Queen of Swords
Page 29

After so many years in business dealing with politicians, Luke knew a bad one when he came across him. A man in Claiborne’s high position needed a few basic skills, including the ability to hide his true feelings in the company of rivals, but Claiborne’s dislike of the lawyer was palpable. And still he spent the entire seven-mile ride arguing with Livingston about the Baratarian pirates who had volunteered to fight for the American cause. Or better put, Claiborne argued a dozen different reasons that Lafitte’s offer be turned emphatically down. Livingston rebutted all of them shortly, almost carelessly, and as each argument failed, Claiborne’s mood worsened. He had a face as long and oval and pale as a poached egg, and there were flecks of red on his cheeks and neck, evidence of his irritation with Livingston or of the cold, or both.
It was no less than Luke had been led to expect from talks with the Savards and from the newspapers. The American governor was so far out of his depth that the Creole legislature ignored him with impunity. The whole of the city seemed to take particular pleasure in Claiborne’s crusade to shut down Lafitte’s well-organized company of thieves, pirates, and slave runners. Clearly the governor’s obsession with Lafitte had passed into the realm of the ridiculous, something not entirely unexpected from an American, but nonetheless regrettable. When Claiborne announced a reward of five hundred dollars for the capture of Lafitte, Lafitte retaliated by offering a reward of his own: a thousand dollars for the capture of the governor.
Claiborne was a ridiculous figure and the perfect foil for Lafitte, who was admired for his business sense, his bravery, and his adventures. Most important, Lafitte provided the residents of New Orleans with hard-to-get goods and services—many of which had been in plain view in Livingston’s own home.
To Luke it was clear that Claiborne was determined to win Livingston over to his view of how Lafitte was best to be handled, as if another American would have no choice but to see things his way. Luke listened as closely as he could, given the roughness of the road and the wind, and stored away what information might prove to be useful at some point.
Luke noted the exact moment when Livingston’s patience gave way. He sent Claiborne a look that Luke recognized, a look he himself used when negotiations had broken down past the point of usefulness, and ended the conversation with a single sentence.
“Major General Jackson will decide what to do about Lafitte, not you.” And he used his spurs to put distance between himself and the governor.
They were riding through a wide savannah, brilliant green even now in the first week of December. A great heron, stark white against the flashing blue of a pond, lifted awkwardly into the air as they passed. Luke saw ten different kinds of birds in just as many minutes. This was strange and beautiful country—nothing like Canada, and yet it caused a surge of homesickness to rise in his throat.
“There,” said Livingston. They had come to the edge of an expanse of fallow fields where a small city of tents had sprung up. Luke calculated some thousand men, militia and volunteers out of uniform, milling around. They looked as if they had been living rough for a long time.
“Not the most inspiring sight, are they?” one of the other men said.
Luke spoke to him directly for the first time. “They lack spit and polish,” he said. “But their reputation as fighting men makes up for that.”
Beyond the fields were a line of pecan trees, a scattering of houses, and the Bayou St. John. Livingston pointed to a large, rather run-down house that stood on a rise at the junction of the canal and the bayou. “That’s Kilty-Smith’s place.”
As they picked their way through the camp, Luke studied the landscape until he was able to identify the Maison Verde. He wondered if his sister might still be there, and what had brought her here in the first place.
Even so early in the day the crowds had already begun to gather. They threaded their way through groups of onlookers as cheerful and unruly as children waiting for a play party to begin. Jackson was here. They were safe, they told each other, from the British. Now they were safe. Washington had burned, but New Orleans would stand.
Luke handed his horse over to a young boy and followed Livingston into the merchant’s house, which was as overrun as the campground. Soldiers, officers, militiamen, merchants and bankers and plantation owners, all hoping to be admitted into the dining room and the company of Jackson and his officers. The mass of men opened to let the governor and mayor through, and Livingston walked with them as unself-consciously as a prince behind a king. Luke followed, but he felt himself being observed and wondered, too late, if Poiterin himself might be here. Before he could look around to answer that question, he was inside the dining room and the doors had closed behind him.
Andrew Jackson sat at Kilty-Smith’s breakfast table over a bowl of boiled hominy. Long weeks of living out-of-doors had deeply tanned his skin, but still his color was vaguely off, a hint of yellow beneath the leathery brown. The tufts of hair that stood up on his head made his already narrow face with its sunken cheeks seem almost absurdly long.
To Luke he looked like a man who had risen from a sickbed far too soon, and would pay for his folly. Then, oddly, that first impression of severe poor health fell away as soon as Jackson raised his head. The deep wrinkles around the eyes might have had something to do with pain, but the eyes themselves could have belonged to a bird of prey. They were sharp and unblinking and unflinching, and Luke had no doubt that in that one sweep of the room Jackson had taken in everything and everyone around him, long before his host had finished with the introductions.