Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Forty-Two





Waiting




A basement for Peter Sam, drier than the cell in Madagascar but sharing a similar narrow grating of light from the street above, and him wearing the same filthy smock rag on his back.

There had been the weeks in the hold of the sloop, the comforting sounds of working men above his head, then the night passage to the tunnel, the drawing room of a wealthy man, Valentim Mendes somewhere, then the two weeks of this cell of straw and hard mud.

He had glimpsed the sun briefly in Madagascar during the journey from the harbour to the sloop, but other than that he had only seen its short sweep along the floor as it crept through the afternoon. He would roll into its rays, basking on his floor like a turtle, relishing the burn of it upon his closed eyelids, and fearing its withdrawal which would signal the approach of the Scotsman; all the time the Scotsman, and the loathsome wait for food tainted with a beating if the mood came upon him. It had now become normal to measure happiness, even affection, by the absence of pain and degradation. Guilt with it. Gratitude without.

The door at the top of the wooden stairs crashed open. Peter scrabbled at the sunlit straw, its warmth proving, assuring him, that the door opened too early, that someone had made a mistake, and he shrank from the sun and to his corner to panic about whatever it was he had done.

With a drawn-out step the Scotsman’s buskins descended and met the straw. He threw a small smirk at the cowering bulk in the corner, then came a toss of the arm and a slap on the floor and Peter’s old leather jerkin and breeches had landed at his feet.

Tentatively Peter poked a foot at the leather bundle, felt its familiarity but still sat frozen, wondering what he had done, what punishment the leather package signified. The Scotsman chuckled and moved closer.

‘Them is your old clothes, Peter, my boy.’ And he laughed again as Peter shook his head. ‘You’re to put them on.’ He knelt, lowering his voice as he drew level with Peter’s eyes, shielded by his hugging forearms. ‘Time’s almost up. Been nigh on two weeks now, my boy. Time for us to have our revenge on that old captain of yours. If he’s coming.’ Hib Gow stood up to his full height, hair brushing the beams as he began to pace and wring his hands.

‘The things that captain of yours has forced me to do. Forced me to do for money to feed meself. And me an honest working man, Peter. The torments we have endured together for his vanity. The vanity of all men with power against us common hands.’ He dropped to his knees again, a moistness around his eyes – eyes shrunk like a pig’s against the broken and twisted horn of a nose. ‘But soon it will end for both of us, Peter Sam. Soon, just a few more days, I’ll make sure you get some meat and rum, and we’ll both be free.’

Peter crept forward and ran a hand over his leather jerkin, fingering stitches of whale gut he had sewn himself, pockets where scrimshaw pipes and spare flints had nestled, and his sewing palm and whistle. All gone now, but the stitches were his. Startling Hib, he pulled it lovingly towards his face and breathed in the sea, the pitch and the smoke and with its aroma something flitted about his eyes that unsettled the Scotsman.

Perhaps it was too early to give him his old clothes back, but Ignatius had insisted, in order to make him appear normal for the men that came for him. They were to provoke no more ill feeling than was warranted. Sam had been fed three meals a day for the last fortnight, albeit rice and cabbage, with a little pork fat for supper. But Hib disliked the eyes. His head swivelled around the basement. A bald path through the straw from one wall to the other. A round patch where Peter Sam basked and maybe exercised some? Sunlight gave hope. Certainly, as Peter stripped off the smock, Hib noticed the return of shadowy muscle around the arms and chest where once was flaccid yellow flesh that had taken weeks to cultivate. Hib rolled his own muscles beneath his shirt and sniffed as Peter held out his arms to him to remove the chains from his wrists so he could put on his clothes.

‘Help me, Mister Hib, sir,’ the red and grey beard pleaded. ‘Help old Peter, sir. Don’t want to let you down, Mister Gow, sir.’

Hib absorbed Peter’s words, the power of them, gravy to his meal. Sam’s voice carried the same whimpering note as those fellows at Newgate who thanked him in the morning for the bacon rind and black bread before he swung them from the rope they had helped him make the night before.

‘That’s right, Peter,’ Hib glowed kindly as he lifted his keys to the manacles. ‘You don’t want to let old Hib down now do you? Don’t want to make Hib do anything he don’t want to do now, mate?’ Still his hands drifted to the shining dagger stuffed at his belt as he watched Peter Sam tug on his clothes as gladly as if they were a new suit. ‘Remember I don’t get paid if you misbehave, and then what would I have to do? God knows what I would have to do if you let me down.’

Peter stood, snapped his jerkin into place and rubbed the leather down. Met Hib’s gaze. ‘I won’t let you down, Mister Gow,’ he grinned back and Hib raised an eyebrow at something he wasn’t sure of beneath Peter’s words. ‘I promise I won’t let you down.’

‘See that you don’t, Peter,’ he said and then whispered: ‘I’m minding you. And we’ll kill that treacherous captain of yours for what he’s done to you when he gets here won’t we? Together, man.’

Peter Sam sniffed again at his leather. ‘Aye. Kill him that has done this thing to old Peter Sam.’


A room for Valentim Mendes. Regulador of Sao Nicolau, the Verde island of the blessed Portuguese. Chained by his wrists and ankles to ringbolts sunk eight inches into the red flock walls of a window-shuttered room. One wrist, the left, was also tied with rope to the chains, the weakness of the porcelain appendage at its join giving some concern to his captors. Valentim had indeed struggled for some hours, pulling down at the screws riveting his flesh to the lifeless hard-paste hand ordered from the Vienna factory of Claudis Du Paquier – the factory built on the stolen secrets of Meissen, secrets that now threatened to flood the world once the letters of the Jesuit Father became widely known. Gold, saffron, diamonds, they were all the scrapings of the earth picked up by beggars. But this was industry like the ships, the iron, the guns, the sugar and the slaves before it. Factories would spring up all over Europe. Saxony would lose its monopoly, China its mystery.

Villages that had toiled to make bread for the hamlets that surrounded them would now fight to make genteel cups and tapered pots for coffee and chocolate for gentlemen who knew nothing but the craving of admiration for the best service at afternoon coffee, the most exquisite silk, the choicest lace finally available now the wars were over and kings could be kings again.

And Valentim, noble by birth, but not noble in the right world, his faith a little too papist to be entirely Christian, would be chained and starved until such a moment when he would be worthy to be addressed.

The door opposite swung open and there Ignatius stood, holding orange-scented linen to his face at the mess around Valentim’s black riding boots.

‘Could you not have held on, Governor, until the hour I give you?’ Ignatius choked behind the kerchief. ‘For the sake of others can you not restrain to be a gentleman?’

Valentim lifted his head. ‘You give me cabbage water and cider vinegar. My suit must now be burnt because of you, Ignatius, and my father will turn in his grave.’ He pulled against his chains and spat his words. ‘And you will die because of your insolence! Your throat will be cut at the hour of my freedom!’ Valentim spoke louder: ‘I am the governor of his majesty’s island of Sao Nicolau and you will—’

‘Enough!’ Ignatius waved dismissively and closed the door behind him. ‘I grow tired of your bleating, Valentim.’ He moved across the room, bare of furniture save for a chair and a perfunctory table for Valentim to eat his meagre rations; a lamp upon it lightened the gloom behind the shuttered windows. ‘I have suffered you no physical harm,’ Ignatius remonstrated. ‘I have taken care of you as well as I would expect you to take care of me should the situation ever be reversed. Do unto others, Valentim. Do unto others.’ He paced in front of him. ‘Besides, the worst is over. If I were to expect Devlin or Teach to return it would be imminently, and if they do not … then I will definitely need to think of some … new arrangement.’

Valentim straightened at the mention of Devlin. ‘I could not allow you to live once I am free, Ignatius, and if you kill me—’

‘Please, Valentim! No soul knows you are here. I do not make mistakes. I have been at this game a long time, Valentim. I am a study of Walsingham and a master of espionnage, which in this age has less to do with people like you,’ he pointed a mocking finger, ‘and more and more to do with companies, investors, thieves … and pirates. I have grown wealthy by knowing what others will pay to know. I am not a monster, Valentim. It has become my responsibility to have as little of the world as possible know about these letters. The last time I had them the world beat a path to my door. I sent them north for safety with Bellamy and even that was not enough. Once I have them again all of those who know of them will be eradicated until I can use them to their full value. I would wager that if I informed even your court that I had the arcanum of the true porcelana for their approval, but that it would cost them your life for them to receive it, not an eyelid would blink at the thought.’

Valentim weighed the words, unable to prevent his eyes growing wide at the notion. Ignatius watched with pleasure and laughed through his words. ‘Do not fear, Valentim. I am sure that will not occur.’

‘I do not fear,’ Valentim hissed. ‘I fear nothing from an English porco filho de um whore!’

‘I would save your tongue for the pirate when he arrives.’ Valentim’s eyes gleamed, not unseen by Ignatius. ‘I promised you the opportunity for revenge. You may fight to the death the man who maimed you.’ Ignatius placed his hand on his breast. ‘My word as a gentleman. But for my records I must barter with you once more for such a duel.’

‘What else is there that you do not have?’ Valentim hung limp in his chains, for noble spines bend as any other.

Ignatius strolled around the room, casually examining the bars and shutters of the two windows. ‘A year ago, when we began our correspondence, you knew what I did not. You knew where the letters lay after Bellamy’s ship went down. That you knew of the letters at all from that rock you call home was intriguing enough, but I would like to know how you found that which I could not?’ Ignatius paused and waited for the reply.

Valentim rolled his eyes to focus on Ignatius. ‘Pirates,’ he said. ‘A pirate named Toombs told me of the letters in exchange for his life. I knew of you through the court, the agency of conspiracy. This “porcelain mystery” had value. But I did not value it.’ Hate breathed through him. ‘I have higher ideals that you cannot understand. But you could find Devlin.’

‘But the cannon on Providence?’

Valentim sighed wearily. ‘I told you, English: pirates. It will always be pirates. Palgrave Williams had to take the gun somewhere. It would be a pirate that took him. And pirates will talk … eventually. I know pirates well.’

‘Ah,’ Ignatius made to leave. ‘For a moment I thought you had a grasp of facts that may have been of further use to me. Pity. I had not counted on the energy of hate, although I rely on it often. However, I will stand by my word.’ He opened the door, revealing Hib Gow filling the frame, the keys to Valentim’s chains hanging from his fist and the black servant dwarfed beside him with a tray of bread and soup. Every mealtime was the same. Ignatius bowed his leave. ‘If the pirate Devlin returns successfully you may have your play at him, Valentim. It will doubtlessly save me the trouble of what to do with at least one of you.’