The Scent of Betrayal (20 page)

‘And there’s precious little honour amongst them. If they were holding anything of value …’

‘Like a rich man’s daughter,’ James added.

‘Exactly! Then the first one to run out of money would have sent me a message’

‘So who are your enemies?’

McGillivray’s shoulder heaved in a gesture of ironic humour. ‘It would take a week to list them.’

‘Try, sir,’ said James, solicitously, ‘in case it sparks some hidden memory.’

‘The Kentuckians, who want more Creek land as well as trading concessions on the west bank of the Mississippi. The Georgian land speculators, the same. French trappers, the fraternity of
coureur
de bois
who would like a monopoly of the trade in furs being exported through the colonial government – at present that is a position I hold. The French colonists of Louisiana. They resent the fact that I do business with the Spaniards and prop up what they see as a usurping power, the Dons themselves, who don’t really trust the Creeks, and are sure we are just waiting to betray them to the Americans.’

‘Is there anyone left?’ asked Harry.

‘Oh, yes, Captain. My business competitors, or any villain that would seek to make a fortune by exploiting any perceived weakness in my defences.’

‘I take it you’re known to be attached to her?’

McGillivray put his face in his hands. ‘I am.’

‘Then pray to whatever gods you worship, sir,’ said James.

‘I do, daily.’ Suddenly he rubbed his face vigorously and looked at the two brothers. ‘Thank you, gentlemen. Allow me to apologise for the manner in which you were brought to this room. Please understand that I was anxious.’

‘Of course.’

‘I shall await a demand. No doubt it will arrive in time. The
lack of specie in the area will make it difficult to meet, but I cannot gnaw on that problem until it arrives. After all, it is only three days since the taking of the
Gauchos
. All I ask is that you return her possessions to me. Who knows, she may have left a clue.’

‘Harry,’ said James, ‘you can’t leave matters like this.’

Harry looked at James, his face free of any expression. But as he turned back to the half-breed Indian, James was sure he saw the ghost of a smile.

‘Mr McGillivray … I don’t know if what I’m about to tell you will ease your mind or trouble you further.’

The black eyes were on him now, as hard as agate. And Harry’s voice, had a light, inappropriate quality for the purveyor of chilling news. ‘The day after the
Gauchos
sank, we found more than the body of Captain Rodrigo. The raft was towing half a dozen casks, which we assumed to have been used as a slow method of disposing of others.’

James interrupted in a more solicitous tone. He described slowly what they’d found, then Harry took up the conversation again.

‘There’s no concrete evidence to suggest who the victims were.’

‘The method was certainly barbaric,’ said James.

‘It does not bode well,’ added Harry gravely.

McGillivray seemed strangely untroubled by this, which made James continue: ‘It seems to me that you are operating on a false assumption, which is that the
Gauchos
was taken because your daughter was on board. It gives me no pleasure to disabuse you of this notion. When we boarded the vessel we found dozens of boxes, which we subsequently confirmed contained sugar, which was granulated by a new process invented here in New Orleans.’

McGillivray interrupted swiftly, waving a huge arm dismissively. ‘I know of this. If you are attaching some importance to that in the matter of the loss of the ship, I must tell you it means nothing.’

‘They were all opened,’ said Harry, in a slightly pedantic way,
‘with the top layers of their contents removed.’

McGillivray shrugged. ‘The value of those casks is long term, to both Louisiana and the sugar trade.’

Harry nodded. ‘Carondelet implied much the same.’

‘So what is it that is designed to change my perception of why the ship was taken?’

‘I won’t bore you with what happened off Fort Balize, but we were obliged to come upriver to New Orleans, because of stating that one observation to Captain San Lucar de Barrameda. Here we met the Governor, and though he did not set out to tell us so, he managed to inform us that the
Gauchos
was carrying a large quantity …’ Harry paused, long enough to draw his listener forward in his chair, ‘of gold and silver.’

McGillivray shot to his feet.

‘Bullion,’ Harry continued, ‘to the value of two hundred thousand Spanish dollars. I fear whoever took the ship was not in pursuit of any ransom, nor there to kidnap anyone’s daughter. It is my supposition that they knew the gold and silver was on board. Not only did they remove it, but they also took everyone off the ship.’

‘Why?’

‘I believe I have already said it can only be because either their vessel was known or they were themselves familiar enough to be recognised without causing fear.’

‘I don’t mean that, Captain,’ McGillivray said with a touch of asperity. ‘Why would de Carondelet want to ship a fortune in bullion to New York?’

‘That is a question we have been asking ourselves,’ Harry replied, nonchalantly, ‘ever since you mentioned it.’

MCGILLIVRAY
sat down again, leaning forward, his black eyes aimed at the brothers. Yet he wasn’t looking at them so much as through them, as he tried to fit what they’d just told him into the mass of thoughts which must now have filled his head.

‘I must tell you that having lost his original consignment,’ Harry continued, ‘he has taken possession of a chest full of treasure I was carrying and intends to use it as a replacement.’

‘Sorry,’ said McGillivray, who’d been so lost in his thoughts that he’d barely heard. But he forced himself to attend to what Harry said as he listed the events which had occurred since they’d berthed. The odd quick question helped him to avoid any misunderstanding, though the information he was receiving was clearly not doing anything for his confidence.

‘You know more about matters in New Orleans than either of us, Mr McGillivray.’

‘If you’re asking me to advise you, Captain Ludlow, then I’m not sure I can oblige.’

‘I rather thought you were seeking our assistance, sir.’

McGillivray nodded sharply, though his eyes carried a different message.

‘That is something we can hardly do in ignorance. How well do you know Barón de Carondelet?’

‘We’ve met simply because it is necessary. He has a deep suspicion of both me and the six tribes of the Creek nation.’

‘Why?’

McGillivray smiled slowly. ‘My agreements regarding the fur trade monopoly and defending the west bank of the Mississippi
were made with his predecessor, Governor Miro. So in part it’s just the usual official attitude which maintains that nothing which happened before his tenure has any value. But just recently I went to New York, along with several other Creek chiefs, to negotiate with the American government over land-grabbing by their citizens. Speculators in the east sell land they don’t own and when the people that have bought it turn up they find Indians occupying what they think is their property. That leads to conflict.’

‘I take it the good Barón didn’t approve of your journey,’ said Harry.

‘No. I tried to make sure that everything was open and above board.’

‘Did your mission succeed?’ asked James, nonplussed as to why Harry shot him a hard look.

‘I received guarantees from George Washington himself that they’d respect our territorial rights. I have to tell you that the President is as upright a man as you’re ever likely to meet, and I feel that as long as he is in office, or has any influence over policy, we are safe. Unfortunately, de Carondelet will not accept that Washington is honest and well intentioned. He suspects that there may be some secret protocol in which we have undertaken to ally ourselves to the Americans in a way that will harm Spain.’

‘Is that why you don’t wish to be seen here in the city?’ demanded Harry.

‘Yes. If my presence here is reported to the Governor he’ll wonder what I’m up to. He likes me to stay north of Pointe Coupée, on Creek land. The idea that I might be dabbling in politics worries him.’

‘I suppose it’s pointless to ask if he has a reason,’ Harry continued, smoothly. McGillivray looked at him keenly. ‘Do you dabble in politics?’

‘It’s impossible not to. I’ve already listed my enemies. But they’re not against me, or the Creek nation, for any personal reasons. We live in an unstable part of the world, gentlemen, where many different bodies are competing for advantage. So many that
the Governor of Louisiana has trouble keeping an eye on all of them. His recent activities have done little to ease his predicament. That money you mentioned, if I’m correct, has been gathered in by de Carondelet’s agents over the past six months. It has led to the worst shortage of hard coin I’ve ever known. We’re practically reduced to a barter economy throughout the territory.’

‘I’ve already said that if we are to aid you it would help us to know something of this, if you could spare the time to enlighten us.’

It was now James’s turn to look questioningly at Harry. There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest he cared two hoots for McGillivray’s daughter. But he did care about the money they’d lost. The Indian couldn’t help him with that, but if Harry was about to embark on a quest for de Carondelet’s ingots then such a man could provide invaluable information. Was it that supposition, the feeling that he was indeed being used, that caused their abductor to adopt such a biting tone?

‘I can enlighten you on this. As Englishmen, you picked the worst possible time to allow yourself to be locked up in a Spanish harbour.’

‘We weren’t apprehended!’ said James, offended. ‘Unless you are referring to the way we were brought to this room.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Harry, in a more normal voice.

‘You don’t know about Spain and France?’

‘What about them?’

‘There’s talk of an alliance.’

‘There’s always talk of that,’ Harry replied.

‘This time it’s more than just conversation.’

‘How much more?’

‘Enough to make me nervous about the frontier between America and Spain.’

‘Why should you be nervous?’ asked James.

Harry cut right across McGillivray’s chance to reply. ‘How much of this is mere rumour?’

‘It’s not rumour, Captain. Manuel de Godoy has been under
pressure from the French ever since he signed a treaty with them.’

‘That wasn’t a treaty, it was a surrender,’ said James.

‘Which tells you how much power he has to resist, Mr Ludlow. Spain and France are old allies.’

‘The Bourbon Kings were old allies. This is a different France.’

‘A difference that makes it even more dangerous to a weak monarch. Carlos has subjects who’d like to do to him what their neighbours did to Louis, only they’d want to guillotine his wife first. And some of the hidalgos, given half a chance, would love to hang de Godoy. French Jacobins are just the type to help them.’

‘How reliable is this?’

‘It comes from the American Ambassador to Spain, Senator Thomas Pinckney.’

‘Have you any idea how close they are to agreement?’

‘I have a precise idea,’ McGillivray replied. ‘The only thing that’s stopped them up till now is a lack of the means to finance it. Louisiana isn’t the only part of the world that’s bereft of real money.’

Harry thought for a moment, then suddenly, before responding, gritted his teeth in a silent curse. ‘The Plate fleet!’

McGillivray nodded. There was no need to explain, even to a lubber like James. The Spanish Plate fleet was the stuff of legend, the fantasists’ dream of plenty. Millions in specie, the fruits of their South American mines, shipped every year, in convoy, from Mexico to Cadiz.

‘De Carondelet will know this,’ James said.

‘Which is why he’s not worried about stealing valuables out of an English ship,’ added Harry thoughtfully. Again James noticed he was looking at McGillivray in an odd way. ‘Is this common knowledge?’

‘No. Quite the opposite, though how long it will remain so I cannot say.’

‘And I dare say that anyone in possession of such information could use it to advantage.’

The Indian didn’t answer, but his hard look was enough to convince Harry that he’d hit a nerve.

‘Mr McGillivray,’ Harry continued. ‘I find myself at a stand. I’ve heard conflicting reports of the nature of Spanish rule in Louisiana. Could you enlighten me as to how matters stand in the colony?’

To James that was an odd request, given what they’d just heard, and the silky tone Harry had used was out of character. But McGillivray seemed happy to oblige. He reprised all the threats that the Governor had spoken of, as well as telling the story of the slave revolt which San Lucar de Barrameda had so enjoyed recounting. That gentleman was dissected accurately by the Indian as typically Spanish in his inertia, as well as a pompous oaf. El Señor de Fajardo de Coburrabias, though identified as a pander, procurer, and dishonest tavern keeper, was nevertheless accorded both affection and respect, as well as being identified as the most active man in the colony.

‘If de Barrameda attacked Barataria Bay, you’ll probably find it was de Coburrabias’s idea. He’s a good soldier, and a fair administrator, with the morals of a rattlesnake. Both he and de Barrameda were here with Governor Miro, and being high-born Spaniards have nothing but contempt for what they see as an upstart nobleman from a family that originated in Wallonia.’

The Governor was described as a man who couldn’t make a decision. When called upon to act, he oscillated between a weak response and employing maximum strength. This wasn’t necessarily due entirely to his nature, but more to the manifold difficulties he faced in running such a disparate and huge colony that ran all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. His troops, poorly paid, were not only too few in number, they were totally unreliable. If they weren’t the scrapings of Spanish gaols, they were Cuban and not to be trusted. All except the detachment of Royal Walloon Guards de Carondelet had brought from Spain as a sort of personal bodyguard.

‘They are the ones who guard his residence. It was their
muskets that threatened your ship when you anchored. Carondelet keeps them under his personal control, which creates great friction between him and his senior officers.’

‘Surely they’d be better employed in the field,’ said Harry.

McGillivray laughed. ‘You sound just like de Coburrabias. The only time, up till now, they’ve left New Orleans is if there’s been trouble with the Kentuckians. That happens less since Pinckney’s Treaty. Though opening up the river has solved one problem and created a dozen more.’

‘What has it solved?’

‘Festering resentment by the frontiersman, who are as bellicose a bunch of people as you’re ever likely to meet. They even rebelled against their own government over a proposed whiskey tax. If there’s one thing a Kaintuck hates, it’s a tax.’

Pollock had said much the same thing about the peoples of Kentucky and Tennessee.

‘I heard they threatened to secede.’

‘They did, and that’s not settled. There’s a strong party in the Kentucky and Tennessee legislatures who think they’d be better off on their own.’

‘And the drawbacks?’

‘What de Carondelet needs is stability. If you take the territory as a whole, most of the planters, even the French, are happy with Spanish rule. The last thing a slave owner wants is any talk of equality and the Dons have obliged them by harsh reprisals for insurrection. But that doesn’t apply in New Orleans. The urban French aren’t like those in the countryside. And even if he excludes any more French immigrants how do you stop Americans from settling here in such numbers that their mere presence makes matters worse? Of course there are certain people who’ve been here for years, some of whom are just as much trouble as the French. The Spanish don’t trust them but they’re tolerated. But with the number landing goods at the levee on rafts and riverboats, not all of whom go back, banning immigration is a law that’s impossible to implement. And the incomers are more inclined to agitate for
the United States to take over control of the delta in perpetuity.’

James cut in. ‘Is that a prospect that tempts the sainted Washington?’

‘That I couldn’t say!’ snapped McGillivray. ‘But I take leave to doubt it.’

‘Why?’ asked Harry.

‘Because he’s got enough trouble with the land they already administer. The Federal government is only seven years old and since they’ve begun to raise taxes it isn’t universally popular.’

‘That will make our dear King George happy,’ said James with a grin. ‘He’s never quite got over losing America. They say it’s what drove him mad.’

‘Well, the Union is no different. The imposition of Federal taxes, especially on whiskey, had the frontier in open revolt. After they put down the Whiskey Rebellion in ’94 matters improved. But it’s not settled, by a long chalk. Our dear friend the Barón would, of course, be delighted to see them secede.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it would be weak in the face of the more numerous states to the east. That means it would require Spanish help to sustain itself.’

‘And where do you stand on this?’

‘In between,’ he replied, acidly.

‘Which is why de Carondelet suspects you of carrying on an illicit correspondence with the American government.’

‘Who says we are?’

‘I think you have, Mr McGillivray.’

‘I don’t recall doing so.’

‘Do you recall saying you have a daughter, sir?’ asked Harry, with a smile.

‘I don’t see such a subject as one to be treated lightly,’ replied McGillivray.

‘When we were with the Barón de Carondelet tonight, he asked me how I knew certain things without being told. For instance, I put forward the notion that the bullion he shipped on
the
Gauchos
was a secret so well guarded that not even Captain Rodrigo knew he had it aboard.’

‘I can’t see what you’re driving at.’

James opened his mouth to say the same thing, then thought better of it.

‘I asked him about passengers, Mr McGillivray. He couldn’t tell me anything about them, in fact he didn’t know that at least one existed, which was singular considering the cargo. Yet you are asking me to believe that the daughter of a man he regards as potentially dangerous was on that ship.’

McGillivray shrugged. ‘If he didn’t know who the passengers were …’

‘I wasn’t thinking of his ignorance, sir. I was alluding to yours. If you have a daughter, then I dare say she would be of more value to you, and your tribe, than a dozen crocks of gold and silver ingots. Here we have a sixteen-year-old girl, from the senior clan in your tribe. I am assuming that power will pass through her bloodline, in the same way it did with your own mother. Yet you are asking us to believe that you put her, a sixteen-year-old, alone aboard a ship, without enquiring whether there were any other passengers, and if there were, their identity.’

McGillivray didn’t answer. He just stared hard at Harry for several seconds.

‘And I would also assume that a man in such a sorry pass would not have time to spend enlightening two complete strangers as to the problems faced by the Governor of New Orleans. In short, Mr McGillivray, your hanging about here doesn’t make sense. What would make sense is if you were to tell us what you’re really after.’