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Jacob’s Ladder – A rope ladder used to climb aboard a ship.

image [https://i.imgur.com/HfxBvLm.jpg]

THE BLADES CAME at him from the shadows. The first one was a dagger of Spanish make and the man who held it was short and stocky and with a mouth ravaged by scurvy. Woodes Rogers just barely had time to spot the glint of the blade by moonlight—the real moon’s light—and shoved the whore out of his way and shuffle-stepped backward to get his sword clear of its scabbard. The whore had grabbed onto him from the moment he stepped off the Duke and came ashore and it was clear now that she was meant to be a distraction.

Woodes parried the dagger and sliced the brute across his neck, but not nearly deep enough. He was about to advance on his enemy when another assassin emerged from the intersection of alleyways behind him, Toledo steel in his hand. He side-stepped and the assassin’s dagger tore his coat and Woodes push-stepped forward and kicked him in his chest, knocking him over the wheelbarrow full of dung someone had left parked in the alley.

One of the assassins threw an empty bottle at him and missed.

The French whore screamed and ran away.

Woodes was momentarily alone, none of Tortuga’s guards had come when the fighting began and he was certain they had instructions not to.

The first assassin recovered and launched himself at Rogers, who parried again easily. These men were barely more than thugs, likely hired from within the ranks of Tortuga’s underworld so that the French authorities could keep their hands clean. He parried the dagger once again and this time delivered his cutlass’s blade into the assassin’s neck, and slashed outwards. As the big man fell clutching his gushing throat, the second assassin was just climbing back to his feet. But Rogers rushed him and brought his blade down on the man’s wrist, and heard the snap. The man screamed as the dagger fell from his limp hand and Rogers put his blade to the man’s throat.

“Was it René? Answer me! I might spare you if you do.”

“C’était…c’etait…un homme en blouse blanch—”

“English, if you please. Who sent you?”

“It was—a—a man in a white coat, monsieur,” he said through strained English, gripping his broken wrist. “White coat—tall—never seen him—”

“So,” he sighed, and stepped back from the man. A cutout, someone sent by the lieutenant-general, or someone close to him, trying to shield him from culpability. “Go back and tell the man that hired you that I am in town to make business arrangements, and that the Duke—that’s my ship back there, in case you missed it—the Duke and her crew are ready to blast these docks to flinders if I do not return within the hour.”

“Oui! Oui, I will tell him! Thank you, monsieur—”

“Get you gone.”

The man ran on and Rogers stood there a moment, sword in hand, wondering when the next attack would come. Probably farther up the main lane. That’s where I would do it. Because another attack would certainly come, and the assassins would be more prepared. He knew how it would go. Politics on the islands were all the same. Political assassinations, too. They wanted to prevent him from reaching the embassy so that there could be no proof he ever actually made contact with the island’s leadership. No formal aides could attest to having seen Captain Woodes Rogers or met his heralds. It would be just like he vanished off the face of the Earth.

Woodes scabbarded his cutlass and patted himself down. The only offence to his person was the tear to his coat. He wished he’d thought to bring a pistol. I knew it was going to be rough, but I did not know they held a grudge like this. It was only the previous governor’s nephew that I killed, and it was a fair duel at sea, and that was years ago and who remembers that sort of thing? We should all be beyond this skullduggery. Surely any gentleman would see that.

____

He had to be stealthy. He used the night to his advantage. The sky was filled with fast-moving clouds and he waited for clouds to pass in front of the moon before he moved, from alley to alley, keeping crouched. His attire would not blend in with the latest French fashions, no more than it could blend in with the usual garb of French pirates. Tortuga had been a Spanish colony twenty-five years ago, but the Spaniards had gotten sick of fighting the English over it and so had sold it to the French in a trade—the French had signed an agreement to buy their slaves only from Spain. The ink wasn’t even dry on the treaty before the French broke it and did some slave business with the Dutch and English.

Rogers ran up a set of stone steps, passing underneath a stone bridge and through Tortuga’s only church, and hid in the graveyard behind. There he waited behind the tombstone of someone named Jean-Paul Cassel. Thankee for the safe passage, Monsieur Cassel, he thought sourly. He waited for another large cloud to pass beneath the moon, then he came out slinking in a crouch.

So far he had avoided whoever else had been sent to kill him, but before long he would have to walk openly in the brightly lit lanes leading up to the embassy and the Governor’s Mansion, because otherwise he would have to stalk through the jungle and there were coral snakes out there, and Caribee tribes who liked to collect white men’s skulls.

Rogers had to skirt the jungle for a while until he could take it no more. Insects were having a feast with him and he emerged with red sores all over his arms and hands. Tautly aware, he moved through the main lane with his hand resting casually on the pearly pommel of his cutlass, noting the looks he was getting. The lane was lit by torches, wooden houses and straw huts lined the muddy boardwalk. Pirates, privateers, French officers, and even families of five or six walked openly and without fear. There was not as much violence in these streets as Port Royal’s lanes. In fact, he heard no gunshots at all.

When the next attack came, it was in the form of four men following him; one on either side of the street, and two directly behind. These four looked a bit more lean and fit, with machetes stuck through their belts. At least one of them had a pistol.

Rogers noticed them by their attentive stares. There was an old trick he’d learned from his mentor, back when he first came to Port Royal. “If you want to know if you’re being followed,” said old Captain Robertson, “take four lefts, or four rights, and if the same people are on your tail, then they’re following you. Simple as.” Rogers had done that, taking four rights around a brightly lit tavern, and the idiots had exposed themselves.

Lethal, prepared, coordinated, but not bright, he thought.

He decided to turn suddenly into a hotel and asked the old man behind the front desk for a room. Rogers slapped down four reales for the night and even wrote his name in the guest book. When the old-timer started to lead him to his room, Rogers told him he had to use the latrine and stepped out the back door and bumped into one of the men that had been following him. They both stopped, a bit stunned, even a little embarrassed, looking at one another.

Then the assassin wiped the gormless expression from his face and went for his machete and Rogers head-butted him and drew his sword all in one motion, and stabbed him in his abdomen. The assassin went down clutching his stomach but Rogers did not wait to see if he died, he scabbarded his weapon and jogged around the hotel to rejoin the main lane and found a crowd full of merchants in a marketplace, boxing up their wares for the day. He blended in with their crowd and disappeared.

____

Tortuga had an inlet that could barely admit a single galleon, but one French war vessel had squeezed through it and was parked around the back of a large hill, in that very small inlet. That galleon was called the Indomptable, an eighty-gun ship of the line, and was itself the island’s only embassy. The single dock where it was anchored was heavily guarded by French soldiers carrying rifles. The gangplank was heavily guarded, too, with torches lighting it up. There would be no going that way.

So, cursing René for forcing him to go through this, Rogers found a dark spot along the shore and eased himself into cold waters, fearing snakes and whatever else. He held his breath and went under, paddled along, coming up every so often for air. It took him ten minutes to slowly swim around to the Indomptable’s stern, then guide himself along the port side until he came to Jacob’s Ladder. These were usually left hanging for lifeboats that went on and returned from patrols.

Captain Rogers hauled himself out of the water as quietly as he could, and hung from Jacob’s Ladder while listening for footsteps or voices. When he was sure the deck was clear, he hauled himself over the railing and walked down into a companionway, drenched to the bone. The companionway was lit by a single candle. He heard laughter up ahead, and smelled smoked meat. He tried the door and was not surprised to find it unlocked. Stepping into the ward-room he found French lords and their whores laughing around a dinner table. A dozen men, some in white wigs tilted sideways and faces red from drink, were fondling breasts and squeezing buttocks and telling ribald jokes. They stopped laughing immediately and looked at the drenched Englishman standing in their doorway.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” said one fat French nobleman. Behind him stood a man in brown robes, a Catholic priest and no mistake. Not uncommon for French nobility to keep one around, though Rogers was a little surprised to see him lingering in this blatant debauchery.

“My lords of Tortuga,” he announced. “My French is bad but I think most of you speak English. I apologize for the interruption, but my name is Captain Woodes Rogers, of the Admiralty Office away in Port Royal, and I formally request an audience to discuss a matter most urgent. I’m afraid my appearance is the result of multiple attempts on my life since I entered your beautiful harbour, and so I beg your understanding in this lack of decorum.”

Woodes glanced across the room and saw a tall, pot-bellied fellow in white wig glaring at him.

“Oh, hello there, René. So good to see you again, old friend. How long has it been?”

____

The others had been dismissed. René Duguay-Troulin, formerly captain of the French privateer vessel Trinité and ardent slave-trader, sat across the table drinking wine from a goblet. Rogers looked across at a man who had spent forty years fighting at sea, slaying Dutchmen, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Spaniards, even sometimes his own Frenchmen if they turned pirate. The man was a tactician, businessman, and nobleman, with a predator’s honed senses, and yet now he smiled and farted like a child as he giggled and said, “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble getting here, Capitaine.”

“Oh, René, I suppose I would have been disappointed had you not tried.” Rogers had his coat off, and wrung it dry, the water dribbling to the floor. He set it over the back of his chair and sipped his wine, confident it would not be poisoned. He had made himself known to the other captains that had been in this room, and for all René knew dozens of other people had seen him arrive. Rogers was too far in now for René to kill him and claim to have never seen him. Tortuga was thick with English spies, same as Port Royal was with French and Spanish spies.

“You asked how long it has been,” said René, handing his empty goblet to the only other person left in the room, which was the robed priest. “I think since you last sailed your Duke from these shores, just after you admitted to killing Cluzet’s nephew on the sea. Cluzet may be dead, but his hatred for you lives. Before he died he blamed me for letting you go, and made sure my career was stifled.”

“You’re lieutenant-governor now. I think you did well for yourself, despite everything.”

“Why have you come here? I trust it is not to make amends.” As soon as René said it, the priest bent over and whispered something in his ear, to which René nodded and waved dismissively.

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Rogers crossed his legs, and brushed away some seaweed that had clung to his boots. “You have me there, sir. I have business partners coming through here soon. Slavers. They have business partners here who demand that they check in before going into Port Royal to sell their slaves. They have no choice, they have to pass through here on their way to Jamaica.”

“How is this a problem?” said René with a shrug.

“They want assurances that they can pass inspection without having any slaves go missing.”

“They don’t want to be taxed, is what you are saying.”

“It’s not a tax, René—”

“Governor,” said the priest, speaking for the first time.

Rogers smiled patiently. “Governor. You know as well as I do that a few coins for wharfage fees and any transactions made inside Tortuga are perfectly fine, but simply taking one’s fairly gotten slaves is—pardon me for saying so, excessive. Unfair, even.”

“You’re calling me unfair?”

“I’m saying there are people at your docks doing unfair things in your name, Governor.”

The priest said, “It costs money to keep things running in Tortuga.”

“No doubt it does,” Rogers said. “And it costs to keep the Church’s coffers full, too, I am sure.”

The priest glared at him.

René sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. “These business partners of yours. Would they be willing to sell us some of their stock, for a discounted price?”

“I cannot speak for them—”

“You can. You have. You are.”

Rogers pursed his lips. “I suppose I might be able to twist some arms. But why do you require more slaves? I understood Tortuga was well supplied.” With a glance at the priest. “And that the Church had converted many Caribee natives and Africans to the Faith. That must make a terrific workforce.”

“Perhaps not so great as you think, Captain,” said René, leaning back to light an ivory pipe. “And we require more for what is coming.”

Rogers winced. “I don’t understand. What is coming?”

René arched an eyebrow. “Have you not had the problems with natives on your island?”

“No more than usual. They typically stay in the inner parts of the island and do not interfere with our plantations or with Port Royal. Nor do they harry Kingston or any other villages. Could you be more specific?”

“More specific?”

“Yes.”

The priest suddenly laughed.

“I’m sorry, Father, is there something amusing?” Rogers said.

René chortled. “Let me show you something.”

____

The Beast was kept in the bilge, and for a horrifying moment when Rogers saw it he thought René had brought him down here to be fed to it. The skinless creature was breathing heavily, bucking its spiked spine against the iron bars. It was kept in a cage at the far end of the bilge, in darkness, amid sloshing water, the bones of its previous meals—dog, cat, mule—were picked clean and lying inside the cage with it. The lieutenant-governor had two guards with him, each with a lantern, and he took one of their lanterns and led Rogers over to it. Rogers hesitated, but checked his manhood. The Beast looked exactly like those that had been captured in Port Royal, except this one was alive.

René and his priest said nothing, only smiled back Rogers as the Beast thrashed against the bars and its face split open exactly like the others had done and reached out with a human-like hand, claws slashing at air, just two feet from Rogers, who leapt back from it.

René clapped Rogers on the shoulder and led him back up. Without saying a word, he took Rogers from the bilge to the main deck, then down the gangplank and across the dock, and pointed out over the inlet, to the jungle hugging the opposite shore. “Do you see anything?”

Rogers, still shaken, trying to hold his manhood in check, shook his head. “No.”

René nodded to the priest. “Show him.”

The priest then turned to one of the guards. “Signal de feu.”

The guard nodded curtly and ran across the dock and halfway up the hill, almost to the fortress that was still being built—it had spent years in construction. The guard raised a pistol and fired in the air, then waved a torch in a circling pattern.

Rogers almost gasped when he saw the skies light up. From the fort came arcs of flaming arrows, they sailed over his head and went across the water, landing on the far shores and even setting a few of the trees aflame. In moments, he saw scuttling black forms. Men, all muddied up, some of them carrying clubs and spears, retreating silently back into the jungle.

“They get closer every day, testing our defences,” said René.

Woodes cleared his throat. “The natives? They’re targeting you now?”

René reached into his pocket and pulled out a small statue, like a totem, carved out of stone. He handed it to Rogers, who studied it. To him it looked like an octopus with many eyes, some of them painted purple. “I’ve made a study of religions, Woodes. It has long been a fascination of mine, and it has been necessary because the Caribee natives were once so vitally important for trade. Now we have them mostly suppressed and do not really require their cooperation. But forty years ago when I got to know them, I learned their language, I learned that they only carved their gods into stone—not animals, not people, only their gods—and I knew many of their chiefs by name, and I knew all their gods’ names.”

René pointed to the statue in Rogers’s hand.

“That is not one of their gods.”

For a moment, Rogers turned the thing over in his hand. “What does it mean? They’ve a new religion.”

“Two Caribee attacked my men on a hunting expedition. Killed and skinned one of the men. We shot one of them, captured them, brought them back for interrogation. Do you know what that man claimed? That during the Cataclysm, the firmament—that’s not their word, of course, but it’s what he meant—the firmament sent something down from the sky. A Traveler, he called it. When he described this Traveler, it sounded much like that totem you hold in your hand.”

Rogers looked across the river. “They’ve been testing your defences since then?”

“They have. And there’s a thousand or more of them, cutting down more trees than ever to make bows and arrows and spears. That much my scouts are certain of.”

“I’m…sorry to hear that, old friend. That sounds like a lot of burden to keep on your shoulders daily. But what does this all have to do with slaves?”

René sighed, and began walking up the hill. Rogers followed him patiently, and the priest followed just behind. Hands clasped behind his back, René explained, “We are being left alone out here—you are, too, or haven’t you noticed?”

“How do you mean?”

“The Caribbean is not a priority during this Firmament Crisis, whatever you want to call it. All our nations are pulling inwards, clutching their armies and their navies close to home jealously, to defend their lands, their crops, from their enemies. These Long Nights—some of them have lasted twenty days, mon ami. I am sure you’ve noticed. That is too long without sunlight.”

Rogers nodded. “Yes, I know that much about botany. Plants need sunlight.”

“The natives are getting restless. Something is happening. That Beast back there, I’ve heard that you suffered attacks by such things in Port Royal. But it is only the beginning. There are fouler things the firmament has yet to cough up, and the natives are worshipping them. Their gods…are not like ours.”

“They are foul demons,” said the priest.

Rogers turned to look at him. “Is this the Church’s stance?”

“It is the Stance of God Almighty. Satan had encroached far past his allotted boundaries and is bringing about the End of Days.”

Rogers looked at René with renewed appreciation. “You astonish me, old friend. I had no idea you had gone so religious.”

“It is the imperative of every man’s soul to find spiritual and Holy deliverance,” said René. He shrugged. “Of course, I do not believe all things can be explained through Father Gavand’s faith,” he said, nodding towards the priest. “Religious reasoning is not to be applied everywhere. Some things are perversions of God’s great works, and so cannot be examined by His divine intent.”

Father Gavand made a concerning face, and Rogers caught it by moonlight.

René suddenly hissed. “Who is doing this to us? Who? Who has put this Black Veil over us? And why?”

Rogers knew it was a rhetorical question, so he said, “I cannot account for God’s machinations, old friend, nor the Devil’s. But I can say that this has happened before.”

The priest looked over at Rogers sharply. “What do you mean?”

For a moment Woodes only paced with hands clasped behind him. “I have been doing some studying, reading accounts by historians and listening to the latest from Men of Letters away in London and elsewhere. All I can gather is that this same phenomenon once transpired, long ago, and that men were alive to see it. It happened in 536 A.D. and continued for at least a year and a half, and that even after the long dark ended the world was still freezing. In 541, the first bubonic plague broke out. A bit different than this new Disease, to be sure, but still a plague. This thing we are all going through, it is not unheard of, Governor.”

That seemed to take René aback, and he scratched his chin, ruminating. “A curse? One laid on the world, and has returned somehow? Did some evil sorcerers cast this curse seven hundred years ago, and failed to blanket the whole world? Are they merely trying again?”

“We cannot rule anything out. But it is something we must all endure together, Ren—Governor. That is something we should all remember. We all need each other right now, and no mistake. We must make friends. So, tell me, what is your position, sir?”

René sighed again and came to a stop near the fort, and gazed up at the moon. “Tell your partners I want their slaves. We will give them a fair price, but they must let us at least buy a few at a discount before they sail to Port Royal and sell the rest.”

“And we get to pick the choicest ones,” said Father Gavand.

René nodded in agreement.

“You can pick two of their choicest,” Rogers countered. “And the rest will be discounted.”

The lieutenant-governor looked at him. Smiled. “Very well, it will be as you say. Just be sure they understand.”

Rogers held out his hand. “I will make them understand, Governor.”

The Frenchman glanced at the proffered hand. “Before I shake your hand, there is the matter of Cartagena.”

“Cartagena?”

“The Spanish Silver Train. Last we saw one another, mon ami, we spoke of it.”

Rogers sighed and reeled in his hand. “You cannot be still on that. You are like a dog with a bone.”

“It’s ripe for the plucking. And we have the schedules now.”

“The hell you do,” said Rogers, eyeing him.

“I have the schedules,” René repeated. “I only require a little help. As I told you, we are on our own out here.”

Rogers had to think long and hard about this. The Spain sent ships twice a year from Mexico to the Philippines to buy spices, silks, and other Asian commodities, which they then turned around and sold in America and Europe for profit. It was the great key to Spain’s global trade, and the main reason they fought to keep a presence in this part of the world. Much of that silver came from Cartagena, it being the hub of Spanish colonial wealth. The silver extracted there from Peruvian mines was sent in raw form to all of Spain’s territories. The last time anyone tried to rob the ships in Cartagena the Spanish armada chased them south, all the way around Cape Horn, into those waiting winds that blew at gale force and had destroyed more British ships than any other seas on earth.

“You want to make an arrangement?” Rogers said. “You want a British ship to sail with you when next the Train runs?”

“No, I want you to sail with me.”

Rogers laughed. “You, the pirate-hunter. Become the pirate yourself, eh?”

René shrugged. “Privateer. Like you.”

“I would need to secure the letter of marque.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. Not for a man as persuasive as you.” René smiled, held out his hand.

There were several reasons to be reluctant in accepting a French captain’s friendship, their navy was small but daring, and French privateers had more than once boarded an honest British merchant ship and cut the ears off the captains, claiming the merchants were in fact smugglers of some kind. They had also “rescued” women from these smugglers and never gave them back. They went back on their word a lot, and sometimes paradoxically made Tortuga friendly to all pirates, in what was an obvious effort to encourage those pirates to destabilize British and Spanish control of the Caribbean.

There were lots of reasons to be reticent. But after a moment’s consideration, Rogers shook the Frenchman’s hand. “All right. We have a deal. I have a purser aboard the Duke, he’s good about these things, he can deal with the particulars and draw up the paperwork.”

René smiled again and said, “I am glad those ruffians did not kill you. This has been most auspicious.”

Rogers smiled back politely. “Yes, I am most fortunate.”

“So, where to now, Capitaine?”

Rogers shrugged. “I expect I shall sail soon, to hunt for a couple of Spanish ships that have harangued us too long. I will sail with the Devil’s Son and his Lively—I have promised him long enough. We were supposed to chase the Coronado months ago, but we have been delayed due to various attempts on Port Royal, and now I fear she may have sailed far from where our intelligence last had her.”

The lieutenant-governor made a face. “Do you mean the León Coronado?”

“Yes. You’ve heard of her?”

Suddenly, both René and Father Gavand tossed their heads back and laughed.

“Have I missed something amusing again?”

“Mon ami, today is your lucky day,” said René. “Our ships have spotted her all across the Bocas del Dragón. She has been injured in some storm, we think, and was taking on water, having to careen on multiple islands. But she is most distressed, and ripe for the plucking.”

“Astonishing!” This was exciting beyond all measure. He could sail to Port Royal tonight and be back there in two days if the winds were strong. He would make sure to bring Vhingfrith along, of course, not just because he had promised him the Coronado but in case there was another Long Night. I will need his cat’s-eye. “Governor, can you give me her whereabouts?”

René winked at him. “Mon ami, that ship has been a thorn in our side for years, also. I can point you to the exact island she was last seen, and I’ll be glad to do it.”