The Baroque Cycle - The Confusion Part 14

"Turbans are advisable for going abovedecks," Jack pointed out, "as my hair's sandy, and van Hoek's is red, and that of Moseh-"

They all stood and looked dubiously at Moseh until finally he said, "Get me a dagger and I'll cut off the forelocks-crypto-Jews can expect no better."

"May you become free and rich and grow them until you must tuck them into your boot-tops," Jack said.

They spent the last hour before sunset up on the towering quarterdeck turbaned, and covered in the long loose garments of Algerines. The town of Sanlucar de Barrameda rose above them on the south bank where the river flowed into the gulf. It resembled a feeble miniature rendition of Algiers-it was encompa.s.sed by a wall, and below it spread a beach of river-sand where some fishermen had spread out their nets to inspect them. Van Hoek gave the town but a glance, then seized a gla.s.s from the rais, rais, climbed up the mast, and devoted much time to scanning the water: apparently reading the currents, and fixing in his mind the location of the submerged bar. Moseh's attention was captured by a suburb that spread along the bank upstream of the town, outside the walls: Bonanza. It seemed to consist entirely of large villas, each with its own wall. After a while the avid Jeronimo spied the Viceroy's coat of arms flying from one of these, or so they all a.s.sumed from the invective that geysered forth. climbed up the mast, and devoted much time to scanning the water: apparently reading the currents, and fixing in his mind the location of the submerged bar. Moseh's attention was captured by a suburb that spread along the bank upstream of the town, outside the walls: Bonanza. It seemed to consist entirely of large villas, each with its own wall. After a while the avid Jeronimo spied the Viceroy's coat of arms flying from one of these, or so they all a.s.sumed from the invective that geysered forth.

Jack, for his part, was looking for a place to land their little rowboat after it got dark. In the interstices between walled places he could easily make out a fungal huddle of Vagabond-shacks, and with some concerted looking it was not difficult to make out a sc.r.a.p of mucky, useless river-bank where those persons came down to draw water. Jack got a compa.s.s bearing to it, though it remained to be seen how this would serve them when it was dark and the current was pus.h.i.+ng them downstream.

"'Twere foolish to go ash.o.r.e in daylight," Jeronimo said, "and, when night falls, 'twere foolish not not to. For smuggling and illicit trade are the only reasons for anyone to visit Sanlucar de Barrameda nowadays. If we don't try to do something illegal the night we arrive-why, the authorities will become suspicious!" to. For smuggling and illicit trade are the only reasons for anyone to visit Sanlucar de Barrameda nowadays. If we don't try to do something illegal the night we arrive-why, the authorities will become suspicious!"

"If someone asks...what kind kind of illegal thing should we say we are undertaking?" Jack asked. of illegal thing should we say we are undertaking?" Jack asked.

"We should say we have a meeting with a certain Spanish gentleman-but that we do not know his real name."

"Spanish gentlemen, as a rule, are insufferably proud of their names-what sort refuses to identify himself?"

"The sort who meets with heretic sc.u.m in the middle of the night," Jeronimo returned, "and fortunately for you, you, there are many of that sort in yonder town." there are many of that sort in yonder town."

"That schooner is strangely over-crowded with Englishmen and Dutchmen of high rank," van Hoek offered, pointing with his blue eyes at a rakish vessel anch.o.r.ed a few hundred yards downriver.

"Spies," Jeronimo said.

"What is to spy on here here?" Jack asked.

"If Spain took all of the silver on those treasure-galleons in the harbor of Cadiz, and locked it up, the foreign trade of Christendom would wither," Moseh explained. "Half the trading companies in London and Amsterdam would go bankrupt within the year. William of Orange would declare war on Spain before he allowed such a thing to happen. Those spies are here, and probably in Cadiz as well, to inform William of whether a war will be necessary this year."

"Why would the Spaniards want want to h.o.a.rd it?" to h.o.a.rd it?"

"Because Portugal has opened vast new gold mines in Brazil, and-as Dappa can tell you-supplied them with numberless slaves. In the next ten years, the amount of gold in the world will rise extravagantly and its price, compared to that of silver, will naturally decline."

"So the price of silver is certain to rise..." Jack said.

"Giving Spaniards every incentive to h.o.a.rd it now."

Night came over Spain as they stood there and talked, and lights were lit in the windows of Sanlucar de Barrameda and in the great villas of Bonanza, where dinners were being cooked-Jeronimo had told them of the queer Spanish practice of dining late at night, and they had already made it part of the Plan. The rhythm of the waves, heaving themselves sluggishly against the beach at the foot of the town, underwent some sort of subtle change, or so van Hoek claimed. He spoke words in Dutch that meant "the tide is running out" and climbed down a pilot's ladder into the galleot's tiny skiff, which had been let down into the water. Here he took a kilderkin-a small keg, having a capacity of some eighteen gallons-removed one end, ballasted it with rocks, and planted a few candles in it. After lighting the candles he released it into the Guadalquivir, and then spent the better part of an hour watching it glide slowly out to sea. Jack meanwhile kept his eyes fixed on the landing-place that he had picked out on the river-bank, as slowly it faded and became a black void in a constellation of distant lanthorns.

They doffed their turbans and cloaks and changed into European clothes, of which there was no shortage in the dress-up sack. Then they moved down into the skiff and began rowing across the river's current. Jack directed them towards the spot he'd picked out. Twice van Hoek insisted that they pause in midstream, backing water with the oars, while he threw a sounding-lead overboard to check the depth. Jeronimo spent the voyage winding a long strip of cotton around his head, las.h.i.+ng his jaw shut-a task not made any quicker by his tendency to think out loud. Thinking, for him, amounted to making florid allusions to Cla.s.sical poetry until everyone around him had fallen into a stupor. In this case he was Odysseus and the mountains of Estremaduras were the Rock of the Sirens and this gag he was putting on himself was akin to the ropes by which Odysseus had bound himself to the mast.

"If the Plan is as leaky as that similitude, we are all as good as dead," Jack muttered, once the gag was finally in place.

The arrival of all four of them would cause a commotion in the Vagabond-camp, or so Jack had managed to convince the other nine. So he waded into sh.o.r.e from a few yards out, then (reckoning no one could see him, and he was safe from mockery) fell to his knees on the strand, like a Conquistador, and kissed the dirt.

Here was the moment when he would simply disappear. He had never traveled down this way, but he had heard of this camp: it was supposed to be small but rich, an entrepot for the better sort of Vagabond. A few days' travel up the coast, then, a vast Vagabond city clung to the walls of Lisbon-from there, the way north was well-known. He reckoned that he could be in Amsterdam before winter, if he used himself hard. From there, the pa.s.sage to London had always been easy, even when England and Holland had been at war-and now they were practically a single country.

This had been his secret Plan all along, and he'd spent more time working it out in his mind than he had following the numberless permutations and revisions of the Plan of Moseh. All he need do was walk up into the brush, and keep walking. This might be the doom of Moseh's plan, or not-but (to the extent he'd paid attention at all) he suspected it was doomed anyway. Nothing that relied upon so many people could ever work.

But Jack's feet did not move him thus. After a few moments he stood, and began to move carefully away from the river-bank, pausing every two steps to listen for movement or breathing around him. But he did not simply bolt. Somehow the commands that his mind sent toward his feet were blocked by his heart, or other organs. It might have been because others in the Cabal had shown him mercy and loyalty where Eliza had not. It might have been the smell of this Vagabond-camp and the wretched and loathsome appearance of the first people he spied, which reminded him of how poor and dirty Christendom was in general. Too, he was strangely curious to see how the Plan came out-somewhat like a spectator at a bear-baiting who was willing to pay money just to see whether the bear tore the dogs to b.l.o.o.d.y shreds, or the other way round.

But what really addled his mind-or clarified it, depending on one's point of view-was his certainty that the Duc d'Arcachon had become involved, somehow. This much had been obvious from the evolutions of the Plan during the nine months since they'd presented it to the Pasha. By hiding the fact that he could understand Turkish, Dappa had learned much.

Now, Jack really had no particular reason to care so much about said Duke-he was an evil rich man, but there were many of those. However, at one point when he'd been stupefied by Eliza, he had volunteered to kill that Duke one day. This was the closest he'd ever come to having a purpose in life (supporting his offspring was tedious and unattainable), and he had rather enjoyed it. D'Arcachon had now been so helpful as to reciprocate by attempting to hunt him down to the ends of the earth. Jack took a certain pride in that, seeing in it what his Parisian friend St.-George would call good form. To slink away now and live like a rat in East London, forever worrying about the Duke's homicidal intentions, would be bad form indeed.

When Jack and his brother Bob, as boys, had done mock-battle in the Regimental mess-hall in Dorset, they had been rewarded for showing flourish and elan; elan; and if soldiers threw meat at boys for showing good form, might not the world shower Jack with silver for the same virtue? and if soldiers threw meat at boys for showing good form, might not the world shower Jack with silver for the same virtue?

Even so, Jack's mind was not entirely made up until he had been ash.o.r.e for perhaps a quarter of an hour. He had been edging quietly round the nimbus of light cast by a Vagabond campfire, counting the people and judging their mood, straining to overhear s.n.a.t.c.hes of zargon. Suddenly a silhouette rose up between him and the fire, no more than five yards away: a big man with a strangely mummified head, carrying a crossbow, drawn back and ready to shoot. It was Jeronimo-who must have been sent ash.o.r.e, as part of the Plan, to hunt Jack through the woods and launch a bolt through his heart if he showed any sign of treachery.

This confirmed in Jack's mind that he really must remain faithful to the Plan. Not out of fear-he could easily slip away from Jeronimo-but out of sentimentality of the cheapest and basest sort. For Jeronimo wanted to go back to Estremaduras as badly as any man had ever wanted anything, and yet he was about to turn his back on that place, which was almost within sight, and go off to face (in all likelihood) death. It was the most abysmally poignant thing Jack had ever witnessed outside of a theatre, it made his eyes water, and it settled his mind.

So, slipping away from Jeronimo, he made his way into the fire-light and (after calming the Vagabonds down just a bit) told them he was an Irishman who, along with several other Papists, had been press-ganged in Liverpool (this was likely and reasonable-sounding to the point of being ba.n.a.l) and that before setting out for America he and some of the other sailors wanted to pay their respects at Our Lady of Buenos Aires, a mariners' shrine inside the town (this was also very plausible, according to Jeronimo), and there would be a few reales reales in it for anyone who could sneak them into the town. This offer was taken up enthusiastically, and within the hour, Jack, Moseh, van Hoek, and Jeronimo (sans crossbow) were inside Sanlucar de Barrameda. in it for anyone who could sneak them into the town. This offer was taken up enthusiastically, and within the hour, Jack, Moseh, van Hoek, and Jeronimo (sans crossbow) were inside Sanlucar de Barrameda.

Now Jeronimo and van Hoek went off towards a smoky and riotous quarter near the waterfront while Jack and Moseh went to reconnoiter in a finer neighborhood up the hill. Moseh had no particular idea where they were going and so they walked up and down several streets, looking in the windows of the white buildings, before slowing down in front of one that was adorned with a golden figure of Mercury. Remembering Leipzig, Jack instinctively looked up. Though there were no mirrors on sticks here, he did see the red coal of a cigar flaring and then blurring into a cloud of exhaled smoke-a watcher on the rooftop. Moseh saw it, too, and took Jack's arm and hustled him forward. But as they hurried past a window Jack turned his face toward the light and glimpsed a molten vision from his pox-scarred memories: a bald head surmounting wreaths of fat, looming above a table where several men-mostly fair-haired-sat eating and talking.

When they had gotten some distance down the street, Jack said: "I saw Lothar von Hacklheber in there. Or perhaps it was a painting of him, hung on the wall to preside over the table-but no, I'm sure I saw his jaw moving. No painter could've captured that cannonball brow, the furious eyes."

"I don't doubt you," Moseh said. "So van Hoek must have been right. Let us go and find the others." Moseh turned his steps downhill.

"What was the purpose of that reconaissance?"

"Before you make mortal enemies, it is wise to know who they are," Moseh said. "Now we know."

"Lothar von Hacklheber?"

Moseh nodded.

"I should've thought our enemy was the Viceroy."

"Outside of Spain, the Viceroy has no power. The same is hardly true of Lothar."

"Why does the House of Hacklheber have aught to do with it?"

Moseh said, "Suppose you live in a house in Paris. You have a water-carrier who is supposed to come once a day. Usually he does, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes his buckets are full, sometimes they are half-empty. But your house is a large one and requires water in small amounts all the time."

"That is why such houses have cisterns," Jack said.

"Spain is a large house. It requires money all the time, to purchase goods from other countries, such as quicksilver from the mines of Istria and grain from the north. But its money arrives once a year, when the treasure-fleet drops anchor at Cadiz-or, formerly, here. The treasure-fleet is like the water-carrier. The banks of Genoa and of Austria have, for hundreds of years, served-"

"As money-cisterns, I see," Jack said.

"Yes."

"But Lothar von Hacklheber is not a Genoese name, unless I am mistaken," Jack said.

"About sixty years ago Spain went bankrupt for a time, which amounts to saying that the Genoese bankers did not get paid what was due them, and fell on hard times. Various mergings and marriages of convenience occurred as a result. The center of banking moved northward. That, in a nutsh.e.l.l, is how the Hacklhebers came to have a fine house in Sanlucar de Barrameda. And, I would guess, a finer one in Cadiz."

"But Lothar is here, here," Jack said, "meaning-?"

"He probably intends to take delivery of the silver pigs that we are going to steal tomorrow, and pay the Viceroy with something else-gold, perhaps, which would be better for one who wanted to spend much soon."

In a few minutes' nosing around the lower precincts, dodging brawlers and politely declining offers from wh.o.r.es, they located van Hoek and Jeronimo, who were posing, respectively, as a Dutch commercant commercant wanting to smuggle cloth to America on the next outgoing s.h.i.+p (which would have been illegal, because the Dutch were heretics), and his Spanish conspirator, who'd recently had his tongue cut out for some reason. They were in a tavern, conversing with a seamy-looking Spanish gentleman who, oddly enough, spoke good Dutch-a wanting to smuggle cloth to America on the next outgoing s.h.i.+p (which would have been illegal, because the Dutch were heretics), and his Spanish conspirator, who'd recently had his tongue cut out for some reason. They were in a tavern, conversing with a seamy-looking Spanish gentleman who, oddly enough, spoke good Dutch-a cargador metedoro cargador metedoro who acted as a Catholic front man for Protestant exporters. Jack and Moseh walked past the table to let it be known that they were here, and then staked out the tavern's exits in case of trouble-which was not really much use, since they were still unarmed, but seemed like good form. There they waited for a while, as van Hoek conversed with the who acted as a Catholic front man for Protestant exporters. Jack and Moseh walked past the table to let it be known that they were here, and then staked out the tavern's exits in case of trouble-which was not really much use, since they were still unarmed, but seemed like good form. There they waited for a while, as van Hoek conversed with the cargador. cargador. The conversation proceeded fitfully in that this Spaniard appeared to be partic.i.p.ating in two card-games at once, and losing money at both. Jack could see he was one of those men who are not right in the head when it comes to gambling, and was tempted to join in and fleece him, but it did not seem meet just now. The conversation proceeded fitfully in that this Spaniard appeared to be partic.i.p.ating in two card-games at once, and losing money at both. Jack could see he was one of those men who are not right in the head when it comes to gambling, and was tempted to join in and fleece him, but it did not seem meet just now.

Not that propriety had ever shaped Jack's actions in the past. But only now was it coming clear to him that he had forgone his one opportunity to escape, and thereby gambled his life upon the success of the Plan: a Plan that, only an hour ago, he was silently mocking as inconceivably complex, and dependent upon too many persons' exhibiting sundry rare virtues, such as cleverness and bravery, at just the right times. It was, in other words, a Plan that only desperate men would have come up with, a Plan in which it made no sense to partic.i.p.ate unless one had no alternatives whatsoever. Jack had only gone along with it, to this point, because he'd always known he could jump s.h.i.+p before the worst parts of it were put into action.

Yet these others were not like John Cole.* Moseh and van Hoek and the others were more in the mold of John Churchill. Moseh and van Hoek and the others were more in the mold of John Churchill.

Accordingly, Jack did not gamble, but contented himself with a tankard of cerveza cerveza-the first liquor that had pa.s.sed his lips in something like five years-and simply gazing at the wh.o.r.es and barmaids, who were the first human females he had seen (other than the bat-like phantasms of Algiers) since Eliza. And his view of her her had been obstructed by an incoming harpoon. had been obstructed by an incoming harpoon.

Suddenly van Hoek was on his feet, but he was smiling. A few moments later the four were outside on a tavern-street running along the foundations of the wall that faced the water-this looked as if sailors had been trying to undermine it, for hundreds of years, by burrowing tunnels through the stone with their urine.

"It is arranged," van Hoek said. "He believes that my cargo will arrive tomorrow, or possibly the next day, on a jacht, jacht, and that she will be in a desperate hurry to cross the bar and unload. He says that s.h.i.+ps from the north do this all the time, and that he can bribe the soldiers to fire signals during the night-time." and that she will be in a desperate hurry to cross the bar and unload. He says that s.h.i.+ps from the north do this all the time, and that he can bribe the soldiers to fire signals during the night-time."

They walked beneath Our Lady of Buenos Aires, which was disappointing: a fleck of stone in a bushel-sized niche. They departed the city the way they had entered into it, through a series of sneakings and petty briberies. An hour later they were in Bonanza, marking a path from the Vagabond-camp to the landward gates of the Viceroy's villa by slas.h.i.+ng blazes on tree-trunks. The sky above Spain was just beginning to dissolve the faintest stars when they returned to the galleot. The Corsairs, and the other members of the Cabal, were giddy that they'd actually come back; then excited, knowing that the Plan would actually go forward; then moody and apprehensive. They all tried to get some sleep, and most of them failed.

IN MID-MORNING, van Hoek began sending up spouts of pipe-smoke that swirled up through beams of hot sun and began migrating upriver-evidence of a breeze too faint for Jack to feel on his skin. This pleased everyone (because it suggested the brig could sail up from Cadiz today) except for van Hoek (who took it as a sign that the weather might be changing). The Dutchman spent the day pacing up and down the galleot's central catwalk, just like a slave-driver, save that instead of cracking a whip he was fussing endlessly with his pipe and gazing balefully at the sky. It was senseless, Jack thought, to exert so much grim attention on weather that was not really changing. Then-brus.h.i.+ng past van Hoek in the aisle-he came close enough to make out some of his words, and understood that the Dutchman was not cursing the elements, but rather praying. And he was not praying for the success of the Plan, but for his own immortal soul. Van Hoek had rowed as a slave for years because he refused to turn Turk. The Cabal had managed to convince him, through long debates on the roof of the van Hoek began sending up spouts of pipe-smoke that swirled up through beams of hot sun and began migrating upriver-evidence of a breeze too faint for Jack to feel on his skin. This pleased everyone (because it suggested the brig could sail up from Cadiz today) except for van Hoek (who took it as a sign that the weather might be changing). The Dutchman spent the day pacing up and down the galleot's central catwalk, just like a slave-driver, save that instead of cracking a whip he was fussing endlessly with his pipe and gazing balefully at the sky. It was senseless, Jack thought, to exert so much grim attention on weather that was not really changing. Then-brus.h.i.+ng past van Hoek in the aisle-he came close enough to make out some of his words, and understood that the Dutchman was not cursing the elements, but rather praying. And he was not praying for the success of the Plan, but for his own immortal soul. Van Hoek had rowed as a slave for years because he refused to turn Turk. The Cabal had managed to convince him, through long debates on the roof of the banyolar, banyolar, that the Plan did not really amount to piracy, because the Viceroy's silver pigs were contraband to begin with, and the Viceroy himself a sort of landlubber Corsair. Finally van Hoek had accepted their arguments, or claimed to. But today he seemed to be in fear of h.e.l.lfire. that the Plan did not really amount to piracy, because the Viceroy's silver pigs were contraband to begin with, and the Viceroy himself a sort of landlubber Corsair. Finally van Hoek had accepted their arguments, or claimed to. But today he seemed to be in fear of h.e.l.lfire.

Meanwhile, preparations were under way beneath the quarterdeck, and on those parts of the oar-deck that could be concealed under sails. The common slaves were encouraged to eat, drink, and rest. Members of the Cabal mostly unpacked certain strange goods, and organized them. In the rigging above, Corsairs adorned the masts and yards with a whorish gaudy array of banners and streamers.

The only pause in this work occurred in mid-afternoon, when the Viceroy's brig-flying its own gorgeous panoply of banners-came up the coast. At first, Moseh and several other Cabal-men were nearly frantic with anxiety that she would reach the Viceroy's palace with plenty of daylight remaining, and that the treasure would be unloaded this afternoon, before their eyes. But after firing a salute, which was answered by several guns on the city's walls, she paused outside the infamous barra, barra, and sent out a longboat to take soundings, and then bided her time for an hour or two, allowing the tide to rise a bit. Then she raised more canvas and rode that tide up into the river. Van Hoek lay flat on the oar-deck, poked his spygla.s.s out through an oar-lock, and gazed upon the brig with the dumbfounded intensity of a stalking cat. and sent out a longboat to take soundings, and then bided her time for an hour or two, allowing the tide to rise a bit. Then she raised more canvas and rode that tide up into the river. Van Hoek lay flat on the oar-deck, poked his spygla.s.s out through an oar-lock, and gazed upon the brig with the dumbfounded intensity of a stalking cat.

Her progress up the river was no quicker. When she entered the estuary her sails went slack. After maundering about for a while she struck her canvas altogether. Then long sweeps felt their way out through ports in a lower deck. The brig's crew began to pull on them and she crawled towards Bonanza yawing and faltering in the confusion of the river's current and the tide.

This gave the rais, rais, Nasr al-Ghurab, more than enough time to have the galleot's anchors weighed-a tedious job that involved eight slaves circling a windla.s.s as free crewmen worked the messenger cable. The galleot got under way not long after the brig had pa.s.sed by, and soon drew abeam of the larger, slower s.h.i.+p, then began to draw in closer as both vessels worked upriver. As soon as they had come within hailing distance, Mr. Foot ascended to the quarterdeck, garbed in a flame-colored silk caftan; raised a polished bra.s.s speaking-trumpet to his lips; and launched into a peroration. No one would ever guess he had been rehearsing it for months. His Spanish was so miserable that it actually caused Jeronimo (naked, and pulling on an oar) to flinch and writhe in agony. To the extent that Mr. Foot's words conveyed meaning at all, he was trying to convince the Spaniards on the Viceroy's brig that they really ought to be interested in certain splendiferous goods that he, Mr. Foot, the owner and captain of this galleot, had of late brought out of the Orient-particularly, carpets. He ordered a carpet to be hoisted up from a lug, as if it were a sail. Nasr al-Ghurab, more than enough time to have the galleot's anchors weighed-a tedious job that involved eight slaves circling a windla.s.s as free crewmen worked the messenger cable. The galleot got under way not long after the brig had pa.s.sed by, and soon drew abeam of the larger, slower s.h.i.+p, then began to draw in closer as both vessels worked upriver. As soon as they had come within hailing distance, Mr. Foot ascended to the quarterdeck, garbed in a flame-colored silk caftan; raised a polished bra.s.s speaking-trumpet to his lips; and launched into a peroration. No one would ever guess he had been rehearsing it for months. His Spanish was so miserable that it actually caused Jeronimo (naked, and pulling on an oar) to flinch and writhe in agony. To the extent that Mr. Foot's words conveyed meaning at all, he was trying to convince the Spaniards on the Viceroy's brig that they really ought to be interested in certain splendiferous goods that he, Mr. Foot, the owner and captain of this galleot, had of late brought out of the Orient-particularly, carpets. He ordered a carpet to be hoisted up from a lug, as if it were a sail.

On the decks of the brig, now, a kind of split developed between labor and management: the ordinary seamen (at least, the ones not pulling on sweeps) seemed to find the ludicrous appearance of the galleot, and the spectacle of the incoherent Mr. Foot, a welcome entertainment. They began shouting rude things to him from various tops and ratlines, trying to provoke him. But the officers, true to form, were not amused, and kept shouting at Mr. Foot to keep his distance. Mr. Foot only cupped one hand to his ear and pretended not to understand, and ordered more and gaudier carpets to be hoisted from all available spars. They had loaded the galleot by making the rounds of the least reputable rug merchants of Algiers and hauling away their most immobile stock.

When only a few fathoms separated the galleot's oar-tips from those of the brig, the Spanish captain finally drew his cutla.s.s and brought it down-which was the signal for some gunners in the forecastle to discharge their swivel-gun across the galleot's bow, showering the forward-most oar-slaves with a welcome spray of river water. Mr. Foot looked flabbergasted (which for him was not difficult) for a count of five, and then turned to his steersman and began waving his arms frantically-which, with the sunset radiant in the fabric of his caftan, made him look like a parrot with clipped wings being chased around a basket by a snake. The galleot fell away, to cheers and applause from the crew of the brig.

Gazing aft from his bench, Jack saw van Hoek at work, hidden beneath the quarterdeck, making sketches of the brig's rigging. These would be useful to Jack later, because he had heard more of these events than he'd seen. As they had drawn close to the brig, though, he had been able to look up into the spygla.s.ses of two Spanish officers who had ascended to the maintop. If the Cabal hadn't already known that the brig was full of treasure, they might have guessed as much from this show of alertness. For their pains, the Spanish officers saw nothing more than a few dozen chained wretches, a very modest number of freemen, and nothing in the way of weaponry. More to the point, they got a good long look at the galleot: enough to fix it in their memories, so that they'd recognize it in an instant when they saw it again.

There was a bit of flailing about-enough to convince the captain of the Viceroy's brig that these rug-pedlars had been scared out of their wits-then the big drum began to thump a brisk tempo and the slaves applied themselves to their work. The galleot sprang upriver, leaving the brig behind. After about half an hour, the drum was silenced and the galleot dropped anchor once more, this time in a place some distance above Bonanza where the river oozed through brackish marshes. Jack was released from his irons immediately and climbed halfway up the mainmast, whence he could gaze back downriver and observe the final quarter-hour of the brig's several-month-long journey from Vera Cruz to Bonanza. At sunset she finally dropped anchor below the Viceroy's villa, and the sound of cheering and celebratory gunfire drifted up the river. A lighter came out from a quay to collect the Viceroy and his wife and take them home.

Later, Dappa, watching through a spygla.s.s, announced that a guard had been posted on the quay: perhaps a dozen musketeers, as well as a swivel-gun for taking pot-shots at anything that came within range looking shootable. But other than a boat-load of what appeared to be luggage, nothing came out of the brig before sundown, which meant nothing would come out of it until sunup.

"Is there anything downriver?" van Hoek asked significantly.

"Sails, glowing like coals, out to sea, headed towards Sanlucar-a small s.h.i.+p* flying Dutch colors," Dappa announced. flying Dutch colors," Dappa announced.

"Tomorrow, she'll be flying French ones," van Hoek said, "for that must be Meteore Meteore-the Investor's jacht. jacht."

After dark, the Ten were free to move about, making no pretenses. The remaining slaves were distributed fairly among oars. Al-Ghurab presented Jack with a long bundle wrapped in black cloth, and Jack was astonished to find it was his Janissary-sword. It was in a new scabbard, and it had been s.h.i.+ned and sharpened, but Jack recognized it by the notch that had been made in its edge when it had collided with Brown Bess under Vienna. Apparently the weapon had lodged in some Corsair's treasure-h.o.a.rd during Jack's captivity. Jack wanted in the worst way to belt it on, but it would only drown him if he tried to swim with it. So instead he put it to use by severing the galleot's anchor cables. This would put them in a most awkward position if ever they wanted to stop the vessel again, for any reason. But after the events of the coming hours, to stop anywhere in Christendom would be suicide. And they could not afford to devote the better part of an hour to toiling with hawsers and cables just now. Having finished this errand, Jack handed the sword to Yevgeny, who was packing a certain bag.

During the winter storm season, this lot of slaves had (weather permitting) spent two hours a day rowing the galleot around the inner harbor of Algiers, learning to pull in unison without the need for a pounding drum. Now they emerged from the marshes without a sound-or so Jack managed to convince himself as he squatted in the bows with Dappa, slathering his naked body with a mixture of ox-grease and lamp-black. The galleot was making excellent time, helped along by the first stirrings of the out-going tide. Up on the splintery foothold that served as the galleot's maintop, Vrej Esphahnian had taken over lookout duty. He claimed that he could now see currents of light flickering through the brush between Sanlucar de Barrameda and Bonanza: hundreds (they hoped) of torch-carrying Vagabonds feeling their away through the darkness along the trails that the Cabal had marked out the night before, converging on the estate of the Viceroy, drawn by the rumor that, on the night of his return to the Old World, the Viceroy might hand out alms to the poor.

"Can you see anything of Meteore Meteore?" van Hoek demanded.

"Maybe a lanthorn or two, out to sea beyond the bar-it is difficult to say."

"Really it does not matter, as long as she is out there, and was noted by the harbor-master before dark," Moseh said. "a.s.suming that 'Senor Cargador' is not too drunk to stand, he'll be pacing along the battlements now, wringing his hands over the fate of the cargo in that jacht jacht and pestering the night watch." and pestering the night watch."

"Is it time for us to go yet?" Jack asked. "I smell like one of my dear mother's charred rib-roasts, and would fain take a bath."

"This would be a good time, I think," van Hoek said.

"Please do not take it the wrong way," said Mr. Foot, "but once again I wish you G.o.dspeed, and Dappa as well."

"This time I will accept it, or any other blessings sent my way," Jack said.

"We'll see you on the deck of that brig, or not at all," Dappa said. Then he and Jack jumped off into the river.

If Jack had been in his right mind, and if he had known he would one day become involved in a Plan such as this one, he never would have divulged, to his fellow oarsmen, the information that he had grown up a mudlark in East London, and that accordingly he had much experience swimming in estuaries, among anch.o.r.ed s.h.i.+ps, in the dark, with a knife in his teeth. But that was all water under London Bridge. The last several months, as other members of the Cabal had refined the Plan or practiced other parts of it, Jack had been renewing his old skills, and imparting them to Dappa. The African had never been a swimmer for the simple reason that rivers in his part of the world were filled with crocodiles and hippopotami. But life had taught him to be adaptable-or as Dappa himself had put it, "I know that there are worse things than being wet, so let us get on with it."

He and Jack now swam down the Guadalquivir, pus.h.i.+ng before them a very large barrel, denominated a tun, which had been tarred black and laden with a long piece of heavy chain so that only a hand's breadth extended above the surface. A circle of ox-hide was stretched over the top like a drum-head to prevent water from spilling in and sinking it altogether. Meanwhile the galleot backed water, fighting the river's current, and began to spin round in mid-channel so that it was pointed upstream. But it was consumed in the darkness, from Jack's and Dappa's point of view, before it had half-completed that maneuver.

They swam on, paddling like dogs to keep their heads out of the water, frequently reaching out with one hand to touch the tun, which like them was being swept by the river toward the sea. If the tun happened to s.h.i.+p water and begin sinking, they would want to know sooner rather than later, because it was tethered to each of their wrists by a short length of rope. The only way to judge their position was by gazing up at the lights of Bonanza, where Spaniards who had grown rich from America were just sitting down to dinner. Jack had learned, by now, to recognize the windows of the Viceroy's villa. Tonight every candlestick in the place was blazing, to celebrate the master's return. But Jack was satisfied to see that on the landward side, it was now besieged by a small army of Vagabonds.

They almost missed the brig. At the last minute they had to swim hard across the current to prevent being swept right past her. The combined flow of the great river and of the tide moved them much more quickly than they had appreciated. Jack and Dappa collided with the brig's larboard anchor cable hard enough to leave long rope-burns on their bodies. The tun toddled downstream for a few yards and reached the end of its tethers just short of thudding into the brig's stempost. Its momentum nearly yanked Jack and Dappa off the anchor cable, to which they were clinging like a pair of snails.

Jack hugged the taut anchor cable for a few minutes and simply breathed with his eyes closed, until Dappa lost patience and gave him a nudge. Then Jack let go and swam as hard as he could against the current, edging sideways a few inches at a stroke, until eventually he reached the opposite anchor cable. This slanted into the water about three fathoms away from the one that Dappa had, by now, made himself fast to with a rope around his waist. Jack did the same here, leaving his hands free. He could not see a thing but he guessed that Dappa had already removed his necessaries from the tun. Indeed, when Jack pulled on his wrist-tether the great barrel moved in his direction-though Dappa was maintaining tension on his his tether, so that the tun remained stretched out in the current between them, staying well clear of the brig's stempost. tether, so that the tun remained stretched out in the current between them, staying well clear of the brig's stempost.

Soon the rim of the tun was in his grasp. Groping around atop a jumble of cold rough chain-links, Jack found a rope-end, and drew it out and hitched it around the anchor-cable using a sailor-knot he'd learnt to do with his eyes closed-just as Dappa had presumably done with the other end of the same rope. The brig's twin anchor-cables were now joined by a length of st.u.r.dy manila with plenty of slack in it. In the middle of that length was a spliced-in loop, called a cringle, and fixed to that cringle was one end of a chain, somewhat longer than the river was deep here (as they knew from van Hoek's soundings) and several hundred pounds in weight.

Stowed atop the chain were several implements-notably a matched pair of short axe-like tools, packed in oak.u.m to keep them from clanking about "and waking the ducks," as van Hoek liked to phrase it. Jack removed these one by one and hung them about his shoulders on their braided cotton straps. When the only thing remaining in the tun was the chain, Jack tipped it so that the water of the Guadalquivir spilled in over its top. Within a few moments the weight of the chain had driven it down below the surface. Immediately the line he'd lashed round the anchor cable began to take that weight. It tightened, but his knotwork held fast and it did not slip down.

What he feared most, now, was a long wait. But he and Dappa had used up more time than the Plan called for, or else the galleot had moved too hastily, for almost immediately they began to hear shouting from upstream: several voices, mostly in Turkish but a few in Sabir (so that the Spaniards on the brig would overhear, and understand), shouting: "We are adrift!" "Wake up!" "We're dragging the anchor!" "Get the oarsmen to their stations!"

The watch on the brig heard it, too, and responded smartly by clanging a bell and hollering in nautical Spanish. Jack drew a deep breath and dove. Pulling himself hand-under-hand down the anchor cable, he descended until his ears hurt intolerably, which he knew would be a couple of fathoms deep-deeper than the draft of the onrus.h.i.+ng galleot, anyway-and then began a.s.saulting the cable with the edge of a dagger. He was working blind now, feeling one greased hand slide over another-a trick he'd worked out to prevent accidentally severing a finger. The blade made an avid seething noise as it severed the cable's innumerable fibers one by one and thousands by thousands.

One of the cable's three fat strands burst under his blade and unscrewed itself-he felt it slacken under his cheek, for he was gripping the cable between his head and shoulder, and felt the other two strands stretch and bleat as they took the load. He had no idea what might be going on twelve feet above. The galleot must be approaching, but it made no appreciable noise. Then there was a stifled thump, felt more than heard. He flinched, thinking it was the sound of the collision, and bubbles erupted from his nostrils. His eyes were still closed in the black water, and he was seeing phantasms: poor d.i.c.k Shaftoe being pulled up out of the Thames ankle-first. Was this how d.i.c.k's last moments had been? But such thoughts had to be banished. Instead he conjured up van Hoek on the roof of the banyolar banyolar weeks ago, saying: "When we are some ten fathoms away from the brig I'll strike the big drum once-just before we collide, twice. You'll hear this, and with any luck so will the Vagabonds ash.o.r.e, so they can make more noise for a few moments-" weeks ago, saying: "When we are some ten fathoms away from the brig I'll strike the big drum once-just before we collide, twice. You'll hear this, and with any luck so will the Vagabonds ash.o.r.e, so they can make more noise for a few moments-"

Jack sawed viciously at the cable and felt the yarns of the second strand spraying outwards like rays from the sun. He sensed the hull of the galleot over his head all of a sudden and felt real panic knowing it stretched, an impenetrable bulwark, between him and air. At once came two thuds of the drum. He hacked at the cable's one remaining strand and finally felt it explode in his hand like a bursting musket, the crack swallowed up in an incomparably vaster sound: a grinding drawn-out crunch like giants biting down on trees. The cut end of the cable snapped upwards and lashed him across the shoulder. But it did not whip round his neck, as had happened in many nightmares of recent months.

Something hard and smooth was pus.h.i.+ng against the skin of Jack's back-the hull-planks of the galleot! He could not tell up from down. But those clinkers were lapped one over the next like s.h.i.+ngles, and by reading their edges with one hand he knew instantly which way was down towards the keel, and which was up towards the waterline. Swimming, fighting his own buoyancy that wanted to stick him against the hull, he finally broke the surface and whooped in air, baying like a hound.

Above he heard shouting and panic, but no gunfire. That was good, it meant that the brig's officers had recognized them as the f.e.c.kless rug-merchants seen earlier today, and not jumped to the conclusion that they were under attack. The Corsairs had lit lanterns up and down the length of the galleot shortly before the collision, so that Spaniards running up from belowdecks, rubbing sleep out of their eyes, would be presented with the rea.s.suring sight of oarsmen who were still safely in chains, and free crew members who were unarmed and disorganized.

The galleot drifted away from Jack, or rather he drifted away from it. He squirmed round in the water to face the hull of the brig, which was onrus.h.i.+ng-or rather the current was sweeping Jack toward it. And this was the single most terrifying moment of the Plan. The hull was angled up out of the water at the stem, to ride over waves, but it would ride over swimmers as easily. It was already blotting out the stars. The current would drive him underneath it if he did not gain some sort of purchase on it first. He would in effect be keel-hauled, and might or might not emerge a few minutes later, alive or dead, flayed by the carapace of barnacles that the brig had grown on her hull during her long Atlantic pa.s.sage.

He had the means to save himself: a pair of boarding axes, taken out of the chain-barrel earlier. These looked like hatchets with long handles and small heads. Projecting out of the back of the head was a sharp curved pick, like a parrot's beak. Jack got a grip on one of these, twisted it round in his hand so it would strike pick-first, and wound up to a.s.sault the brig's hull. But the weight of his arm and of the axe drove the rest of him, including his head, under the surface. Drifting blind, he caught the hull on his chest and face. The barnacles dug into his skin like fish-hooks and the current knocked his legs out from under him, plastering his entire body up against the hull below the waterline. As a final, feeble gesture, the pick of his boarding axe might have pecked at the hull, a foot or so above water. But it found no purchase there. After a few moments he slipped down farther, the barnacles scoring his thighs, stomach, chest, and face as the current forced him under.

This was it, then: the exact keel-hauling he had worried about. He slipped again and the boarding axe tried to jerk itself out of his grasp. It must have caught on something-perhaps the edge of a single barnacle, or a caulked gap between planks. He pulled on it and it held for a moment, then started to break loose; its grip on the hull was not firm enough to pull his head up out of the water. But he had a second boarding axe that was trailing on a neck-rope and b.u.mping uselessly against the hull. As Jack had nothing else to occupy the time while he was being flayed and drowned, he pawed water until he got a grip on that boarding axe, then brought it back, fighting that d.a.m.ned current, and drove it into the hull as hard, and as high, as he could. A sharp crunch of barnacle-sh.e.l.ls was followed by the sweet thunk of iron driving into wood. Jack pulled with both hands, now, then brought the first axe away and struck with it, and finally managed to get his face up through the roiling crest of the bow-wave. He drew half a breath of air and half of water, but it was enough. Two more vicious strikes with the boarding axes brought his head and chest up out of the water. He wrapped the axes' braided tethers round his wrists and hung there for a minute or two, just breathing.