch, and bent at the waist as if in pain. “Mon Dieu, take this merde away!”

  He shoved his plate halfway to the fruit compote on the glossy wood surface, and flung his all-in-one utensil after it in a sudden fit of rage. “Damned nègres! All fire and peppers!” he gravelled, glaring at Hainaut as if it were his fault; making Hainaut cringe to think that his plate and the “loaded” one meant for de Gougne had been confused!

  “She’ll not do it again, m’sieur!” Hainaut hotly vowed, rising. “I’ll fetch you a blanc-manger, at once, to ease you.”

  Le Maître had been suffering stomach troubles ever since he had gotten his orders to sail for the Caribbean. Was his mentor ailing…was it something serious enough to threaten Hainaut’s comfortable and lucrative billet? He dashed off towards the cooking shed.

  “Oui, go!” Choundas snapped, stifling another painful burning and eructation. “And give that salope a whack or two as warning! Pardons, messieurs. Foreign service has ruined my tripes as sure as grape-shot. I could almost savour Chinese cooking. Mandarin was best, subtle and ele
gant both in taste and presentation. Hoisin, from the far north, or Cantonese, though…all devil’s piss, garlic and fire, bah! Does that nègre cow’s-hide mean to poison me?”

  “It has been known to happen, m’sieur le Capitaine,” Lt. Récamier spoke up for the first time in half an hour, still diffident. “Though it means the slaughter of the entire house-slave staff…if they are caught at it. Many an overly cruel master or mistress has died, under mysterious circumstances, in the islands. Sometimes, the ‘witch’ worked by Voudoun poisons are so subtle, even the ablest physicians can’t say the cause was not natural. Les noirs have a thousand ways to get back at Europeans. Scorches on new clothing, pets gone missing, lost spoons…anything. Drip at a time, never anything worthy of a beating. I think your chinois would call it ‘the death of a thousand cuts’, n’est-ce pas? A drip-at-a-time water torture?”

  “Indeed,” Guillaume Choundas archly drawled back, though with a glint of sudden wariness in his good eye.

  “Here you are, m’sieur,” Hainaut said, returning with a dish of whipped and sweetened wheat flour. He retrieved the utensil, wiped it on his waist-coat, and handed it to Choundas.

  After a few moments, and a few spoonfuls, Le Maître seemed much eased, and the wary, uncomfortable silence ended. Hainaut returned to his own supper, enjoying its taste, even if it had cooled while he was away on his urgent errand.

  “De Brueys,” Choundas dyspeptically snapped, picking up where he had left off. “A cautious old fellow. Perhaps more suited to a shore or port command than a fighting fleet, hein? Too set in his ways, the old idle aristo ways. Needs everything just so, a set-piece that advances in understandable steps. We must thank our lucky stars, messieurs, that we are not part of his folly. That little tuft-hunter whose army he carries, General Bonaparte, is sure to overreach, and lead a great part of our navy into trouble. Better we take Malta as planned, land and conquer the Kingdom of Naples second, then cross and conquer Sicily, cutting the Mediterranean in two, before any farther efforts. Give the bifteck Admiral Jervis a real headache and run him back to Lisbon, again. Then, properly shaken down and trained in seamanship, the Adriatic, the Aegean Sea, and the Ottoman Turk lands could be ours by simply opening our hands to pluck them. Oui. Dearly as we would wish to partake in honour and glory for La Belle France, and the Revolution’s expansion to all of Europe, we must be thankful that we are out here, where adventures just as grand await us.”