"Is voudoun!" Henriette gasped, beginning to shiver in dread.
"Cuffy mumbo-jumbo?" Lewrie scoffed.
"Is vrais … is true! Very powerful!" Henriette insisted, at the verge of teeth-chattering terror. " Voudoun priests bless rebels, and curse town peoples. We hear the drums, it mean L'Ouverture and his armies 'ave come! In the hills now! Oh, Mon Dieu, zey kill us all!"
"They'll not get the town, chene," Lewrie told her, following her round the room as she dithered, thinking of packing, thinking about hiding the next moment, picking things up and then throwing them down. "There's a British army out there, with dozens of field guns. Redans and fortifications, lashings of ammunition. There's ships in harbour, just stiff with artillery, too. Nothing to worry about. Now, let us get back to our pleasures. Where were we, hmmm?"
He took hold of her arms and brought her to a halt by the bed, urging her to get back into it. She'd raised his desires, had brought him close to joy, and damned if he was going to quit now.
"British keep us safe?" she asked, sounding leery about it.
"Safe as houses, I assure you," he lied, embracing her and kissing her neck and shoulders, her hollows, but with a bit of a spraddle-legged dance to the edge of the mattress, a bit of pressure to topple her back to her duties. "Can't let a pretty young thing like you get in their clutches, now can we, Henriette… ma chйrie?" he coaxed.
She submitted, and sat on the edge of the bed to re-engage her mouth over him. Sulkily, at first, but quickly warming to her work.
"Ah, that's me girl," Lewrie sighed, rock-hard again.
She quit, again! But this time, it was merely to reach over to the nightstand to retrieve a fresh, unused cundum and sheath him with the tanned sheep-gut, to tie off the ribbons around his waist and under his crutch, then award him a brave smile as she lay back and opened her limbs to him.
Lewrie slid in, kissing his way up her body, lingering over her groin for a long minute or two, 'til she began to grind her hips and make whimpery little groaning sounds. Up to kiss and lick her belly, that. actually shuddered under his feathery touch, her hands now eagerly drawing him higher. Tonguing and suckling on her marvelous poonts and even play-nipping, that made her squeak and bounce and chuckle. Then her thighs raised and he was atop her and in her, and the Mongol Horde or all the Imps of Hell could have been howling for blood below-stairs, for all that Lewrie cared. Henriette, too, it seemed to Lewrie; this time was not artful or coy, but furious and mindless, as if sex could silence those drums and drive the bad'uns away.
Rap-rap-rap on the door. "I say, Alan old son? Time t'be out and doin'," Cashman muttered.
"Go… away! Later! Plus tard!" Lewrie gasped back, amid a skirl of squeaking bed-ropes and slats, and Henriette panting into his mouth as if trying to suck a long life from him. Whining in ecstacy!
"Heard the drums? I really think-"
"Bugger… off ! Drake had time t'bowl… I've time for a romp! Whoo! Darlin'!"
Henriette was keening, grasping, clawing, nigh to a scream!
"Oui oui oui, mon Dieu, oh oui … I" Henriette shrieked. "I am going… eeeeehhhh!"
"Aarrhhh!" Lewrie chimed in a moment later. "Rule, Brittania, by Jesus, yes\"
He collapsed on her, aswim in perspiration once more, gasping like a pair of landed fish, aslither to press close and grasp to keep the mind-lessness in hand as long as possible.
"Happy now?" came the sardonic, muffled voice beyond the door.
"Ain't Paradise yet, but damn close," Lewrie called back as he rolled off the bed, groaning with exhaustion and lingering joy, as he stood bare-arsed naked and stripped off the cundum for a quick washing and later use. "Quick sponge, and I'll be out in two shakes of a wee lamb's tail… and the first's already been shook. Uhm, Henriette, me darlin'… know where I dropped my shirt?"
Though it was hours before dawn, and still raining in a light, desultory way, the streets of Port-Au-Prince teemed with people. Some refugees were up and packing, or trundling two-wheeled handcarts down to the harbour, in hopes of a departing ship. There was more light at last, with almost every window or porchway illuminated by the curious and the fearful. Citizens stood on their stoops or balconies to stare out towards the countryside, or shout questions at passersby and their neighbours, who were also up and peering in their nightshirts or gowns.
British troops, and those handfuls of persecuted Saint Domingue Royalists who had taken arms with them, mustered and marched to drums of their own, and the thin tootle of fifes, in the opposite direction, forcing Lewrie and Cashman to shoulder and sidle aside on their way to the port.
And those far-off drums still thrummed, regular as a metronome, seemingly from every inland point of the compass, as if Port-Au-Prince was already surrounded and under a fell siege. There were some out on the streets who seemed glad of it, though it was far too early to show enthusiasm or loyalty. The guillotines set up by the original Jacobins still stood, waiting for their next victims; terrified petits blancs or Mulattoes could still turn into a mob and tear people asunder, if they had no other weapons than their hands.
Toussaint L'Ouverture's secret allies, those supposedly "happy" personal servants and household slaves fetched in from the country, had turned on their masters before. It was no wonder everyone went about as cutty-eyed as a bag of nails, with one hand near a pocketed pistol or the hilt of a sword. At present, all they could do was glare, maybe smirk with delight of a future victory, their chins high and their eyes alight, as Lewrie and Cashman passed-two officers alone, with no escort, easily taken by a quickly gathered gang?
Lewrie could feel their speculation, as if he were a yearling calf under the gaze of the farmer with a knife hidden from view.
"Yorktown… Toulon," Lewrie snarled, keeping his eyes moving and a firm grip on his sword hilt. "Looks and smells the same, of a sudden. Defeat and… disaster." He was still short of breath, and their rapid pace wasn't helping.
"Oh, rot!" Cashman snapped, still out of sorts for being kept waiting, when he was afire to dash off to join his troops. "What we built 'round this place, we can hold for months, if need be. Break 'em on our guns and ramparts."
"Certain you can, Kit," Lewrie replied, "but the rot's set in." Those drums… tales of voudoun and past massacres. British troops might hold but… whole town's against you. Ready t'roll over and quit. Can't you feel it, already?"
"They're scared, I'll grant you," Cashman answered. "But, let 'em see us shred the first assaults, and they'll buck up. Let some of the fainthearts run! No use, anyway, and that'll be fewer mouths to feed. A week'r two of slaughter, and the slaveys'll melt back into the hills, lickin' their wounds. Weil hold, count on it," he said, firmer of resolve, as if saying it would make it so, though Lewrie doubted that it might make a real difference on the rest of the island.
What would be gained, with another Fever Season coming, Lewrie wondered? The slave armies decimated, for sure, but not defeated, as his advisories had boasted, free to recruit and re-arm, strike another place less well defended; another year of campaigning that would eat European troops, ammunition, and money like a glutton's box of sweets! To what end, after all the lives lost?
"Well, here we are," Cashman said, clomping to a halt. "Camp's that way, the quays t'other. Good luck out at sea, Alan. I do think you'll have more joy of it than I, the next few weeks."
"Pile 'em up in heaps, Kit," Lewrie said, offering his hand to his long-time friend. "And thankee for a hellish-good run ashore!"