French, you know,” Sanson said. “French women make the best lovers, don’t you agree?”
“They certainly make the best whores.”
Sanson laughed. He was a large, heavy man who gave the impression of brooding darkness—dark hair, dark eyebrows that met over the nose, dark beard, dark skin. But his voice was surprisingly high, especially when he laughed. “Can I not entice you to agree that French women are superior to English women?”
“Only in the prevalence of disease.”
Sanson laughed heartily. “Hunter, your sense of humor is most unusual. Will you take a glass of wine with me?”
“With pleasure.”
Sanson poured from the bottle on his bedside table. Hunter took the glass and raised it in a toast. “Your health.”
“And yours,” Sanson said, and they drank. Neither man took his eyes off the other.
For his part, Hunter plainly did not trust Sanson. He did not, in fact, wish to take Sanson on the expedition, but the Frenchman was necessary to the success of the undertaking. For Sanson, despite his pride, his vanity, and his boasting, was the most ruthless killer in all the Caribbean. He came, in fact, from a family of French executioners.
Indeed, his very name—Sanson, meaning “without sound”—was an ironic comment on the stealthy way that he worked. He was known and feared everywhere. It was said that his father, Charles Sanson, was the king’s executioner in Dieppe. It was rumored that Sanson himself had been a priest in Liege for a short time, until his indiscretions with the nuns of a nearby convent made it advantageous for him to leave the country.
But Port Royal was not a town where much attention was paid to past histories. Here, Sanson was known for his skill with the saber, the pistol, and his favorite weapon, the crossbow.
Sanson laughed again. “Well, my son. Tell me what troubles you.”
“I am leaving in two days’ time. For Matanceros.”
Sanson did not laugh. “You want me to go with you to Matanceros?”
“Yes.”
Sanson poured more wine. “I do not want to go there,” he said. “No sane man wants to go to Matanceros. Why do you want to go to Matanceros?”
Hunter said nothing.
Sanson frowned at his feet at the bottom of the bed. He wiggled his toes, still frowning. “It must be the galleons,” he said finally. “The galleons lost in the storm have made Matanceros. Is that it?”
Hunter shrugged.
“Cautious, cautious,” Sanson said. “Well then, what terms do you make for this madman’s expedition?”
“I will give you four shares.”
“Four shares? You are a stingy man, Captain Hunter. My pride is injured, you think me worth only four shares—”
“Five shares,” Hunter said, with the air of a man giving in.
“Five? Let us say eight, and be done with it.”
“Let us say five, and be done with it.”
“Hunter. The hour is late and I am not patient. Shall we say seven?”
“Six.”
“God’s blood, you are stingy.”
“Six,” Hunter repeated.
“Seven. Have another glass of wine.”
Hunter looked at him and decided that the argument was not important. Sanson would be easier to control if he felt he had bargained well; he would be difficult and without humor if he believed he had been unjustly treated.
“Seven, then,” Hunter said.
“My friend, you have great reason.” Sanson extended his hand. “Now tell me the manner of your attack.”
Sanson listened to the plan without saying a word, and finally, when Hunter was finished, he slapped his thigh. “It is true what they say,” he said, “about Spanish sloth, French elegance—and English craft.”
“I think it will work,” Hunter said.
“I do not doubt it for a heartbeat,” Sanson said.
When Hunter left the small room, dawn was breaking over the streets of Port Royal.
IT WAS, OF COURSE, impossible to keep the expedition secret. Too many seamen were eager for a berth on any privateering expedition, and too many merchants and farmers were needed to fit out Hunter’s sloop Cassandra. By early morning, all of Port Royal was talking of Hunter’s coming foray.
It was said that Hunter was attacking Campeche. It was said that he would sack Maricaibo. It was even said that he dared to attack Panama, as Drake had done some seventy years before. But such a long sea voyage implied heavy provisioning, and Hunter was laying in so few supplies that most gossips believed the target of the raid was Havana itself. Havana had never been attacked by privateers; the very idea struck most people as mad.
Other puzzling information came to light. Black Eye, the Jew, was buying rats from children and scamps around the docks. Why the Jew should want rats was a question beyond the imagining of any seaman. It was also known that Black Eye had purchased the entrails of a pig—which might be used for divination, but surely not by a Jew.
Meanwhile, the Jew’s gold shop was locked and boarded.
The Jew was off somewhere in the hills of the mainland. He had gone off before dawn, with a quantity of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal.
The provisioning of the Cassandra was equally strange. Only a limited supply of salt pork was ordered, but a large quantity of water was required—including several small casks, which the barrel-maker, Mr. Longley, had been asked to fabricate specially. The hemp shop of Mr. Whitstall had received an order for more than a thousand feet of stout rope—rope too stout for use in a sloop’s rigging. The sailmaker, Mr. Nedley, had been told to sew several large canvas bags with grommet fasteners at the top. And Carver, the blacksmith, was forging grappling hooks of peculiar design—the prongs were hinged, so the hooks could be folded small and flat.
There was also an omen: during the morning, fishermen caught a giant hammerhead shark, and hauled it onto the docks near Chocolata Hole, where the turtle crawls were located. The shark was more than twelve feet long, and with its broad snout, with eyes placed at each flattened protuberance, it was remarkably ugly. Fishermen and passersby discharged their pistols into the animal, with no discernible effect. The shark flopped and writhed on the dockside planking until well into midday.
Then the shark was slit open at the underbelly, and the slimy coils of intestine spilled forth. A glint of metal was perceived and when the innards were cut open, the metal was seen to be the full suit of armor of a Spanish soldier—breastplate, ridged helmet, knee guards. From this it was deduced that the flathead shark had consumed the unfortunate soldier whole, digesting the flesh but retaining the armor, which the shark was unable to pass. This was variously taken as an omen of an impending Spanish attack on Port Royal, or as proof that Hunter was himself going to attack the Spanish.
SIR JAMES ALMONT had no time for omens. That morning, he was engaged in questioning a French rascal named L’Olonnais, who had arrived in port that morning with a Spanish brig as his prize. L’Olonnais had no letters of marque, and in any case, England and Spain were nominally at peace. Worse than that was the fact that the brig contained, at the time it arrived in port, nothing of particular value. Some hides and tobacco were all that were to be found in its hold.
Although renowned as a corsair, L’Olonnais was a stupid, brutal man. It did not take much intelligence, of course, to be a privateer.