Chapter 7

The Consoo House was crowded with traders, ship’s captains and Europeans for the execution. The eight members of the Co Hong sat to one side, trade taking a poor second place to justice in this instance. The Chinese mandarin Viceroy for Canton sat on his inlaid throne on a pile of silk pillows, with his Banner Men soldiers behind him, and his linguist at his feet.

Lewrie had missed the trial, laid up with a concussion, but he had been told it was a brief affair. The Chinese officials had been highly upset that one of their strictures had been violated. There had been more than a strong rumor that all foreign-devil ships would be ordered out of Chinese waters if more of these fights between the French and English occurred.

“Fight, Hell!” Alan had protested, but Twigg had told him to stay silent. There was too much pressure from the East India Company to let it go for what it appeared to be: a bungled attempt at robbery by a drink-addled French sailor on an English trader. Trade was too good this season. The pickings corning down from the hinterland were the best anyone had ever seen, and the prices were for once reasonable.

So Twigg had to sit silent and let his friend and partner pass over as a man in the wrong place at the wrong time, who had died trying to aid an English shipmate. It had taken Wythy a couple of days to die, from the suppuration of two deep belly wounds that were untreatable and a death sentence. Lockjaw had been added to the insufferable agonies of his last night on earth.

The surgeon had shaved Alan’s head, staunched the bleeding and sewn up the pressure cut. For the moment he was forced to wear a wig until his hair grew back out.

“M’seurs,” someone said in a soft voice from behind them.

Alan turned awkwardly. It still hurt to turn his head, so he pivoted on one heel.

“Guillaume Choundas, capitaine, La Poisson D’Or. A votre service” he said. “I am mos’ sorry for your loss. Zat it was a French sailor who did this . . . words cannot express my sorry.”

Twigg laid a hand on Lewrie’s arm before he exploded.

Choundas was turned out in his Sunday Divisions best, a dark blue master’s coat trimmed in white lace and silver buttons, short white tie-wig over his dull ginger hair, silk shirt and neck-cloth, dark red waist-coat and black breeches and stockings. On his left sleeve, he wore a wide black riband, tied in a bow. In mourning for the French sailor.

Choundas turned up the corners of his mouth in a sad smile. He had droop-cornered eyes, orbs of a pale, washed-out blue that were as icy as Greenland bergs, though, belying his evident sorrow.

“Zis pauvre homme, messieurs,” Choundas went on. “Zis poor lad. what ‘e did was ...” A Gallic shrug. “But ‘e was in drink, n’est-ce pas! A good matelot. One of mine, as you know. ‘E is tres ... so very young, messieurs. Surely, Brittanique gentilhommes such as you may find ze Christiani-te . . .”

“Not my decision, sir,” Twigg said, glaring. “He killed one of mine!”

“Ah, mais ouis, mais ouis, m ‘seur Tweeg,” Choundas sighed like a disappointed suitor. “Ze Chinetoque courts, zo, zey do take . . . uhmm . . . like ze Gauls ancien . . . what your Saxon ancestors called ‘were-gild,’ messieurs.”

“Blood-money?” Lewrie gasped.

Amusement danced in those pale eyes as Choundas turned his slack-jawed gaze to him. “Ze lad by zis courts could be freed to return to ‘is aged parents, ‘is young wife and child, m’seur Looray. And you still live. ‘E did not mean to ‘arm anyone. ‘E was drunk, in need of money. ‘E did not mean to kill, ‘e ‘as sworn to me!”

Choundas put his hands together as if at prayer and his face became even more droopy-eyed, like a dog whose master has just yelled at him. “Your m’seur Weethy frighten ‘im. ‘E only wan’ to flee. Please, m’seur, I beg you, as ‘is capitaine, as a Christian gentilhomme. As a fellow Brittanique who share I’ancestrie with all ze sires of notre race ... Celts, Gauls, hien? Spare ‘im! Mon Dieu, in the name of God, spare ‘im! Tell ze court you take ze . .. blood money, if you will name it zo. Whatever sum you wish, messieurs! Name ze price and I swear to pay it!”

Lewrie was shaken by Choundas’ demeanor. He certainly seemed sincere. But then, so did Sir Hugo, when he desired something. A fine pair they’d make, he thought sourly: both of them consummate actors. And frauds! And damme, if he ain’t laughing at us, even now, I swear. Standing there, judging his performance. Like I do, I have to admit, now and again. But, bedamned to the bugger!

Twigg took his arm and gave his elbow a squeeze.

“I could be prepared to spare the young fellow, if he was only confused and drunk, Captain Choundas,” Twigg replied slowly, weighing every word. “As you say, we are of one race, sprung from the selfsame root-stock that flourished in Gaul and Brittania before the time of the Caesars . . . before the German barbarians came ... the Romans.”

“Ah, mais ouis, mais ouis!” Choundas nodded, his eyes glinting with unexpected triumph. The pious expression he wore flickered to a revealing brief smile, a smile tainted with just the faintest bit of a leer at Twigg’s stupidity.

“He is awfully young, is he not, sir,” Twigg sighed, and his stern visage creased into a grin. “God, I pity the poor ...”

Surely not! Alan thought.

“But, the courts have given their decision. Death by strangulation. To put a curb on this unfortunate animosity between English and French in their port. The assault on one of my ship’s officers, and, no matter the reasons, the death of my most trusted and beloved longtime partner, Tom Wythy, with a forbidden weapon, well ...”

“Ah, but m’seur Tweeg ...” Choundas floundered a bit.

“And the poor lad, when one gets right to the meat of it, is a lice-ridden, scurrilous Frog, ain’t he now, Captain Choundas? A murdering cut-throat son of a Frog bitch, ditch-dropped by a Frog whore!” Twigg went on, those lips pursing, temples pounding, but a beatific grin creasing his lower face. “A brisket-beating superstitious slave to Rome, and, like all French of my acquaintance, born under a threepenny, ha’penny planet, never to be worth a groat!”

Choundas recoiled as if slapped, dropping his pious pose and slitting his eyes.

“If this court don’t scrag him, I’ll volunteer to twist the cords myself, sir!” Twigg rasped.

“You play with me, m’seur, you make ze sport .. . !”

“Far as I know, you play with yourself, you sans coulotte peasant,” Twigg barked. “Why don’t you go back to eatin’ snails and catchin’ an honest fishmonger’s farts?”

“You insult me beyond all honneur, m’seur, I demand ...”

“Try it and see whose ship gets booted out of this port, sir. Try it and see who ends up in a Chinee grave!” Twigg hissed. “Who knows, from what Mister Lewrie tells me, your demise might make a few poor whores happier’n pigs in shit! Takes more’n that pitiful excuse for a beard to make a man a real man, right, Mister Lewrie?”

“To quote the Bard, sir, ‘Who is he who is blessed with one appearing hair.’ Or something like that,” Lewrie fumbled out.

“Only French have I’honneur) You English have none!”

“Perhaps, but we do have bloody marvelous artillery,” Twigg simpered. “Do but give us the opportunity to prove it to you.”

Choundas spun on his heel and stalked noisily away to join the rest of the French traders and ship-captains, heels ringing on marble.

“Good on you, sir,” Alan said firmly. “That was bloody well said! Told that perverted monster off good and proper.”

“Do but dwell upon this, Mister Lewrie,” Twigg whispered, turning back to the court as the accused was led in. “We might have just struck flint to tinder, created a blaze hot enough to goad him into something rash. Like following us once we leave Canton, ‘stead of us having to track him. The gloves are off now, ours and his. For old Tom Wythy’s sake, I’ll have that bastard’s heart’s blood. You watch your back from now on, ‘cause it’s war to the knife!”

The Viceroy began to speak, sing-songing formal phrases which his linguist translated bit by bit for the foreigners. “By the will of our Emperor, Son of Heaven, Complete Abundance, Solitary Prince, Celestial Emperor, Lord of the Middle Kingdom and swayer of the wide world ... my master, Viceroy for the prefecture ... in the City of Rams, Yu Quang Shen Wang speaks. Hear his words, make kow tow and obey, tremblingly!”

The eight members of the Co Hong and their creatures, and every Chinese went flat on the floor, while the Europeans performed elaborate bows, doffing hats and making legs. The British barely inclined their bare heads.

“Psst,” Lewrie said, nudging Twigg when the linguist began again. “Third from the right, sir. Do you mark him?” he whispered from the corner of his mouth and cut his eyes to Twigg, who swiveled to glare at a minor mandarin in a sumptuously thick and rich embroidered silk robe and pillbox cap with coral button and feather. Twigg nodded and turned back to face the Viceroy on his throne.

“... and disturb the heavenly harmony of our Celestial Kingdom! We tolerate the rude behavior ... of foreign-devil barbarians who know no better ... the export of our valuable goods ... in exchange for what worthless items they bring to the City of Rams ... until such time as they displease us beyond measure. You are quarrelsome slaves whose crude barbarian chieftains cannot control ... your rustic kings have sent ambassadors to pledge fealty to our Celestial Emperor ... made their kow tow to recognize the superiority of the Son of Heaven ... made themselves subjects to the one who sways the wide world ... the foreign-devil Louis of France ... the foreign-devil George of England ... so that the Solitary Prince might stay his hand and not conquer them.”

“Like to see the buggers try!” Lewrie muttered.

“Hush!” Twigg warned with a hiss.

“We order that there be no more fighting!” the linguist shouted. “No more murderings! Or the Lord of the Middle Kingdom shall withdraw his chop for you to be here! See the punishment! Witness tremblingly, and obey!”

“Damme!” Lewrie was forced to say as he recognized the prisoner. It was Choundas’ cox’n, the one in the sampan with him the morning they’d first seen him.

The executioner came forward with a silk rope while two Banner Men soldiers held the sailor by each arm and led him into the center of the gathering and made him kneel down. For a man about to be garroted, the seaman seemed unusually calm, gazing about disoriented but obeying the soldiers without struggle. His eyes seemed glazed and his mouth hung open slackly, with a bit of drool at one corner.

“They’ve drugged him,” Twigg whispered. “Lots of opium. I doubt he even knows what’s about to occur.”

They strangled him, taking their time about it, too, applying one turn of the silk rope at a time, then waiting to see the results. The executioner looked gleeful as he readjusted his grip before taking another twist or two, which had all the Europeans muttering and shuffling, some coughing.

They continued to strangle him slowly, until the man’s tongue stood out, and his face went blue. His head was so suffused with blood, his eves almost nonned. and trickles of blood ran like sparse tears until he went totally limp and ceased breathing.

Lewrie found it as satisfying as any hanging he’d ever seen at Tyburn, though the poor wretch hadn’t had his wits about him enough to go game, with a final japery or two, and a crowd of fellow bucks cheering him on, the doxies throwing flowers and kisses to a brave rogue. He turned his head to look at the French, Choundas particularly. Surprisingly, for one so affected by the sad fate of one of his own crew, Choundas was remarkably blase about it, standing slack and bored with his weight on one leg. He looked more like a man waiting for his coach to be brought round, ready to drag out a pocket watch and wonder what was keeping his ostler. Choundas looked around and shot a glare at them.

“Fuck you,” Lewrie mouthed slow and silent, hoping the bastard could read lips, then gave him a sly grin.

* * * *

“And just who was that Chinee you pointed out to me, Lewrie?” Twigg asked, once they were outside after the ceremony was ended.

“He was the third partner in the brothel with Sicard and our jolly friend, sir,” Alan replied. “He’s not one of your pirates?”

“None I recognize, no,” Twigg said, pulling at his long nose. “By the color of his button, he’s well-connected. One of the Viceroy’s staff. Too well-connected, for my liking. Could get us sent away empty-handed, if he wishes. Or ambush us down-river between here and Lintin Island once he boots us out.”

“They couldn’t get away with that, sir, not with so many ships in the Reach, armed as they are,” Lewrie protested. “Why, we’d blow their city to flinders if they tried!”

“Nothing official,” Twigg replied, frowning. “Set upon by ... pirates ... if you will. So sorry. Nothing to do with his Celestial Emperor’s glorious navy, or his crooked mandarins. And trade is too good for anyone to protest too much, not this year. Just a country ship, not ‘John Company,’ they’ll say back in London. Anyone wish to dispatch a fleet and army to Canton? No? Any questions for His Majesty’s Minister? End of session, then.”

“Arrogant shitten bastards,” Lewrie spat.

“Who, Mister Lewrie?” Twigg asked lightly. “The Chinese and their arrogance? Or Parliament?”

“Little of both, mavbe. Mister Twigg.”

* * * *

“Excuse me, sir, you’re wanted on deck!” Hogue said, bursting into the wardroom like a bombard. “All officers to the quarterdeck.”

They grabbed their swords on the way, sure it was the suspected attack by pirates, or a demand they sail away at once.

“Surely they wouldn’t dare, not in the middle of Whampoa Reach?” Burgess Chiswick panted as they dashed topsides. “Should I muster my half-company, d’you think?”

Ayscough and Twigg stood together by the taffrail of the poop, and they ascended in a thundering pack to join him aft.

“Just got a note from the Superintendent ashore at the ‘John Company’ hong,” Ayscough explained, mad as any time Alan had ever seen him. “Seems we have to go ashore tomorrow and entertain more questions from the mandarins about the murder. And look yonder.”

‘The bloody bastards!” Percival shouted, quite beside himself and ready to tear up a section of taffrail to shred in his bare hands.

“Poisson D’Or’s been ordered out of harbor,” Ayscough grunted. “For the sake of the rest of the traders,” he continued, the sarcasm hotly dripping. “Her chop’s been withdrawn, and her cargo’s been impounded.”

“By the same mandarin Choundas and Sicard dealt with,” Twigg surmised. “You may lay any odds you like there’ll still be profit enough paid to Sicard to reimburse Choundas for this ... penalty!”

Poisson D’Or had already gotten her anchors up, and was paying off from the land breeze with foresails and spanker, her hands aloft ready to let fall her tops’ls once her stern was clear of the American trading brig Salem Witch.

“Damme, to hell with the mandarins!” Alan cried. “Let’s be after them, then! We’ll never find the bastard until next autumn, else!”

“We’d be fouled by every mandarin junk in the river, Mister Lewrie,” Ayscough snarled. “To keep us here for more ‘questioning,’ see? Might even touch off a war, them and us alone. Goddamn and blast that poxy French bugger! Goddamn him to the hottest fires of hell!”

“Smarter than I thought,” Twigg sighed, sounding sadly amused. “I underestimated them, d’you see, gentlemen. Which mistake I shall not make again. They could have gotten Choundas’ cox’n off with ten pounds’ bribe paid to the court, but I suppose they thought it was better the poor wretch got scragged, so he couldn’t talk. Now we know we’re dealing with craftier foes. Choundas gets clean away, kicked out of the port, while we have to wait here for our cargoes to arrive. And Sicard stays here, ever the innocent, to keep an eye on us. After murdering the one man who knew most about the native pirates and their lairs. I hate to admit it, gentlemen, but they’ve made fools of us. And of me. This whole thing was planned long before we tailed them ashore the night Tom Wythy was knifed.”

“They lured us, sir?” Mr. Choate asked.

“Aye, lured us. Gulled us, more like it,” Twigg snorted. “One of us ... Tom or I was to die that night. Perhaps both. To cripple our endeavor. Why else meet with a mandarin on the Viceroy’s staff so openly? Trail their colors before us like a false fox? Then pin us in port with more questions, and boot Poisson D’Or out, freeing her to continue her plans for the next season’s raiding. But before the next year is out, we’ll have them, you mark my words!”

Damme, another year out here, Alan groaned to himself.

“Choundas might be waiting for us to sail in the spring,” Ayscough said. “His ship and Sicard’s combined against us.”

“Ah, but for now, Captain Ayscough, our crafty little peasant has left something of great value behind in Canton,” Twigg spat. “An item he cannot do without, or threaten us with such combination.”

“And what is that, sir?” Ayscough wondered gloomily.

“Why, La Malouine, Captain,” Twigg almost chuckled. “Sicard and La Malouine. Mister Percival said something a few weeks ago that set me to thinking. I believe he was correct.”

“Sir?” Percival gawped, swelling with pride, but unsure about what he had done in spite of himself.

“Who has the largest crew? Sicard. But who has the frigate-built ship with more gunports? Choundas. Somewhere out at sea, in the islands, perhaps among the native pirates, I believe these two ships trade hands back and forth. Perhaps there’s more of his fell crew waiting with the Mindanao pirates or the Sea Dyaks even now for his return for them. Well, at the moment, he’s a little short of the wherewithal, and shall be for some months, if La Malouine will play the innocent here in Canton.”

“No point in her not, sir,” Ayscough agreed. “There’s little profit in taking an outward-bound vessel, ‘less he’s willing to give up hands enough to take her all the way back to France. Better he lays low until the opium and silver start heading for Canton next summer.”

“Then once Sicard sails, we follow him, and he leads us to Choundas, sir?” Choate asked. “Then it’s two ships against our one.”

“Aye, he’d like that, I’m thinking,” Twigg replied, nodding. “In fact, this departure could be another ruse to draw us out, with Sicard in pursuit a few days later for just that purpose. Well, we shall not be drawn, sir. Truly, we shall not.”

“It occurs to me, though, sir,” the first officer went on. “Surely, if we know who he is now, sir, and may lay this plot to our government officials back in Calcutta, there’d be a stiff note to the French ambassador, and the game’s blocked at both ends for them. And they know who we are, more’s to the point, Mister Twigg. Surely, this Choundas’ll haul his wind and cut his losses. Go back to France.”

“And go home a failure?” Twigg barked, rounding on Choate. “I think not. That wouldn’t show him clever enough to remain a secret. And if we did send a ‘stiff note,’ as you say, it’s fourteen to eighteen months before a reply could be sent out here from London or Paris. Once they’d wrangled over where the commas go. And who’d take his place, sir, soon as we’re called home? How many more ships’d disappear the next time? Well, we’re here now, and we have a chance to stop this bugger’s business so thoroughly the French’ll give up on the whole bloody idea. Wrap things up neat and proper before we lay eyes on the Lizard.”

Poisson D’Or let fall her tops’ls as she took the night wind abeam, drifting slantwise away from her anchorage. Her taff-rail lanterns were burning, as were many smaller work-lights to illuminate her crew’s labors. They could espy Choundas by the quartermasters by her wheel on the quarterdeck. They could watch him stroll over to the starboard bulwarks to look back at them as his ship’s bows turned down-river.

There was just enough light, for those with telescopes, to see the smug sense of victory on his face.