Leopard in Exile (20 page)

It is night, or else the sun would be visible through the hatches. No ship sails so at night unless it

flees a storm, and I hear no sound of wind and ocean.

Unless it flees a storm…or is fleeing something else.

Pirates were a common problem along the coast of the Americas, and in their travels Louis and Meriel

had been menaced a number of times. If his captors had been fleeing pirates—and such pursuits could

cover hours or days, each ship hoping for a favoring wind—it would explain why he had not received his

customary ration of drugs this evening.

It also meant that whoever had kidnapped him had not taken him across the ocean to England or

France—unless of course those who pursued this vessel belonged to one navy or the other.

His thirst overrode all other immediate considerations. Dragging himself to his feet once more, Louis

shuffled from his improvised jail, his fettered ankles making his movements snail-slow. The men on deck

were shouting now, but Louis could not make out their words over the creaking of the ship.

He stumbled through the dark of the hold, guided as much by touch as by the feeble illumination of the

lantern. It was worth a flogging to the sailor that had left it here unattended, but Louis was grateful for the

guidance it gave him. He reached the ladder nearly by accident, and followed his nose to a barrel of

brackish water chained beneath it. There was a wooden dipper pegged to the barrel, and Louis filled it

and drank deeply, holding to the ladder to maintain his balance. The water was laced strongly with

vinegar to keep it from going bad for as long as possible, but Louis didn't mind. He drank until his

stomach was stretched tight and his head had cleared. Now to free his ankles, for bound as he was, he

would go straight to the bottom if the ship sank.

Perhaps that had been his captors' plan for him, Louis thought soberingly. Whoever they were, they

would not want him to survive as a witness if their plans went awry. The thought galvanized him to search

for some tool with which to free himself.

A sailor he had traveled with had once explained to Louis that only constant maintenance kept sailing

ships from springing apart and sending their crews instantly to Davy Jones' Locker. From this he

understood that the ship's carpenter was the most important member of a ship's company, and his tools

were always kept ready to hand. Shackles that had been put on a man would surely be simple to remove

with the proper tools.

A few moments search—to the accompaniment of increasingly-frantic sounds above—located a mallet

and a chisel, and with a few deft blows Louis had cut through the bolts that secured his bonds. Had they

been of felon's iron and not sailor's lead, he could not have managed the feat, but the soft metal sheared

through easily.

At that moment a great crash shook the vessel, the shock making the hull moan with stress. The lantern

tore free of its mooring and smashed into darkness, but now there was a spill of firelight down the ladder

leading to the deck.

It is pirates
, Louis thought, his guess confirmed.
And now they have boarded the ship
.

What should he do? The men aboard this ship were no friends to him, but those who had taken it from

them might be even less so, for Louis was entirely without false modesty, and knew that he was the most

important man in the world.

Not for what he might do, but for the fact of who he was. The last King of France—unanointed,

uncrowned, and in exile, but King still. And there were those who would try to use that fact to their own

advantage.

A lesser man would have despaired long ago, but a life spent in hiding, the only survivor of his murdered

family, had made Louis a fighter. He hefted the hammer and grimly made his way up the ladder.

On deck, a scene of slaughter and chaos the like of which he had never seen save in his nightmares

greeted him. The vessel upon which he had been held captive was bound to another with a network of

grappling hooks, and its decks were awash with blood. Though it was night, both ships were so brilliantly

illuminated that every detail of each could be easily seen. Here and there the clash of steel still rang out,

but most of the fighting was over. The air reeked of blood and the burnt gunpowder whose smoke still

hung over the ship in an acrid bluish haze.

All about the deck, men stood gazing at the carnage with torches in their hands, and the enemy ship—a

rakish, black-hulled sloop—was lit with lanterns until it resembled a saint's-day float. The legend
Pride

of Barataria
was written upon its bow in large golden letters, and it flew two flags—one of red and gold

that resembled that of Spain, and the other one Louis had never seen before: on a red field, a silver skull

surmounting crossed sabers.

Nothing worse could happen to him now, Louis thought with a strange pang of relief.

"Here! You! Another one!" a voice called in French.

Before Louis could react, he was seized from behind, the hammer jerked from his hand. He struggled

weakly, but nausea and sickness overcame him, and the pirate had no difficulty in subduing him. He was

hustled across the blood-stained deck, to where the man who was obviously the pirate king sat in a chair

brought from the captain's cabin below.

"Caught him sneaking up from the hold, Captain," his captor said, shoving Louis forward. He fell to his

knees and looked up.

The captain was a tall man, a few inches over six feet, and had the look of Gascony about him. He was

cleanshaven, with long curling black hair and a large gold ring in his right ear. He was barefoot, in the

fashion of an ordinary seaman, but his garments were of fine white calico, and he wore a coat of

fawn-colored doeskin that was spattered with the blood of his enemies. He held a heavy naval cutlass in

his left hand, resting its point on the deck.

"He does not have the look of a seafaring man," the Captain observed. "Are you sick, my little cabbage?

I won't tolerate fever on my ship."

Louis shook his head, resisting the urge to wipe the drug-sweat from his face. Around him, the dead

were being thrown overboard. He tried to keep from looking.

"Ah? Well, we will see." The captain reached down and seized Louis' hand, inspecting it critically for a

moment "I was right. You are no sailor," he decided. "I will have more of you anon—for now, take

yourself out of my way. I have business with the good Captain, and I will deal with you later. Take good

care of him, Robie—you tend to bruise your playthings."

The sailor who had brought Louis before the pirate captain gave a short bark of laughter and hauled

Louis to his feet. The one the pirate king had called Robie was a youth several years Louis' junior. He

had pale blue eyes, and his hair hung in a thick cream-colored braid to his hips. A diamond the size of a

cherry-pit winked in one ear.

"Like what you see?" Robie asked mockingly.

"I meant no offense," Louis said.

"Doesn't matter," Robie said, smiling. "If Jean wants to be offended, it won't matter what you want, you'll

be feeding the fishes before sunrise. Come along."

Robie led Louis to the foredeck and seated him upon a crate. The young pirate wore a blue silk sash with

a pistol and a dagger thrust through it, but it was his own weakness, not the other's weapons, that

rendered Louis so completely his prisoner.

"Please, can you answer for me a question?" he asked humbly.

"Maybe," Robie said grudgingly.

"What is the name of this ship?"

"
This
ship? Oh, you'll have a tale to tell Jean when he gets to you, I have no doubt. This is the

Merchant's Luck
out of Baltimore. And we—" he bowed low, doffing an imaginary hat with a flourish

"—are the
Pride of Barataria
, licensed privateers of Spain."

"But you are not Spanish—nor is the captain," Louis pointed out. At the throat of his shirt, Robie's skin

showed paler than Louis' own. He had the look of a Dane about him.

"What does it matter where we were born, if Spain will give us letters of marque and England will oblige

by being our enemy? And if we take a treasure ship or two out of Corchado, who's to know? Now be

quiet. I want to watch."

From his vantage point, Louis could easily watch the disposition of the
Luck's
crew. With an effort, he

kept his face impassive. The fighting was over, now, and the pirates ransacked the ship, carrying chests

and kegs and bales up from below and over to the other ship. The pirate crew sluiced down the deck

with bucket after bucket of seawater as the dead were flung overside, and in the water below, Louis

could hear the thrashing of sharks.

Those sailors who had surrendered were herded to one side under guard. The living were brought before

the enthroned pirate captain in small groups, and either went over the side to the sharks or joined their

fellows huddled on the foredeck. The screams as the sharks took their prey made Louis wince, but he

knew mat the men thrown overboard wouldn't have lasted long in any event, for most sailors couldn't

swim.

But I can
, Louis thought
If we sail near enough to the coast, I will leap overboard and take my

chances
. From Robie's words, he knew that they must still be off the coast of the Americas. He still had

a chance.

Most of the ship's officers had died—pirates strutted around the deck wearing their hats and coats—but

the captain had so far survived. Now he was brought before the pirate king, struggling and swearing, and

forced to his knees.

"Now we'll see some fun," Robie said. "No cargo to speak of and nothing in the strongbox. The men

aren't pleased, and Jean will put on a show for them."

"So, M'sieur le Capitaine—"

Louis could hear him clearly; Jean had raised his voice so that every man on the deck could hear him.

"Jean Lafitte! You barbarous bottom-feeder—"

Captain Lafitte struck him to silence. "
Non
, my good Captain. Jean Lafitte is a patriot who fights for

France. Ask any man. But you, my good
Albionnaise
—what can be said of an Englishman who flies a

Spanish flag in French waters? Surely he is a masterless dog, to be put down like the vermin he is."

"I—I—" Louis' captor stammered himself into silence, at last realizing the magnitude of his peril.

"Why should I keep you alive? Eh?"

"D'Charenton pays me!" the captain burst out. "If I am harmed, the Governor of Louisianne will take

revenge upon you all!"

Lafitte yawned elaborately. "As if the
Royal Orléans
had not attempted that already. My dear Captain

Franklyn—you will have to offer a better ransom than that for your life. Tell us of your cargo."

Louis tensed, and felt Robie's hand come down hard upon his shoulder. But still Franklyn hesitated.

"I'll tell!" one of the sailors yet to be judged shouted out. "It's the King—'e's got the True King o' France,

an' he's taking him to the Governor. That's him up there!" the sailor cried, pointing to Louis.

Vainly Franklyn attempted to silence his crewman, but was himself struck down for his pains.

"Little cabbage?" Lafitte called to Louis. "Come down here, my own, and unbosom yourself to me."

"And don't try anything even remotely amusing," Robie breathed in his ear.

Once again Louis came before the man he now knew to be Jean Lafitte, Terror of the Gulf. The journey

he and Meriel had made north from Huy Braseal a few weeks before had been complicated by fear of

the pirate's raids, for despite Robie's pious talk of letters of marque, it was well-known that Lafitte was a

law entirely to himself, and took whatever prey he chose.

"And are you the King, my little Frenchman?" Lafitte asked.

"There is no king in France," Louis said coldly. "Robespierre and
les canailles
saw to that many years

ago."

"Yet there are those who would welcome King Louis XVII back to the throne," Lafitte mused. "Those

who say the Dauphin never died, but was spirited into hiding by those who loved him. He would be a

man of much your age, would he not, my brave? And you have as much the look of the Old King as one

can take from coins and statues. No doubt it has been a great trial to you in the days of your life. And for

my part, I should like to know what prisoner is of such importance to the Governor of Louisianne that he

would devote a ship entire to his secret transport."

"I can't tell you," Louis said evenly. "I have never met the Governor of Louisianne. And no man can help

his features."

Lafitte threw back his head and roared with laughter. "So the monkey would bait the lion, eh? You are as

brave as a king, I will grant you that much. Throw him to the sharks."

For one horrified moment Louis thought that last remark was directed to him as well, but it was the

sailors holding Captain Franklyn who moved forward, carrying the captain of the
Merchant's Luck
to

the rail.

"No—No, I beg you! I will tell you all!" he cried as they lifted him.

Lafitte raised his hand, and the pirates set Franklyn back down.

"Talk, then," he advised genially.

"I—I—D'Charenton is a warlock! He has forbidden me to speak—he will kill me if I do!" Franklyn

babbled. Even Louis had to feel sorry for him. Franklyn had obviously never thought to meet the terrible