Tide of War (12 page)

“Did the consul have any idea how the cutter came to be missing in the first place?” he enquired.

“None. Or if he did he chose to keep it to himself.” Nathan ran his fingers through his hair, scratching the back of his neck where it prickled in the heat. “And it seems that Mr. Pym chose not to confide in him. But clearly it is not so much
‘missing'
as
took
—and whoever took it has now taken to piracy.”

“And there is no word from the admiral?”

“None,” Nathan repeated. “So either he did not receive Pym's message or felt it unnecessary to reply.”

The
Speedwell
swung at her moorings, bobbing in the wake of some unseen vessel passing by in the crowded anchorage, and they heard Keeble shouting some instruction on the deck above.

“I think we must sail for Port Royal,” Nathan announced in the silence that followed. “And put ourselves under the orders of Admiral Ford, for we cannot remain here forever hoping for news of the
Unicorn.
I fear she must have perished in the storm.”

Tully did not trouble to contradict him.

“Shall I make it known to Keeble and the crew?” he enquired.

“No, I will tell them myself. Or rather petition them for we are only passengers, after all, and if they decide to sail for Boston on the next tide we must find other means of transportation.”

Tully cocked his head as if listening for something on the deck above. The barque was taking in stores and fresh water from several bum-boats sent out from the port.

“And if they agree—as I am sure they will—are we to sail as soon as we are provisioned?”

Nathan considered. “There is someone the consul wishes me to meet before we leave. But it should not delay us long. Let the crew have the night ashore and we will leave tomorrow upon the evening tide.”

Nathan's optimism was ill-founded. This was Cuba, the consul reminded him, and in Cuba events moved at their own pace and would not be hurried. His informant was on a mission to the interior and was not expected back for several days.

Was it worth the wait, Nathan wondered? Imlay was in no doubt.

“Apart from the
Virginie's
movements we must learn what we can of the political situation,” he inisted. “My lord Chatham was most pressing in this regard.”

The political situation in La Habana occupied Imlay for the next few days. On several occasions Nathan observed him emerging from an establishment in the Plaza Vieja with a female companion of precisely that shade of colouring he claimed most to admire. Happily the crew of the
Speedwell
appeared equally content to enjoy the delights of the Havana at the expense of His Majesty and to deliver Nathan to Port Royal or wherever else he wished to sail whenever he declared himself ready.

Nor was Nathan immune from the city's charms. With his dark hair and complexion he could easily pass for a Spaniard, though much to his regret he could not speak more than a few words of the language and understood less, and he wandered freely about the streets and squares of the city, sometimes with Tully, occasionally with Imlay, most often alone, dressed like an ordinary seaman in a plain white or chequered shirt and sailcloth trousers, sometimes with a faded blue jacket and a battered straw hat upon his head, untroubled by officialdom or even casual enquiry. He would have liked to paint but to have set up his easel and oils would have smacked of indulgence and attracted too much attention to himself so he confined his endeavours to sketching in a little book, merely taking note of the colours—the washed-out reds and blues, greens and yellows, the subtle shades of antiquity. He could have been in ancient Rome or one of the cities of the Greeks, he reflected, his eyes raised to the elegant if sometimes crumbling facades while his feet stumbled on the uneven cobbles or splashed through some stagnant pool left from the afternoon rain. But of course this was a Christian city and many of the buildings were churches or convents—some dating from the time of the conquistadors, others still under construction, and one, the Basilica of San Francisco de Asis, used as a warehouse because it was considered to have been defiled by the heretic English who had
worshipped here when they took the city in ‘62.

So many churches, so many processions swaying through the streets behind some saintly statue, so many priests and monks and nuns. And the half-naked children and the flies and the overburdened donkeys shivering in the heat and the spavined horses. Dogs sprawling in the shade. The stench of rotting fruit and vegetables. A brigade of ants swarming about a fish head. Lizards darting up the walls or suddenly stopped, still as statues, alert for danger or prey. A dark, shadowed doorway leading to an open courtyard filled with plants. The sense of being watched by hidden agents—and sometimes catching the white of an eye among the shadows.

Nathan would enter these shadows himself sometimes, finding out the little oases, the little sanctuaries, taking refreshment in some cool, tiled courtyard while the smells of cooking drifted out from the dark interior and a serving girl crushed herbs or spices in a stone mortar.

He continued to notice the women. And they, as Imlay informed him, noticed him.

“You are become something of a celebrity in certain quarters,” he remarked slyly at one of their rare encounters in the corridors of the consul's house. “I have heard you described as
El Pintor Hermoso,
the Beautiful Artist. Bets have been laid on the first woman to steal your heart—I believe it was your heart that was mentioned, though the local patois is sometimes beyond my comprehension. The current favourite is one known as La Princesa Negra, whom you may have observed while you were sketching your quoins and pilasters. She has certainly been observing you. It is said that she has made offerings to Lady Ochun, the goddess of love and passion, and made an image in your likeness upon which she may work her magic, lacking only a clip of your hair or the parings of your nails, or even a scrap of your clothing, to make it effective.”

“You and La Princesa would appear to worship at the same shrine,” Nathan remarked dryly. “But I take it this is not one of our Catholic deities.”

“By no means. She is the Madonna of the African slaves and those
of mixed descent. Have you not seen her acolytes about the city?”

“How would I know them?”

“They are usually dressed entirely in white. Though red is also a colour they favour. The shedding of blood playing an intrinsic part in their rituals. Normally the blood of a cock, though there are ugly rumours of human sacrifice. Doubtless put about by the Papists.”

“I saw a woman in red only this morning,” Nathan recalled thoughtfully. “An old woman in the marketplace. She was sitting on a chair at the rear of one of the stalls with a white cat on her lap dressed in a large red ruff. I thought her a witch.”

“So would the Papists. Not so long ago they would have burned her for it. She will be a devotee of Palo Monte, the magic of the Bantu, who are from the region of the River Congo. Or of Abakua or Lucumi, the religion of the Carabali and the Yoruba.”

“You have made this your particular study, I see, while you have been in the Havana.”

“I like to keep abreast of the native customs, the dark undercurrents, as it were, that flow beneath the surface of society. You never know when it might prove useful.”

Nathan acknowledged this with a small bow. Imlay was not to be scorned for his knowledge of the local underworld and the secret societies that inhabited it. It had saved their lives on at least one occasion in Paris.

“So tell me more of this … what is it … Palo Monte?”

“One might categorise it as the worship of the forces of nature. Concentrated, I believe, in a large cauldron guarded by the Muneca de Talanquera, a doll chained to its chair so it cannot escape. The Lucumi, which is by far the most interesting, is devoted to the worship of a whole host of saints, or
orishas,
as they call them, which are the counterparts of the Catholic saints: their
alter egos,
one might say. The Papists call the practice Santeria and effect to despise it as heathen, idolatrous and heretic, though I am perplexed to see how it differs from their own practice, except in the names of the particular idols and some trifling distinctions of appearance. However, I am
from New England Puritan stock and may be biased in my opinion.”

Nathan made no comment upon Imlay's religious susceptibilities other than a faint raising of the brow. He had seen him make the sign of the cross on more than one occasion in Paris and had wondered at it. But it might have been part of the elaborate game he was playing.

“And do the authorities tolerate these ceremonies?”

“They are inclined to look the other way provided it does not impinge upon the orderly running of the colony. However, they have become more concerned, I am told, since the arrival of the French refugees from Saint-Domingue, some of whom have brought their house servants with them and their darker practices which involve the raising of the dead and other peculiarities. However, it is La Princesa Negra you should look out for,” he advised Nathan with a grin, “who can raise more than the dead, I am assured.”

And with that he was off to gather more scraps, as he put it, from the less salubrious quarters of the city.

Nathan felt less contentedly employed but he had to admit, at least to himself, that he was in no great hurry to leave the Havana, especially when all he had to report was failure. He was possessed of that same fatal lethargy he had experienced in Sussex after his return from Paris, exacerbated by the heat and the indolent atmosphere of the city; a sense that Fate would take its course irrespective of his own futile attempts to alter it one way or another.

It was partly in a bid to shake off this lassitude that he arose early the next morning with the intention of strolling along the city walls before the sun was up and the populace about its business. His intention was to make a survey of the city's defences on the westward side, which had been ignored by the British in ‘62 but might be of more interest now that La Cabana protected the eastern approach and the direct route from the sea. He was convinced that sooner or later England and Spain would again be at war and the treasure ships of the Americas become once more the legitimate prey of His Britannic Majesty's navy.

He was successful in beating the sun, which had not yet risen above
the rooftops, but not the people—or at least a substantial number of the lower orders—and their livestock. Indeed the city resembled a farmyard at this time of the morning with cows and goats driven from door to door and milked straight into the jug, long trains of donkeys, tied nose to tail with great panniers of fruit and vegetables slung over their backs, great two-wheeled farm carts with high wooden sides, piled high with hay or loaded with hogsheads of wine or spirits and pulled by gentle, slow-moving, cream-coloured oxen. A crowd of children driving a flock of geese before them, a giant Negro with a live pig slung over his shoulder … All apparently heading for the Plaza Vieja which was in the process of being transformed into a vast marketplace, the live produce contained within ramshackle hurdles or wicker cages and the rest spread out on the ground in a manner that appeared entirely random but was clearly to some pre-ordained plan, for there were no arguments about who or what went where, and although the goods were laid out in no particular order or classification, there were clear paths left between the stalls for the customers, who were even now ambling down from the great houses about the square.

Nathan sat at a pavement café with a coffee and a fresh-baked roll, watching all this activity with a kind of wonderment at the regularity of it all, as if stalls, animals, people were so many planets orbiting the sun, or in this case the fountain that was at the centre of this mercantile universe. And even this was not without its commercial value. He watched a crowd of Negroes filling barrels with the murky water that flowed intermittently from the gaping maws of four stone dolphins and upon enquiring from one of his fellow customers in his poor Spanish, learned that it was conveyed to those houses that did not have their own supply and sold at half a silver real per barrel.

“And does it never run dry?” he managed to ask with some difficulty and the aid of his empty coffee cup, miming the act of pouring.

“Only when the British come,” replied his informant, in English, a remark Nathan was inclined to take amiss, assuming some personal slight was intended, until he recalled that during the siege of ‘62 the British had succeeded in diverting the the city's water supply. An
action which, whilst perfectly justified at time of war, might well induce a lasting sense of grievance among the deprived citizenry.

This, in turn, recalled him to his present duties and he bowed stiffly to his cantankerous informant, paid for his breakfast and set off in the direction of the city walls.

He was navigating the rough stone cobbles and potholes of Calle Muralla when he chanced to glance down one of the open doorways or passages that led, as did most, into a small courtyard with the floors of the building rising up above and saw, in the centre of this inner sanctuary, his woman in red, or another similarly attired, sitting in her chair with a white cat in her lap. He stopped and stared. She stared back. Some compulsion, something more than mere curiosity, made him turn into the dark passage and advance slowly towards her. She was a very old woman, he saw now—black as jet, the skin of her face drawn so tight about the bones it could have been a skull save for the bright light in her eye, beady as a crow's. She was smoking a cigar. He greeted her, respectfully, in Spanish. But to his surprise she replied in French—or at least a form of French that was presumably local to one of the islands. And though it differed somewhat from the French Nathan had learned from his tutors he took it to mean, “What are you looking for?”