Sara Donati - Queen of Swords

Contents

Dedicated to
the good people of New Orleans

Primary Characters

The Bonners and their associates at sea

Hannah Bonner, also known as Hannah Scott, or called Walks-Ahead by the Mohawk, her mothers people, or Walking-Woman by the Seneca, her late husbands. Daughter of Nathaniel Bonner. A trained physician and surgeon

Lady Jennet Scott Huntar, originally of Carryck, Annandale, Scotland

Luke Scott, also called Luke Bonner, a merchant of Montreal, son of an early alliance between Nathaniel Bonner and Giselle Somerville

Major Christian Pelham Wyndham of the Kings Rangers, of Quebec, on detached duty to Hispaniola and environs

The crew of the Patience

Piero Bardi, pirate, privateer out of Barataria Bay

Lle de Lamantins (Manatee Island)

Anselme Dgre, criminal at large, based at Priests Town on Lle de Lamantins, French Antilles. Also known as Father Adam ONeill Moore, an Irish privateer and defrocked priest

At Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue (Hayti)

Giselle Somerville Lacoeur and her husband, Gerard Lacoeur, merchant, DEvereux Plantation

In Louisiana and Western Florida

The Savards and their associates

Paul de Guise Savard dit Saint-dUzet. Son of Jean-Baptiste Savard dit Saint-dUzet, a merchant and plantation owner, and his first wife, Catherine Trudeau

Julia Simon Livingston Savard, his wife, originally of Manhattan

Henry, aged 7, their son

Rachel Livingston, Julias daughter by her first marriage, age 16

Jean-Benot Savard, also called Ben, also called Waking-Bear by the Choctaw. Son of Jean-Baptiste Savard and Amlie Savard, FWC

Clmentine, FWC, housekeeper for the Savards

Maman Zuzu, FWC, Clmentines mother, and a voudou mambo

Maman Antoinette, FWC, Zuzus mother

Leo, FMC, young Choctaw who works for the Savards

Pre Tomaso Delgado, a local priest and lifelong friend of Ben Savard

The Poiterins and their associates

Honor Poiterin, son of Archange and Pauline Poiterin, both deceased; an adventurer and slave runner

Agns Poiterin, a widow and Honors grandmother, of a wealthy banking family based in New Orleans and Pensacola

Mama Dounie, Honors childhood nurse

Jacinthe, a slave in the Poiterin household

Pre Petit, Madame Poiterins favored priest

Madame Noelle Soileau, an associate of Honors

The Livingstons

Edward Livingston, a lawyer, formerly of New York City, and his wife, Louisa DAvezac Moreau Livingston, originally of the Sugar Islands

The Prestons

Andrew Preston, merchant, of Pensacola and New Orleans

Titine, FWC, his housekeeper, originally of New Orleans. Daughter of Archange Poiterin, a rich merchant, and Valerie Maurepas, FWC

Eugenie Preston, his elderly widowed sister-in-law, resident on the Bayou St. John outside New Orleans. Her servants Amazilie, FWC, and Tibre, FMC

The American military and militia

Andrew Jackson and his aides

Jean Lafitte and his men

Captain Pierre Juzan

Captain Aloysius Urquhart of the U.S. Army, liaison between the armed forces and the New Orleans Guard

General Viller, New Orleans Creole and the commander of the first division of Louisiana militia

Major Gabriel Viller, his son

PROLOGUE

Queen of Swords: A woman possessed of keen logic and intuition. Forthright is she in manner, and well armed.

March 1814

In the mornings she went walking while the men slept. First away from the settlement and along the cliffs that looked over the cove, then down the rough stairs carved into stone. She moved slowly, one hand spread on the rock face like a starfish while the other held her skirts.

For a while she studied the world: turtles sunning themselves on the rocks, restless seabirds, fish dull and sun-bright, quick and darting, languid, sinuous. The constant of the sea, and the horizon. When she could look no more, she turned and began the climb, lizards skittering at the sweep of her skirts. She felt lazy eyes on her back.

The guards had been lulled by the regularity of her habits into complacence. And why not? She could have been no more tied down had they used ropes and chains.

The path she walked ran along the forest that made up the heart of the island. Shadowy cool in the heat, buzzing with insects. Mastic trees so big that it took four men to circle the trunk, arms outstretched; fragrant cedar; stands of mahogany so dense that walking among them was to twist constantly one way and then another. Tamarinds, wild mangoes, other things she could not name.

How her father would have loved this place. Orchids like birds in flight hanging over the frayed stump of a palm tree. Parrots everywhere, flickerings of scarlet and emerald and cobalt blue overhead. She thought of her father often, spoke to him in her thoughts as she made her plans. Imagined his reactions, and made changes accordingly.

The forest gave way to the wet side of the island, mangroves on stilt roots in swamps alive with crickets, flies, great armies of ants and termites. The stink of green things rotting, thick on the tongue. She picked her way carefully, skirts tied into a knot, back straight.

No one was following her now. She was never sure why, if it was simple laziness, or fear of where she was going, or the certainty that she would be back. The lagoons went on for miles, and then more swamps, and finally there would be the sea.

She had loved the sea, once, and dreamed of living on a ship. Now she spent as much time as she could in this particular place, where she could be free of the sound of waves breaking on the cliffs and the scream of gulls.

The lagoon spread out before her in the dim light. She held her breath and waited. A ripple, another. The surface of the water moved and broke.

Hello. She whispered the word while the bulbous body in the water rolled and rolled. Then another appeared beside it, smaller: her child. Water sliding off gray-green skin, a rounded hip, the long curved line of back.

She stepped out of her shoes and into the cool grasp of the water, thought of swimming out to them. To play among the selkies, and learn their language so that she might ask them for shelter and sanctuary. For herself and her child.

Her hands rested on the great curve of her own belly. The life inside it flexed and turned, another swimmer in a silent sea.

PART I

Ace of Wands: A new adventure that must be met with a bold spirit. A primal force released.

Chapter 1

Lle de Lamantins
French Antilles
August 1814

The island, beautiful and treacherous, drew in the love-struck and rewarded them with razor-sharp coral reefs, murderous breakwaters, and cliffs that no sane man would attempt.

Kit Wyndham was sane. Out of his depth, perhaps, but Major Christian Pelham Wyndham of the Kings Rangers was in command of all his senses, while Luke Scott was not.