Part 78 (1/2)

inhaling the dense air of the island. He lingered pensively for a moment, then turned to Katherine. ”Katy, do remember this isn't just any port. Some of those men out there have been known to shoot somebody for no more cause than a tankard of brandy. And underneath it all, Jacques is just like the rest. It's when he's most cordial that you'd best beware.”

”I still want to go.” She moved next to him. ”I'm going to meet face- to-face with this madman who once tried to kill you.”

Chapter Twenty-one

The ochre half-light of dusk was settling over the island, lending a warm tint to the deep green of the hillside forests surrounding Forte de la Roche. In the central yard of the fortress, directly beneath le Basque's ”dovecote,” his uniformed guards loitered alongside the row of heavy culverin, watching the mast lights of anch.o.r.ed frigates and brigantines nod beneath the cloudless sky.

Tibaut de Fontenay had taken no note of the beauty of the evening. He was busy tending the old-fas.h.i.+oned _boucan _Jacques had ordered constructed just behind the cannon. Though he stood on the windward side, he still coughed occasionally from the smoke that threaded upward, over the ”dovecote” and toward the hill above. The _boucan _itself consisted of a rectangular wooden frame supporting a greenwood grill, set atop four forked posts. Over the frame and grill a thatchwork of banana leaves had been erected to hold in the piquant smoke of the smoldering naseberry branches beneath. Several haunches of beef lay flat on the grill, and now the fire was coating them with a succulent red veneer. It was the traditional Taino Indian method of cooking and preserving meat, _barbacoa_, that had been adopted intact by the boucaniers decades before.

Jacques leaned against the railing at the edge of the platform above, pewter tankard in hand, contentedly stroking his salt-and-pepper beard as he gazed out over the harbor and the multihued sunset that washed his domain in misty ambers. Finally, he turned with a murmur of satisfaction and beckoned for Katherine to join him. She glanced uneasily toward Winston, then moved to his side.

”The aroma of the _boucan_. Mademoiselle, was always the signal the day was ending.” He pointed across the wide bay, toward the green mountains of Hispaniola. ”Were we over there tonight, with the hunters, we would still be sc.r.a.ping the last of the hides now, while our _boucan _finished curing the day's kill for storing in our banana-leaf _ajoupa_.” He smiled warmly, then glanced down to see if her tankard required attention. ”Though, of course, we never had such a charming Anglaise to leaven our rude company.”

”I should have thought, Monsieur le Basque, you might have preferred a Frenchwoman.” Katherine studied him, trying to imagine the time when he and Hugh had roamed the forests together. Jacques le Basque, for all his rough exterior, conveyed an unsettling sensuality. She sensed his desire for her as he stood alongside, and when he brushed her hand, she caught herself trembling involuntarily.

”You do me an injustice, Mademoiselle, to suggest I would even attempt pa.s.sing such a judgment.” He laughed. ”For me, womankind is like a garden, whose flowers each have their own beauty. Where is the man who could be so dull as to waste a single moment comparing the deep hue of the rose to the delicate pale of the lily. The petals of each are soft, they both open invitingly at the touch.”

”Do they always open so easily, Monsieur le Basque?”

”Please, you must call me Jacques.” He brushed back a wisp of her hair and paused to admire her face in the light of the sunset. ”It is ever a man's duty to awaken the beauty that lies sleeping in a woman's body.

Too many exquisite creatures never realize how truly lovely they are.”

”Do those lovely creatures include handsome boys as well?” She glanced down at de Fontenay, his long curls lying tangled across his delicate shoulders.

Jacques drank thoughtfully from his tankard. ”Mademoiselle, there is something of beauty in all G.o.d's work. What can a man know of wine if he samples only one vineyard?”

”A woman might say, Jacques, it depends on whether you prefer flowers, or wine.”

”_Touche_, Mademoiselle. But some of us have a taste for all of life.

Our years here are so brief.”

As she stood beside him, she became conscious again of the short- barreled flintlock--borrowed from Winston's sea chest, without his knowing it--she had secreted in the waist of her petticoat, just below her low-cut bodice. Now it seemed so foolish. Why had Hugh painted Jacques as erratic and dangerous? Could it be because the old _boucanier_ had managed to better him in that pistol duel they once had, and he'd never quite lived it down? Maybe that was why he never seemed to get around to explaining what really happened that time.

”Then perhaps you'll tell me how many of those years you spent hunting.” She abruptly turned and gestured toward the hazy sh.o.r.eline across the bay. Seen through the smoke of the _boucan_ below, Hispaniola's forests seemed endless, impenetrable. ”Over there, on the big island?”

”Ah, Mademoiselle, thinking back now it seems like forever. Perhaps it was almost that long.” He laughed genially, then glanced toward Winston, standing at the other end of the platform, and called out, ”Anglais, shall we tell your lovely mademoiselle something about the way we lived back in the old days?”

”You can tell her anything you please, Jacques, just take care it's true.” Winston was studying the fleet of s.h.i.+ps in the bay below.

”Remember this is our evening for straight talk.”

”Then I will try not to make it sound too romantic.” Jacques chuckled and turned back. ”Since the Anglais insists I must be precise, I should begin by admitting it was a somewhat difficult existence. Mademoiselle.

We'd go afield for weeks at a time, usually six or eight of us together in a party--to protect ourselves should we blunder across some of the Spaniards' lancers, cavalry who roamed the island trying to be rid of us. In truth, we scarcely knew where we would bed down from one day to the next. . . .”

Winston was only half listening as he studied the musket-men in the yard below. There seemed to be a restlessness, perhaps even a tension, about them. Was it the _boucan_? The bother of the smoke? Or was it something more? Some treachery in the making? He told himself to stay alert, that this was no time to be lulled by Jacques's famed courtliness. It could have been a big mistake not to bring Atiba, in spite of Jacques's demand he be left.

”On most days we would rise at dawn, prime our muskets, then move out to scout for game. Usually one of us went ahead with the dogs. Before the Anglais came to live with us, that perilous a.s.signment normally fell to me, since I had the best aim.” He lifted the onion-flask of French brandy from the side of the veranda and replenished her tankard with a smooth flourish. ”When you stalk the wild bull, the _taureau sauvage_, you'd best be able to bring him down with the first shot, or hope there's a stout tree nearby to climb.” He smiled and thumbed toward Winston. ”But after the Anglais joined us, we soon all agreed he should have the honor of going first with the dogs. We had discovered he was a born marksman.” He toasted Winston with his tankard. ”When the dogs had a wild bull at bay, the Anglais would dispatch it with his musket. Afterwards, one of our men would stay to butcher it and take the hide while the rest of us would move on, following him.”

”Then what?” She never knew before that Winston had actually been the leader of the hunt, their marksman.