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all in the wind – When all the sails are shaking.

BENJAMIN DIDN’T KNOW the big man’s real name. The fellow had been around Port Royal for decades, he was here even when the Spanish ran it, and nobody seemed to know who he was or where he came from. His accent couldn’t be placed, nor could his ethnicity, for his brown skin might only be from decades spent in the Caribbean sun. He was a grey-haired, corpulent fellow who some called “Munt,” a Dutch word that meant “coin,” but others referred to him as “Cartera,” Spanish for “purse,” and still others called him “Dodum” but nobody knew what that meant. Vhingfrith sat at a table in the center of the stinking drinking hall, looking at Munt or Dodum or whoever he was, watching him tease the serving girls.

Benjamin didn’t know what to make of Munt. His father once described Munt as “a very old and reliable business contact,” who had always been slim, athletic, strong as an ox, capable of beating men at both arm wrestling and dice games like Hazard and Rook, and lethal with a sword. Munt can be found with a woman on both arms at all times, his father had said, and always has about him a suave yet gentlemanly demeanor.

Munt did not appear anything like that now. Whatever his mysterious origin, wealth and libations had cost him his figure. The chair Munt sat in moaned in protest whenever he moved, and his belly, which was the size of a keg and with equal capacity, rolled over his belt, which strained to contain his waist. But his shirt was of fine white silk, and his breeches were blue and neatly pressed, and his long fine hair, though greying, flowed immaculately over his shoulders.

“So,” said the man some called Munt. “The Devil’s Son returns to Port Royal! I hear a clever tale of you, one that puts you in league with cunning pirates, and that together you took down a nao all on your own! A singular thing, I should say. Very singular.”

“Fortune spread her legs for us, is all.”

Munt’s smile was perfunctory, and vanished quick as a dream. “I also hear a worrying thing about some of the men under your command. Some of them are getting quite drunk in this very hall, and their lips are loose. All sorts of strange tales they tell.”

“We had an unfortunate malady while at sea,” Benjamin said. “Many men saw many strange hallucinations.”

“Yes, I heard. A mind sickness. Terrible business. Terrible, just terrible. By God’s divine mercy are you delivered, and so here you are. I can only assume you are here because of the letter I sent you a year ago. Though, I’m surprised you waited this long to answer. I thought you’d turned me down.”

“I simply needed some time to consider.”

“A year’s a long time to consider a business partnership,” Munt remarked, accepting a new drink from a wench he hadn’t even summoned. She also gave him a dish of crab and creole bread. The crab shells he cracked open with strong, fat fingers, and he slurped his food down with grog. Munt was now quite red-faced yet somehow managed to speak without a slur. And his hand shot out remarkably fast to snatch the wrist of a young boy, who had just bumped into Munt’s chair. “You’re a handsome lad, I’d hate to permanently ruin those features,” he said.

Benjamin was shocked.

The pickpocket was a boy of eleven or twelve, with brown hair and brown eyes. Just now those eyes were wide as saucers, and his free hand had slipped inside the satchel he carried around his neck. Benjamin was astonished at Munt’s speed and alacrity, to have caught the boy’s wrist so fast, like a snake catching a mouse. He squeezed, and the boy let out a girlish whimper.

“Do you understand me, boy?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

“Then leave here, and don’t ever darken this establishment’s doorway again.”

“Yes, sir!”

Munt released him and watched the boy scarper off, out of the Goose. “As I was saying, a year is a very long time to consider a partnership, Captain,” he said with a sigh. “A very long time to consider a deal, indeed, especially one so lucrative as mine.”

“I was a while at sea. And even before that, I took my time looking into you. I like to do research on the men I aim to partner with. To ensure we start off as friends and not adversaries.”

Munt nodded sagaciously. “Marcet sine adversario virtus,” he said, and took a sip of his grog.

Vhingfrith gave a curious smile. “Is Seneca your ideal philosopher?”

“My ideal statesman, to be sure. And you?”

Vhingfrith pursed his lips. “I would say he is the model of a scholar intent on surviving. Oftentimes careful with his words. A man so successful at oratory that Caligula feared him, and sentenced him to die. Seneca only managed to survive by convincing the emperor he was sick and soon to die anyway. When Claudius became emperor, he again sentenced Seneca to die because of accusations he had an affair with Claudius’s sister. Yet again, Seneca was able to orate and get the emperor to commute his sentence merely to exile, from which he eventually returned.”

The fat man’s eyes lit up. “Upon my word, a scholar! It is a capital thing, so rarely indulged in this part of the world. Correct me if I am wrong, sir, but did Seneca not also attribute his survival to his patience?”

“ ‘I wish to avoid the impression that all I can do for loyalty is die.’ His words, but perhaps I slightly misremember them. Quite the man,” Ben said, taking a sip of his own grog.

“Most fascinating,” said Munt, cracking open another shell and slurping its contents ravenously. “And, again, correct me if I myself am misremembering, Captain Vhingfrith, but did Seneca not also believe that a man is strengthened by his enemies, that he is made greater in opposing them?”

“ ‘Valour becomes feeble without an opponent,’ which I believe is the accurate translation of the Latin you shared a moment ago. But I believe, sir, and please take no offence—”

“None at all.”

“—but I believe that you may be misconstruing, as many have done, the truest beliefs of the statesman. Seneca had no great love for collecting enemies. Indeed, many scholars interpret his beliefs as those of a man quite exhausted by it all, and wanting nothing more than to retire from the dreariness of politics.” Benjamin added, “Perhaps that’s why I’m so fond of him.”

“Indeed? You astonish me, sir. You do seem well informed. But, once again, correct me if I am terribly wrong, but did he not also end up being executed by Nero?”

“Seneca was ordered to open his own veins, yes, sir.”

“Then, does it not strike you, that as a man who, like yourself, abhorred gathering enemies, that Seneca himself should have so many men try to kill him over the many years of his life?”

Benjamin was invigorated, almost to the point of paranoia. It had been a long time since anyone engaged with him in philosophical discussion like this. It felt like ages. Part of him sensed a conman. “It is striking, sir. Very striking. Some of us try to avoid making enemies at all cost, yet the more we avoid them, the more we offend them by not giving them the time of day. Their self-importance demands that we at least hate them, if we won’t love them. And so, they gather round us like flies.”

“Indeed.”

“My father used to say that it is one of the greatest tragedies, that men may live and die, and during all their time strive to harm no one, and yet come to gather considerable enemies. That a man intending no harm at all to others may somehow offend. Indeed, it may even be in the intent of doing no harm that calls men of violence to do such a man harm. But I’m repeating myself.”

“Indeed. And why do you think such violent men may do this thing to a well-meaning man? Why do so many evil men harbour such deep and aggressive feelings of self-importance?”

Vhingfrith scratched his chin. It was something that had occupied his mind greatly over the years. Certainly, it had plagued his father, never more so than when he and his son had their philosophical disagreements. “There you pose me, sir, because you ask me to speak for all men, which I am not equipped to do.”

“If you were to wager a guess,” the fat man said. “I’m afraid I must press you.”

Vhingfrith smiled. He had long felt, as his father had, that debate is like a whetstone, against which you sharpen your own mind. And here this Munt was proving his point.

“If I were to guess,” Vhingfrith said slowly, “I would then have to say that violent men hate seeing a man strong enough in moral character to turn away from violence, for he reminds them of their own weakness, of their inability to solve any problem with anything outside of violence. In short, violence is committed by foolish men. Stupid men. And stupid men hate nothing more than to be reminded of their stupidity, because stupidity is a limitation, and no man wants to be limited. Secretly, not even by God.” He shrugged. “So, then, a non-violent man offends violent men by reminding them he has found another, simpler way to live, and that he rather enjoys it.”

The fat man’s eyes widened fractionally, then narrowed. “You put my mind at ease, sir. You speak well for a Negro. Earlier you said your father spoke wisely.”

“He is the one who passed such wisdom on to me.”

“I see. And where did he obtain such wisdom? I’m afraid I only knew him distantly, we supped together once or twice, but I never got to know the man closely.”

“My father took his degree at Brasenose College, Oxford.”

“I see. And what was his degree?”

“Law.”

Munt leaned forward, eyes twinkling like a naturalist who has just discovered a remarkable new species of insect. “I see, I see. But you became a plunderer.”

“My father turned to plundering himself, and taught me the trade.”

“I see, I see. It is very interesting, upon my word. A man of law taking an interest in plundering.”

“Plundering is legal, sir.”

“It is. It is, indeed, as long as you have England’s interests in mind, and her enemies as your sole targets.”

“As I say, legal.”

The fat mat smiled. Vhingfrith smiled back.

Munt finished off his grog and ordered another goblet, and then one for Vhingfrith. Once he had belched and leaned back into his creaking chair, the fat man ran a hand through his long, thinning mane of hair, and belched again. “I want to fund you,” he said bluntly.

“You said as much in your letter a year ago. But fund me in what, sir? Your other partners indicated you are an opportunist, one who takes on letters of marque and reprisal, but mainly for England’s vengeance. You’re a hunter of ships, but not always for Spaniards.”

“You’ve done your research on me.”

“As I said before, some men are adversarial with their partners, and I wanted to make sure you are not one of them.”

Munt took another long swig, and played with a single gold ring around a fat finger. “A man familiar with Seneca must be well read. Your mother must have seen to your education with a keen eye.”

“My mother could hardly read herself, she was my father’s slave. Initially. It was my father’s diligence that taught me, as well as an English tutor. But my mother was adamant that I should be well read.”

Munt didn’t seem to care about all those details. “If you are well read, then I wonder, have you ever heard of a man named Olivier Levasseur?”

Vhingfrith tilted his head, thinking back. The name did strike a chord, and he searched deeply through memory and recalled the story told at the dinner table once or twice. His mother had just served up supper, which was almost always some variation on yams, guinea melon, okra, rice, millet, and sesame. The cuisine had followed her and her people from Africa, the recipes memorized. Vhingfrith’s father adored her cooking, and even now, Ben could still smell the kidney and lima beans…

But right then he was thinking about a conversation his father had had with a man named Collin Blakely, a one-time venture capitalist, and a friend of his who sometimes funded his privateering endeavours. Blakely never once went out to sea as a privateer, he simply gave his captains the crew they needed and paid for the insurance should the ventures go awry, and then waited on land for a return on his investment.

But Mr. Blakely had been a well-connected man, an erudite who spoke many languages. Benjamin recalled Blakely complaining on a number of occasions about how some of his business contacts in Paris had turned against him, and how the French were souring against England once more. He went on to complain about how even French pirates were seeping into the Caribbean and harassing his privateers, who were trying to take down Spanish war vessels. “The ship that plagues me the most,” Mr. Blakely had said, “is one called Eugénie, and she is captained by a lethal fellow. A man named Levasseur, who some call La Buse—The Buzzard.”

Had Munt never mentioned the name Levasseur, Benjamin would not have ever thought of it again. But now that the memory had been drudged up, he recalled it more vividly. Blakely complained about this man incessantly. Apparently, Levasseur had been quite the clever and lethal captain, commanding a small fleet of French pirates at sea, terrorizing France’s enemies and even sometimes ships serving the French government. Olivier Levasseur was known for his largess, always giving away part of his treasure to the locals of the islands he came to, earning him fierce loyalty from the common man. He could hide almost anywhere, and none of the locals dared tattle about when or if they’d seen him.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But he became too bold in his perceived invincibility, and turned his pirate fleet against the monstrous might of the French Navy, right on the cusp of the War of the Spanish Succession, just when France was becoming bold on the seas. Benjamin had been secretly captivated by the stories, begging Mr. Blakely for more details into the night, until Ben’s father would at last silence him, saying it made him look worshipful of a devil, to be asking so ardently about Levasseur.

But that was long ago, so long that Ben had almost completely forgotten about it. As he recalled, Olivier Levasseur’s terror on the high seas lasted until a few months after he struck one of Blakely’s ships. Then, one night, when Blakely and Benjamin’s father had been drinking out on the porch, they’d received a courier on foot. The courier was from the embassy, and delivered a letter, stating that Levasseur had been captured in the Indian Ocean, somewhere close to Réunion, and hanged in its main port of Saint-Denis. Mr. Blakely and Ben’s father had toasted the hangman that night over more drinks, vomiting into the wee morning hours. Ben remembered his mother wordlessly wiping up all that sick…

“I do believe I know the name,” Ben said presently. “They called him The Buzzard.”

“Then you know he was hanged some time ago,” said Munt. “Twenty-four years ago next month, to be exact. The devil ran afoul of a French Navy captain, Toussaint, a terror of a man, clever and lethal, who lured Levasseur into a pincer by first hiding his ships behind a headland to the east of some large island, then springing on The Buzzard and smashing his fleet. Toussaint still roams the seas to this day, and in the same ship, Le Fier.”

“I was aware that Levasseur is dead, but not of the circumstances surrounding his capture. But what does a long-dead French pirate have to do with our meeting here?”

Munt ran a hand over his smooth-shaven face, and now leaned forward. Again, his chair moaned in protest. He spoke sotto voce, though he needn’t have bothered. The room was so raucous no one was going to overhear anything said between them. “There is a story some men tell about Levasseur’s last days on Earth. About his last words, in fact, just as he was led up onto the scaffold of where he was to be hanged. Have you ever heard this particular story, Captain Vhingfrith?”

Benjamin searched his memory again. He vaguely recalled Mr. Blakely mentioning something about a necklace, and that, according to a tale told in pirate coves throughout the Caribbean, Levasseur had made some rude gesture to the hangman, and to the crowd, before throwing his necklace at them. And then he did something lewd. “I believe he somehow managed to get his pants loose? Yes, that’s right. And he pissed on the people in the front of the crowd.”

“But before that,” Munt prompted. “Anything else?”

“Yes. He removed a necklace and threw it into the crowd. And he shouted something. Something about a…eh…”

“I’ll tell you what he did, Captain Vhingfrith, for it is now recorded by historians in both France and England, taken from accounts of men and women who were there. Upon stepping up onto the scaffold, ol’ Levasseur tore off his necklace, held it high, and shouted, ‘Find my treasure, the one who may understand it!’ The it he was referring to was the cryptogram on his necklace. Seventeen lines. Seventeen lines of a cryptogram etched into the silver locket. Then Levasseur threw it into the crowd and dropped his pants. Then he pissed on the front row. Then he was hanged.” Munt cracked another shell, slurped it, and washed it down with more grog.

Benjamin nodded slowly. Now that he thought about it, he did recall hearing that part of the story uttered somewhere. Then it hit him. It had been right here, in this very drinking hall, sitting right beside his father, across from a very handsome-looking man—a man that Benjamin now realized, after some scrutiny, bore distant resemblance to the face swaddled in fat before him! The man sitting directly in front of him!

“I’ve met you before,” he said quietly.

“You have,” Munt said, winking at him. “Just the once. I was wondering if you were ever going to remember.”

Benjamin blinked in wonderment. For a moment, it was as though he’d traveled backwards through time. “You were the map-maker, the one from Gotha.” Gotha was the world’s center of cartography, map publishing, and exploration society. “You bastard! You sat almost in this exact same spot, trying to convince my father of the same story. I only heard pieces of it because Father sent me away with a book to read on the far side of the hall—”

“Yes, I recall it the very same way,” said the old fat man, chortling. “I tried to convince him and Mr. Blakely to go. Only Blakely went, your father turned me down.”

Benjamin winced, and shook his head. “What do you mean? Convince him to go where?”

With the smoothness and alacrity of a magician, Munt produced a silver locket in his hand. It dangled from his fingers by a silver chain. Benjamin squinted, leaned in, and saw lines of weird scrawlings, weird symbols he’d never seen before. Seventeen lines. “This…this isn’t…”

“It is. I did not have the actual locket back when I spoke to your father, only an etching of it. But that etching was old, incomplete. It took me a long time to secure this—I found two forgeries before it, and almost got hornswoggled into buying one of them—but this one came from a man named Jacques Lavigne, grandson to François Lavigne, the hangman’s second, who assisted in Levasseur’s execution on that day and who confiscated the locket for the French Governor.”

Benjamin smiled suspiciously. “You are joking, sir. Surely this cannot be the reason you summoned me a year ago?”

“François later stole it after he was released from service—for stealing, as it were,” the fat man chuckled. “He tried finding someone to help him decipher it, to locate Levasseur’s lost treasure on his own, but he wasn’t a sailor and didn’t know how to run in those circles. So, he kept it. Because if he couldn’t have it, no one else could.”

Benjamin tapped the side of his goblet, never taking his eyes off Munt’s locket. It was as shiny as if it had been made yesterday. At last, he looked into Munt’s eyes. Never had he been more ready to call a man a liar. Yet rarely had he ever been more convinced of another man’s belief in a pirate’s tale. “And Jacques Lavigne gave you this locket.”

“Yes.”

“He gave it to you.”

“Yes.”

“And he did this because…?”

Munt licked his lips, and leaned even closer, dangling the locket. “Your father should’ve warned you. I have a way about me. If a man wishes to retire, he must needs a purse, and a heavy one.”

“And you gave Lavigne such a purse?”

“Among other things he asked for, yes.”

Ben leaned back in his seat.

In his lifetime, Benjamin Vhingfrith had had to refine his ability to gauge the mien of men and women. Like a sextant or an astrolabe, made for judging the stars to navigate by, a person must also have sophisticated tools for discerning truth from fakery. With Munt, Ben had to know whether he was speaking to a human or a guise. His cat’s-eye let him see things in darkness, but only savage treatment by others had honed his heart to detect lies. If the fat man was wrong about any of these facts, Munt himself didn’t know it. Ben could tell Munt was being sincere. But madmen were often the most sincere.

“Whatever happened to Blakely after that?”

Munt cocked his head. “Blakely?”

“You said you sent him after Levasseur’s treasure, when my father declined.”

“He never reported back to me. I never saw him again. And, as far as I know, neither did your father. Neither did anyone. There were two tropical storms that season, I’ve always assumed one of them claimed Blakely. Poor fellow. God rest his soul.” Munt toasted the air with his grog, and sipped.

Ben arched an eyebrow. “Blakely never returned?”

“No, and I never heard from anyone who ever saw him again.”

Benjamin was astonished. He had known Collin Blakely to have gone from his life, but he’d never known about the man’s fate. Of course, not a year or two after Blakely sailed away from Port Royal for the first time, Benjamin’s father died by a scheme that was partially concocted by Diego Morales, captain of the Santo Domingo de Guzman. After that, Benjamin had been on his own, all his father’s old contacts deserted him, and would not do business with a half-African who had no entitlement to his father’s fortune besides ownership of the Lively. With his mother dead a year prior from flux, Benjamin had been alone. The last memory he had of their homestead was holding his father’s head in his lap as his brains leaked into the soil. Collin Blakely’s disappearance had meant nothing to him. Not back then. He’d had more pressing matters to work out.

“Where did you send him?” Ben asked.

“Ah-ah. Not until you and I have an agreement.”

Ben smirked. “Because if you can’t have the treasure, no one can?”

Munt smiled, and downed the rest of his grog and belched, which apparently was the summoning call to the wench, who came by to refill his goblet. Munt secreted the locket away into the folds of his shirt, and returned to his meal for a moment. He seemed to be allowing Captain Vhingfrith to marinate on all he’d said.

Sipping his wine, Vhingfrith searched around the hall. The Golden Goose was a two-story monstrosity, mixing aesthetics and architecture from both the original Spanish owners and the current English ones. The tables were square, built from the local wood, but the chairs were wrought-iron Spanish design with legs that curled like a snake. The upstairs banister, upon which prostitutes and their pimps leaned as they looked down at potential customers, was carved to look like the railing of a privateer ship, or it might even have been taken from the shipbreaker yards on the other side of the island. A Spanish chandelier with crystal ornaments twinkled above. Various paintings of some English nobleman and his family hung from different walls. And there were throngs of humanity. Men stinking and filthy, and men somewhat well dressed, sometimes intermingling and sometimes fighting. Small-time political aides huddled in one corner playing cards, buccaneers crowded into the table beside them rolling dice. One of those buccaneers was a man that had been aboard the Lively. Fellow by the name of Kendrick. And every other buccaneer at the table was casting a glance in Ben’s direction while Kendrick whispered something to them.

They’re talking about the long night.

Amid that throng, something caught his attention. A sauntering form familiar to him, and a dress that revealed a man’s clean-shaven legs. Dear God, please tell me he isn’t—

But the Ladyman was there, and he was weaving himself through the crowd, making his way to the far side of The Golden Goose with young Dobbs and his six Africans in tow. Every eye turned to John Laurier, for how could they ignore him? He stood out like a peacock in a pigsty. Benjamin’s gaze went down to John’s footwear, then to his neck and hair. The gall of him…

“You’re asking me to enter into the same venture as you had with Blakely, I take it?” said Benjamin, turning his attention back to Munt.

“No, not the same.” Munt wiped spittle away from his mouth. “Different this time. I only sent Blakely on a scouting expedition, to confirm what I deciphered from one of the lines in the cryptogram.”

“What you deciphered?”

Munt smiled sheepishly. “You catch me there, sir. All right, I am not so clever that I deciphered it all by myself. But there is a person I know, a true erudite and scholar, who has made a lifelong study of the science of symbology. She once worked with ciphers, signaling, codes used by both Spanish and French sea captains.”

“She? Your codebreaker is a woman?”

“She is. She once worked for the Intelligence Office. Still does, from time to time. And she is quite certain we have a limited time to move on this.”

“And why is that?”

Munt reached into his shirt and pulled out a piece of parchment with a wax seal that had been broken. “Read it.” As Vhingfrith read what appeared to be a dispatch between a French naval captain and a French privateer, his intrigue grew. “That was taken off a dead French sailor who washed ashore in Madagascar after a storm. An English patrol ship was briefly careened there. You can see for yourself, Captain Vhingfrith, the French Navy is on the move, a quarter of their ships are all in the wind. All their thoughts are now marshalled around finding this bounty.”

Indeed, that is what the parchment appeared to say. Though waterlogged and damaged from being in the ocean, most of the letter was intact. And he was certain it was authentic, for he had seen proper French Navy dispatches before, having gone with his father to visit the French Embassy, which no longer existed in Port Royal due to the earthquake and tidal wave. Vhingfrith studied every word, even the longitude and latitude of where the French vessel La Louise was meant to rendezvous with other French privateers and begin a sweep of several islands in the Indian Ocean.

“This is real,” Munt said, taking another sip. “The largest treasure hunt the world has ever known is underway, and only I, and a few high-ranking French, Spanish, and English officers know about it. Not even the elites here in Port Royal know what’s about to happen.” He touched his shirt, where the locket had disappeared to. “And only I have the upper hand.”

He looked up at Munt. “This could mean anything. They could be looking for a fugitive, a ship, enemy patrols.”

“Is any fugitive worth ten thousand gold doubloons? Is any scout ship?” said Munt, producing a second piece of parchment. “I remember you speak French and many other languages. What do you make of that?” Now curious, Vhingfrith examined the letter closely. At first glance, it all appeared to be authentic. The seal of the French Navy at the top, the wax seal of Louis de Vinnu, Compte de Frontenac et de Palluau—the Count of Frontenac and Palluau—were all familiar to him. The lengthy letter was addressed to island governors in the Indian Ocean, and demanded “all sails bent,” a code that meant all haste was needed, and that nothing and no one was to stand in their way of finding what the writer called “the paragon.”

“Paragon is the code word they use for treasure,” Munt said.

“I know what it means,” Vhingfrith said. He read further down, and the letter showed a reward was being offered to any French privateer who could find the “rocher peint en rouge.” He winced. “A ‘red-painted rock?’ What does that mean?”

“My codebreaker has a notion. She says it’s the last line on Levasseur’s cryptogram, the one most easily interpreted, for the symbols bear resemblance to some form of corrupted Latin letters and cuneiform.” Munt chuckled as he took another sip of grog. “Don’t you see? The French government has secured part of the code—probably from a rubbing, like the one I had before I secured the true locket, probably an old rubbing, taken before Lavigne came into possession.”

Benjamin pursed his lips, thinking. “And you believe they’ve deciphered part of the code?”

“What little of it they have, yes. Levasseur left the last line as a tease. It actually tells you what you’re looking for: a red-painted rock. But, in order to find the red-painted rock, you have to first decipher the first lines of the cryptogram. My codebreaker believes she’s done that, at least partially.” Munt let that simmer. “So, what about it, Captain? Will you be my confederate in this hunt?”

Benjamin looked the letter over again.

“I assure you,” Munt said, “I would only be a background partner, a sort of éminence grise, if you will.”

“You mean the hand behind the curtain.”

Munt drank, shrugged, nodded, and belched.

“You want me to sail in a hunt for—”

“A race, Captain. Let us be clear. Like chariots of old,” he said, eyes glittering with intrigue.

“A race, then. You want me to bend all sails to race against the three largest, most powerful navies in the world, to hunt a treasure that may or may not be where Levasseur teased?”

Munt kept smiling.

Benjamin skimmed the letter once more, then sighed and handed it back. “Why me? Why not ask someone else in Port Royal? Why ask the Devil’s Son, who cannot even muster a crew worthy enough to sail, let alone trusted? Why ask the Devil’s Son to be your confederate in a matter so urgent?”

Munt smiled over his goblet. “I’ve no art for sailing myself. And there’s not a privateer can pilot or navigate like you. I’ve heard the stories, Benjamin. Your pre-eminence in the fields of charting and map-reading is well established, as is your reputation as a leader, and your commitment to see a job through is second perhaps only to what your father’s was. All these other privateers…they’re just waiting for a letter of marque to give them a convenient target, something close by. And pirates? They cannot be trusted as far as you can throw them.”

Benjamin nodded. “You need someone loony enough to travel far, on what is potentially a wild goose chase.” He smiled. “Ironic we are meeting in The Golden Goose.”

Munt shook his head. “It isn’t wild, Captain. This is no goose.”

“So, what does your codebreaker believe this ‘red-painted rock’ is, exactly?”

“The resting place of Levasseur’s three hundred million pounds’ worth of treasure. But it’s the first few lines that have her and I befuddled. You see, the first two lines seem to indicate an island, as well as a peninsula, with directions to key places where my codebreaker believes Levasseur likely left clues to help decode the rest of the cipher—I say, my dear boy, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Vhingfrith blinked, and he suddenly remembered his mouth was hanging open and he closed it. “I’m sorry. But did you say…three hundred…million?”

“Oh dear, pardon me, but did I forget to mention that part? Yes, it is only an estimate of what all Levasseur stole and was never recovered, but even if it’s close to that, you can see why the French government would want to reclaim it before anyone else. It would help re-stimulate their foundering economy and perhaps help them regenerate their withering fleets. Are you sure you won’t have anything to eat? I can’t help but notice you’ve only been drinking wine this whole time, and the Goose’s chef is a Frenchman named…oh, I forget his name, but he makes something delicious he calls an omelet. He uses fresh eggs that come straight from my very own farm on the north end of the island. It’s quite delicious, I assure you. Let’s have some while we discuss this further.”

Munt took another large gulp of wine, while Vhingfrith stared at him, still astonished.

“And for now,” he added, “let this conversation stay twixt us. Agreed? I shouldn’t want any others to think they can have a part in our confederacy. I heard you’re an honourable man, like your father. Let’s test that honourable streak.”