Hunt for White Gold

Hunt for White Gold - By Mark Keating



Prologue





Charles Town, South Carolina, September 1717




The young black boy did not cook for his master although he was the only servant in the house. The desire for privacy outweighed his need for slaves to attend him, so the boy’s trusted daily task was to fetch his master’s meals from a different inn or coach-house each day – his master had stressed that point – and from what he had gleant of his master’s work in the past year this habit was not just an eccentric quirk.

It was always simple suppers: smoked fish and potatoes, a steak or loin of pork, but his master would prepare his own breakfasts, a honey or nettle porridge, depending on his mood; and he would graze on hard-boiled eggs throughout the day to sustain him. The boy would watch his master examine the eggs with a jeweller’s loupe, searching for pinpricks before coddling them in the water, but never queried his odd compulsions. Despite his solitary position of power within the household he was still his master’s possession. Silence was his prime attribute.

The lamps had started to be lit along the walls of the street and a curfew against unescorted slaves was one of the colony’s strictest edicts. The boy began to hurry with his silver charger of Scotch Bonnet peppered steak. He crossed the street, his eyes on the dish warming his arms through his scarlet coat, the concentration on his balance too intense to see the black velvet fist as it almost plucked him off his feet.

He gasped. The strong hand held him tightly and the boy stared wide-eyed into the face of the man who had seized him. He was fifteen but not tall for his age and had to look upwards into the pale face and its elegant beard shaved to a knife-edge.

The piped purple doublet, black cloak and long blue-black hair gave the man an almost medieval appearance, like a figure from a stained-glass window. Despite the violent arrest his voice was sable soft, his eyes darting, alert for witnesses.

‘Take me to Ignatius.’ There was something foreign in the voice. ‘I will not harm you, boy,’ he promised, but the golden basket hilt at his side suggested other possibilities.

‘My master has no visitors,’ the boy said bravely, daring the malice in the tall man’s eyes.

The gloved fist shook him roughly. ‘He will see me!’ He pushed the boy forward along the street, the right hand crossing his body to rest on the pommel of the sword. The boy obeyed.


The man in the suit of black sat at his desk of Office in the rented home in Charles Town. It was a fine building, as fine as that of Lt Col Rhett, champion of Charles Town, but indrawn, without the friendliness and swagger that the presence of the soldier and famed Indian fighter seemed to bestow on his own residence.

The town knew nothing about the stranger in black who had settled among them. He had rented the house from Governor Johnson himself over a year ago but still did not stroll the summer streets or attend any of the churches, French or English, that the town had already grown famous for.

Lamps flickered in the windows of the stranger’s house all through the night and the children of Charles Town had already begun to whisper that the house was haunted.

His oak desk was buried under a heap of papers and ledgers, the dark-suited man further darkened by their shadow. His lithe frame was hunched over paper and pen and he scribbled like a frustrated widow embroidering her past. The room too was dark, its corners hidden from the single candle that burned low on his desk. He did not notice that the time to eat had arrived, and his silver Dassier watch, open, ticked unheeded. It was only the knock upon the study’s door that made him drop his pen and slide open the drawer that held the pistol.

The knock was not the prescribed three-tone rap but rather a single tap against the door. His boy was not alone. The man in black calmly pulled the hammer to half-cock and let the pistol lie in the open drawer. He glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock and his supper due. That could wait for now.

‘Enter,’ he called, his right hand beneath the desk.

The door swung open and the servant was pushed inward, scrabbling with his tray. The man in the purple doublet bowed his way into the room which was briefly lit by the light from the passage. The radiance behind the intruder framed him dramatically. It made him the perfect target.

‘I have come, Ignatius,’ said the man and swept his cloak behind him. ‘Please forgive my coarse introduction. I wished my announcement into your town to be as discreet as possible. I hope I have not offended.’

Ignatius closed the drawer. ‘Not at all. I value discretion above all the other virtues.’

His visitor bowed again and indicated the terrified servant. ‘Please, do not allow me to interrupt your meal.’

Ignatius dismissed the boy who bowed meekly, grateful to close the door behind him and careful not to upset his tray. The room sank into darkness once more.

‘It is of no matter. It is more important that you are here at last, Governor Mendes.’

The visitor approached, curiosity on his face, and took the proffered seat. Ignatius had never seen Mendes to know his face and the expression of curiosity was not lost on him.

‘I know everyone I need to know, Governor. But I pay special attention to those whose letters intrigue me most.’

‘Intrigue?’ The word amused Valentim Mendes. ‘A fine choice of phrase indeed.’ He slapped some dust the long voyage from Sao Nicolau had ground into the expensive cloth of his doublet. His island home in the Portuguese Verdes was the seat of his governorship and the birthplace of his revenge. One night, several months past, had been enough to change his life. Enough to have him enlist a man on the other side of the world yet known throughout the courts of Europe – even if only by whispers behind princely hands.

A drink was offered and declined. Ignatius’s world being too large for small talk, he picked up the letter penned by Valentim’s own hand.

‘Your correspondence informs me that you know where the letters of the priest lie? The arcanum I believed lost with the pirate ship they went down on. Letters I paid a young captain a considerable sum to bring to me from China. You should be congratulated that you could establish that which I could not. This is valuable information, and not just to me.’

Valentim’s black eyes narrowed with a nobleman’s hauteur. ‘I am not interested in their price, Ignatius. Let baser men deal with the devil, if you wish the porcelain that is your concern. Since my … disgrace … I pursue higher ideals.’

‘Disgrace? My understanding is that you lost a frigate to pirates. In April was it not? The same time I lost my letters with Bellamy’s ship. An expensive loss for both of us as far as we have let pirates into our world, but hardly your own disgrace, Governor?’

Valentim leant forward, carefully enunciating his words for the ignorant. ‘You Englishmen do not understand the meaning of disgrace.’

Ignatius nodded. ‘Or perhaps we simply have too little experience of it, Governor.’ He steepled his fingers beneath his chin. ‘And what is my side of our bargain? What do you require of me that is beyond your worldly reach?’

Valentim looked to the ceiling, gathering himself for words he had long desired to speak. ‘I do not have the measure of your trade or your fine thread of connections, Ignatius. Your abilities, so favoured, outshine my reach or power. especially in this “New World”. And I am sure in the underbelly of this New World also.’ Ignatius inclined his head at the near-compliment. ‘It is therefore to you I come. My information and my purse are at your disposal. If you can find me the man whom I seek.’ Valentim stabbed a gloved finger towards Ignatius. ‘And it is he who must be sent to retrieve your precious letters. He who must be brought before me to pay. He whom I must kill. That is my price, Ignatius.’

Ignatius studied Valentim’s face. The overarching intri cacies of hate had ever been the manifesto of the noble. He had learnt that early. He had profited by little else. ‘And who is this man you wish me to find, Governor? What is this “underbelly” you wish me to scratch?’

Valentim sprang to his feet and stepped around his chair. Ignatius heard Valentim’s left gloved hand strike an odd chiming sound against the back of the chair as he did so. His eyes followed it as Valentim began to pace the room. Something unwholesome lurked in its size and limpness.

‘Do not mark me as a petty man, Ignatius! I seek personal redress against one who has robbed me of more than coin!’

‘I apologise, Governor. My manners sometimes elude me when I am so long removed from company. Inform me of this villain you wish me to locate and bring to you. Who is it that you seek?’

Valentim spun back to the desk, his refined English reverting in his passion to that of the struggling foreigner. ‘He is a pirate! A filthy, stinking, pirate dog! His name is Devlin. As the pirate Patrick Devlin he is known. You have heard of him, no?’

Ignatius straightened his white silk cravat. Cleared his throat against Valentim’s vehemence.

‘I will do, I’m sure.’ He picked up a stylus. Pulled some vellum towards him. Valentim continued, seething, willing his hate into Ignatius’s pen.

‘He stole my ship! Killed my friend! My men! You write this!’ His left hand struck the oak desk with each outburst, and Ignatius’s eyes watched its unnatural movement at every emphasis.

Valentim tore the glove from his hand. ‘And with this he has affronted me even more so!’

The glove fell to the floor. Valentim held out the cold porcelain mould of a hand that protruded from his sleeve, its elegance mutilated by the rough leather straps and nails that clamped it to his arm. He rolled up his cuff to show the white scars like spilled wax that crawled up his forearm.

‘This he has done to me! For this you write his name, Ignatius! For this you bring him to me! And for this you may have your letters!’

Ignatius scratched on the paper beneath his hand. Valentim watched the ink spell the name. ‘It is written, Governor, it is done,’ said Ignatius, his voice reassuringly cold. ‘It will take time. One man takes up such little space in the world.’ He placed the pen back on the desk.

Valentim studied his china hand with its fingers permanently set half open as if about to grasp at an object of desire. ‘And when you find him, my friend, then I will tell you of where the letters lie. But not until that day.’

Ignatius smiled wearily. ‘You Iberians. Every page of you a threat always. How very dull.’ He pushed himself back in his chair and stretched. ‘I am a man unaccustomed to paying attention to those who threaten me. Most unaccustomed.’

His left hand gestured to the darkest side of the room. ‘Allow me to introduce to you my adjutant, Governor.’

Valentim turned his head. He saw the wall itself move. A shape formed in the gloom, too tall and wide to be human. It stepped into the circle of light and the study shrank as Valentim looked up into the wide-set dead eyes above the creature’s massive broken nose that made of its breathing a low growl. Its muscles pulsed and rippled beneath a thin shirt like a straining horse, as if the beast would explode if Valentim looked at it for too long.

‘This is Mister Hib Gow, Governor.’ Ignatius spoke quietly beneath the breathing. ‘Formally an executioner. Now my assurer.’

Valentim’s hand felt for his sword’s golden pommel while his eyes remained fixed on the giant. His voice sounded almost numb. ‘Assurer?’

‘He will assure me that the man you seek will be found. And he also assures me that I do not have to listen to idle threats from those who wish to be my partners.’

Valentim resumed his graceful demeanour, his hand clear of his weapon. ‘I understand. I intended no insult, Ignatius. Only a bargain. For which, remember, I promise to fund whatever price you demand. That funding, naturally, would no longer occur should anything …’ he shrugged away the rest of his words.

‘Naturally,’ Ignatius concurred and pointed Hib Gow back to his corner. ‘As long as we understand each other, Governor,’ he picked up his pen again, ‘we shall begin.’