The Blessing Stone (57 page)

She stopped. Masts? Furled sails?

She focused the lens, bringing the ship into clarity, and peered hard. It had to be an American schooner, judging by the two masts and narrow hull, and the fact that it had to have a shallow draft to be able to navigate through shoal waters and into such a tiny cove.

Brigitte frowned. Why was it anchored there?

She moved the glass slightly, up the main mast, along spars and rigging until she saw the flag.

A pirate ship! There was no mistaking the ensign, what the French wryly called the
joli rouge
—“pretty red”—and the English, the Jolly Roger. Usually they featured skulls and crossbones; this one was designed with a cutlass dripping blood.

“Mon Dieu!” Brigitte whispered. She knew what ship it was—
Bold Ranger
—belonging to the bloodthirsty Christopher Kent. She could see no crew on board.

She began to tremble. Where were they? She had heard of Kent’s method—to strike swiftly and brutally. To attack and ravish and be gone before the victims could defend themselves.

Frantically she peered through the glass, scanning the hills between the cove and the plantation, a distance of two miles. Henri and his men were somewhere in all that green, inspecting the sugarcane crop, but she could not find them.

Christopher Kent was every colonist’s nightmare. He was one of those buccaneers who did not restrict himself to attacking ships, but made bold attacks on land as well. All plantation owners kept their fortunes hidden somewhere on their estates. It was the only way of guaranteeing its security. Kent knew this. He would come in the night, catch the hapless victims unaware and force them to divulge the location of their gold. Usually by torture.

“Please God,” she whispered with a mouth gone suddenly dry. “Let them not be coming this way.”

And then she saw them—pirates, making their way up the hillside, prodding overseers and slaves through the sugarcane fields. Henri, knocked from his horse—

“Colette, fetch my musket!” She knew she couldn’t hit anything at this range, but perhaps she could fire warning shots. She wondered if the soldiers at the fortress were aware of the pirates. She doubted it. The church bells would be clanging out a warning, and cannons would be firing. Kent had crept up along the windward side of the island and sneaked into the small cove. Two ridges hid the plateau where Bellefontaine sprawled on many acres. The pirates could strike, do their lethal work silently and swiftly, and depart like ghosts, leaving only corpses and a smoldering ruin. It would be at least a day before the soldiers knew what had happened, and by then Kent’s ship would be far out to sea.

“What is it, madame?” the young black woman said breathlessly as she came up the narrow stairway, clumsily handling the long firearm. Colette was a third-generation African slave. She had been born on Martinique, as had her mother, but her grandmother had been brought from Africa along with thousands of others to work the sugar and tobacco fields for the French colonists.

“Send Hercule to the fortress,” Brigitte began, trying to site the pirates without the aid of the glass. But the sun had finally dipped below the horizon and the light was dying. “Tell him to run, Colette! Tell him there are pirates—”

And then, through the glass, she saw him, Christopher Kent, a tall, forbidding figure dressed all in black. He wore tight breeches and a long coat, the shining gold buttons of his waistcoat flashing in the final rays of the sun. His face was shaded by the broad brim of his tricorn hat, a generous white plume ruffling in the breeze. When he turned and his face came partially into the light, she realized with a shock that he made her think of the phantom lover of her fantasies.

Brigitte’s mind worked rapidly. The fortress was ten miles away, over mountainous terrain, and night would fall, plunging jungle and trails into utter blackness long before a runner could even get a good start. The pirates had lit torches, which now burned brightly in the descending dusk, and the flames were making steady snakelike progress up the hill.

Taking a last look at Kent through the glass—he was barely visible now in the swiftly dying day, a phantom figure striding through lush vegetation, like a conqueror—Brigitte said, “Never mind,” and set the musket aside.

“But madame,” Colette wailed. “Pirates! We must warn everyone!”

“Hush,” Brigitte said as she made her way back down the stairs and into her bedroom. “Tell no one, Colette!” The situation suddenly called for another strategy. But it also required a cool head.

She possessed one beautiful gown that she had never worn. It had come with her from France twenty years ago, a very special dress that she had planned to wear when they celebrated the king’s birthday. But she had gotten pregnant during the voyage to Martinique and after the birth of that first child, she hadn’t been able to fit into the gown. She had gotten pregnant again and the cycle continued until she had given up ever wearing the gown. And anyway, there was a new king now, one whom she didn’t even know.

The silk overdress was a dazzling summer pink, the stomacher embroidered in rich scarlet and cardinal hues, with the underskirt a contrasting sun-yellow, as was the fashion back then, when gowns were meant to blind and colors were to be as shocking and contrasting as possible. It looked very much like a tropical sunset: the gold sun blazing against a blushing sky. She had had the waist let out after the birth of her seventh child so that it finally fit (with help from a tight corset) but by then the gown was hopelessly out of date. Such an elaborate, ponderous style had gone out of fashion upon the death of Louis XIV. How could she possibly wear it? And so the gown had become a symbol, of faded youth and missed opportunities, and just the sight of it reminded her of young passions and stolen kisses in summer gardens.

Her heart pounded as she lifted the gown from its storage chest and gave orders to a very flustered Colette. It was difficult to hurry with such a complicated outfit—the corsets and skirts and panniers, and all the lacings and hooks, and with Colette so terrified she was ready to bolt. Brigitte herself was gripped with fear, but she kept Kent’s image in the forefront of her mind—a dark, menacing figure. As she held her breath while Colette tightened the last of the laces, Brigitte did a rapid mental calculation: the pirates would be at the edge of the distillery now. The road from there to the main house was half a mile.

Finally she looked at herself in the glass. But she frowned at her reflection. Although the dress was dazzling, she herself still looked old and plump. Kent would hardly give her a second look. And then she remembered the Star of Cathay. With trembling fingers she fastened the brooch to the lowest point of her décolletage, so that the diamonds and sapphires gave the appearance of the blue crystal having fluttered like a butterfly and landed quivering on her exposed bosom.

The transformation was instantaneous. A new woman stood before her in the looking glass. The crystal did indeed possess magic! Brigitte Bellefontaine was young, slender, and beautiful again.

Before she went downstairs, she took Colette’s hands in a firm grip and said, “Now listen to me. We are about to have unexpected visitors. Do not be afraid. Do not try to run away.”

“But, madame—”

“Colette! Listen carefully, for you must do exactly as I say…”

Before she left the bedroom, she took a final look at herself in the mirror and smiled with grim approval. Glancing at the musket leaning against the wall she thought,
Sometimes a gown is better than a gun.

Although over a hundred slaves worked on Bellefontaine—in the fields, in the sugar refinery and rum distillery—it only took a handful of men with pistols and muskets to keep them all frightened and compliant. As Brigitte made her way through the main living room of her house, she heard the stamping of feet outside, the growled commands, the occasional sound of a whip. The female slaves, whose work was concentrated on the master’s family, house, vegetable gardens and hen yards, came running at the sight of their men stumbling at pistol and sword point into the main yard. They immediately sent up wails of lament. House servants rushed to the windows and cowered there, looking out with big frightened eyes.

Brigitte paused to compose herself. She could barely breathe. Outside she heard screams and shouts and gunfire. But she waited behind the closed front door, calming herself, an actress awaiting her grand entrance. Holding herself in check, for her impulse was to run, she held back for another long minute and then reached for the door, drew it slowly open.

The pirates were a frightening sight with their arsenal of weapons: muskets, blunderbusses, cutlasses, daggers, and pistols. Some even brandished boarding axes meant for hacking at nets and rigging. They numbered fifty, Brigitte guessed, and were dressed in an array of rags and tatters, with long filthy hair and mismatched boots. Against the backdrop of blazing torches they resembled, or so Brigitte thought, Satan’s army of imps and demons.

Henri was tied up in ropes, and had been pushed to his knees. Brigitte had to steel herself against running to him.

The veranda was arrayed in masses of climbing flowers, all colors of the rainbow, and the pillars were thick with green vines. The combined perfume was rich and heady while the last of a few industrious bees buzzed about the blossoms. Framed thus, as if on a theater stage, Brigitte did not say a word, but stood there until, one by one, the men fell silent and stared.

Captain Kent had just reached the bottom step when he realized everyone had fallen silent. He turned and looked up. Now, in the dusky gloom and by lantern light, Brigitte saw his features more clearly: they were sharp and hard. Kent was wearing a long black coat, generously cut, nearly reaching his ankles. It was richly embroidered with silk and gold thread, and the buttons were shining gold. His breeches were black, and he wore spotless white stockings and well-shined shoes with gold buckles. White ruffles frothed at his throat and wrists. Beneath his wide-brimmed tricorn hat he wore no wig but had his own long hair tied back in a ponytail with side curls over his ears, in the very latest fashion. Every inch the fine gentleman, Brigitte thought, as if he had arrived to attend an opera instead of ransack a house.

When his eyes met hers, a startling thought came suddenly to her mind:
Back in the fortune-teller’s tent on the grounds of Versailles, a big celebration for the king’s birthday with actors and jugglers and a carnival. The old Gypsy saying to sixteen-year-old Brigitte, “This blue stone possesses tremendous fire. You see? It is trapped inside. One day this fire will be released and it will consume you. In love. In passion. In a man’s arms. A man who will make such love to you that you will nearly die of ecstasy.”

Clasping her hands tightly before her, Brigitte glided forward to the edge of the veranda, as gracefully and without fear as she could, and said softly, “Welcome to my home, m’sieu.”

He stared. Then he smiled. And the way he looked her up and down—she knew that just an hour ago he would not have looked at her in that way. But she was beautiful now, because of the magic in the blue crystal. It had cast a spell and transformed her.

“Milady,” he said, removing his hat with a flourish and extending one leg forward as he bowed.

Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet so still and silent were the gathered men that everyone heard. “We offer you the hospitality of our home.”

Brigitte silently thanked God that she and her sisters had had an English tutor when they were girls, for her father had believed in his children having a well-rounded education in order that they may move in all the best and most cultured circles. Her sister had then married an English baron and had moved to Britain, so that for the past twenty years Brigitte had written letters to her nieces and nephews in English—thank God for that, too. While she was not expert at the language, she could make herself understood.

Kent’s eyebrows arched. “Hospitality! We won’t be staying, mistress. We’ve come for the gold and then we’ll be on our way.”

Several yards away, her husband, having been knocked to his knees, shouted, “Save yourself, Brigitte!”

She moistened her lips. “To refuse hospitality is rude, m’sieu. And I had heard you were a gentleman.”

He smiled. “So you know who I am then,” he said.

“You are Captain Christopher Kent.”

“And you aren’t afraid of me?”

“I am,” she said in as matter-of-fact tone as she could, but her heart beat in fear. “But regardless of who you are, sir, or your intention here, it is the custom among my class to offer hospitality to the visitor.”

His laugh was short and dry. “You think a few victuals will save your gold?”

She lifted her chin. “You mistake my intention, sir. You may have our gold since there is obviously no way I can stop you. But I had thought that as a gentleman you would understand the rules of civilized behavior.”

His dark eyes flickered and she knew she had touched a sensitive spot. Pirate or not, Christopher Kent believed in his heart that he was a gentleman. Why else would he dress so when the rest of his men dressed like animals? “I have six sucking piglets, ready to be cooked,” she added.

He put his hands on his hips and said with a laugh, “Well this is a new trick!”

While some of the men laughed with him, one of them, older than Kent, with long gray hair twisted into a nest of braids and a cancer growing on the side of his nose, stepped up and said, “Beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am, how might ye be preparin’ them piggies?”

Brigitte refused to acknowledge the man. She continued to address Kent: “I cook them with cloves and garlic, capers and oregano, accompanied by hot bread soaked in garlic gravy, herbed goat cheese and a cold ginger soup. Mango tarts covered in chocolate sauce for dessert.”

“And what’s to drink?” the brute said sharply.

“French wine and brandy,” she said to Kent.

The man rubbed the good side of his nose and said to his captain, “It might not be a bad idea, Chris. We ain’t had a good meal since God knows when.”