3
Robert stepped out of The Trident’s tender onto a rickety pier constructed of old spars lashed together with vines. Better than slogging through the waves, he supposed, and definitely better for the swift execution of his plan than sailing into the harbor proper.
With its usual abruptness in these climes, night had fallen some hours before. The Trident had been in position by then, but he’d deliberately held off and waited until the bustle of early evening activities had faded before coming ashore.
He directed a searching look into the darkness beyond the pale sand, but there were few people to witness their landing—an old man slumped with a bottle in his hand in front of a ramshackle hut, a young man sitting on a stool and frowning over some nets, several women and children flitting like wraiths through the shadows; none seemed to be paying any great attention.
No doubt they knew better than to stare too openly at men like his party, white men who came ashore under the cover of darkness and well away from the lights of the settlement.
With a few quiet words, he and the four men he’d handpicked to accompany him hoisted their bags, then moved silently and swiftly off what was plainly the local pier of a small fishing village huddled around a pocket of the shore of the wide-mouthed bay two bays farther east from Kroo Bay and the main port of Freetown.
Robert led the way up a stretch of deep sand. He paused where the sand gave way to firmer ground and the shadows of listing palms created a pool of deeper darkness and waited for his men to join him.
As they trudged toward him, he looked past them at the tender steadily pulling out through the shallow waves. The Trident herself was a dark, somewhat indistinct shadow that seemed to hover, gently drifting, on the dark surface of the water farther out in the cove.
The four men reached him. With a tip of his head, he indicated that they should follow him; resettling his seabag over his shoulder, he walked on in the direction of the settlement.
He took whatever path offered, tacking this way and that as he steadily led the way westward through the straggling shantytown of crude dwellings that bordered the settlement like lace on a woman’s petticoat.
He’d left all his officers on board; they couldn’t merge into the population of Freetown in the same effortless, unobtrusive way the four men he’d brought with him could. Benson, Harris, Fuller, and Coleman were all sailors, plain if experienced seamen for whom no one in a port city would spare a second glance. All four were also highly experienced fighters, whether on deck or on land. For what Robert imagined he would need to complete this mission, the four possessed the best collection of requisite skills.
Jordan Latimer, his lieutenant and second-in-command, hadn’t liked it, any more than his ship’s master, Hurley, and his quartermaster, Miller, had, but they’d held their tongues. They were accustomed to being the ones by his side; that, this time, he’d chosen others for that role simply illustrated how very unlike his usual missions—which often involved drawing rooms and even ballrooms—this particular mission was.
He’d left his officers to manage the ship and hold her ready to depart at a moment’s notice. He’d given instructions that once the tender was re-stowed, they should let the ebbing tide draw them farther out from shore, back into the estuary proper, and then anchor where, through a spyglass, they could see the rickety pier, yet where their position made it clear they were not intending to engage with—or threaten—anyone.
He paused to glance back—to see if the tender had been hauled in and if The Trident was drifting out again—but the stands of palms that lined the shore, and the black shapes of the village houses with their palm-frond-thatched roofs, blocked his view.
His men milled behind him. Cloaked in darkness, he turned and strode on.
He’d been to Freetown before; his memory of the settlement’s geography was rudimentary but sufficient, and Declan and Edwina had spent hours describing the various areas of the town as they now were. So while he didn’t have anything resembling an accurate map, he had a fair idea of where he was heading, and the pulsing throb of many lives lived at close quarters drew him steadily on.
They entered the settlement proper—the area defined by recognizable streets, even if the surfaces were merely beaten earth—from the east and made their way toward the nearer edge of the commercial district. There, traders’ stores, smaller warehouses, and inns and taverns catering to various types of travelers congregated between the end of Water Street and the shore.
Robert halted in the middle of a dark street that in one direction led to Water Street and in the other to the wharves the local fishing fleet used. He looked around, then glanced at his men. “Let’s see if we can find an inn—one catering to merchants should suit. I want something not too far from this spot. Meet back here in ten or so minutes.”
With nods, the men spread out, drifting down this alley, that lane. Robert himself walked on toward Water Street, but found only stores and offices.
He was walking back to where he’d parted from his men when Benson came trotting out of a lane on the side of the street away from the harbor.
He fell in beside Robert. “Nice little place just along there, Cap—sir.” With a tip of his head, Benson indicated the lane he’d come out of. “Could be our place.”
Robert halted. “Let’s see what the others turn up.”
Gradually, the other three drifted back. Harris had found another inn, but was dubious about its quality. “Bit too run down and leery, I’m thinking. We’re supposed to be respectable, right?”
Robert nodded and jerked his head toward the lane. “Let’s take a look at the place Benson found.”
Benson’s find proved to be perfect for their needs. Only a few doors from the street connecting with Water Street, the inn was small, unassuming, and run by a stalwart couple, who, by their careful manner, clearly strove for security and respectability, and therefore also offered a degree of privacy to their guests.
Posing as a trader visiting the settlement to determine what prospects for goods for Europe and the Americas the region might provide, Robert hired three decent-sized bedchambers—one for him and two for his four men to share.
His men knew how to slip into the supporting roles he’d assigned them, bobbing respectfully to the landlady and dismissing with relaxed thanks the landlord’s offer to have their bags carried up.
After reassuring the landlady that they wouldn’t be putting her to the trouble of making up a meal for them at such a late hour, Robert accepted a lighted lantern from his host and followed his men up the scrubbed wooden stairs.
His room was neat and clean, the bed a touch more solid than a cot, with decent linens and a fine net looped over a metal circle suspended over the well-stuffed mattress. The room also contained a simple desk and a single straight-backed chair. Robert swiftly unpacked the few clothes and other items he’d brought with him and tossed his seabag into the narrow armoire.
After discussing his options with Declan and Edwina, he’d decided to avoid the port and enter the settlement on foot, and subsequently to assume an identity and a purpose that would keep him well away from—essentially out of sight of—all the various local authorities. And even farther from local society.
Declan had been here mere weeks ago, and too many would recognize the similarity between them. Robert’s hair was a darker shade of brown than Declan’s, and his features
