The Legacy of Marshall Cousins

2. The MARSHALL COUSINS in ACTION-2

Harold nodded. “Shall we follow him, then?”

Andrew wheeled his horse around. “Yes. I resent cheaters and liars.”

Harold and Andrew paused on the top of the hill to watch Prassal's slow progress across the narrow passage. The steep grassy hill stretched ahead to follow the road, which was boxed by the rocky mountain wall on the opposite side. At the far end, the road's sharp turn was encircled by tall trees and dense hedge.

Unexplainably, Prassal's group stopped by the hedge. The men dismounted and clustered around the cart to light the lanterns. The cousins exchanged looks of incomprehension. There was no need for the light yet, and only the most incompetent commander would have all his men turn their back to their surroundings, in close proximity to a thick cluster of trees and bushes, away from horses, and with their hands occupied.

There was a sudden movement behind these very trees and bushes, and a band of men descended on the group. The bandits knocked down half of the guards without a fight and aimed pistols at others. The ambushers' extravagant attire and choice of cutlasses identified them as seafaring men, a supposition supported due to the unmistakable resemblance their speed and actions bore to a swarm of pirates boarding a ship. The whole ambush lasted no longer than a minute. The bandits relieved Prassal and his men of weapons, tied everyone up and loosely tethered them together.

“What? They did not even check the pockets?” Harold whispered when the attackers converged around the cart.

“The incompetence of the modern highwayman is shocking,” Andrew snorted. “They have no interest in the saddled horses, either.”

On the road, the bandits maneuvered the cart to turn around and headed back to Marseille.

Andrew motioned Harold to retreat deeper into the woods. “These assailants have no horses on their own! Someone brought them here to wait for this cargo, and the retreat was not even considered. Which means…what?”

Harold frowned. “That Prassal expected the attack?”

“Why did he send us away, then?”

The cousins lapsed into a silence while the cart rattled by.

“Shall we follow the trunk and leave Prassal to the mercy of other travelers?” Harold suggested.

An hour later, the sun retired beyond the horizon, and the skies turned deep velvety blue. The assailants had had the foresight to bring along lanterns and torches, and the cart traveled fast. Despite the bright light of the full moon enabling the horses to pick their own footing on the uneven road, Andrew and Harold fell behind. They occasionally stopped to listen and watch for anyone – especially Prassal and his men, - coming behind them. The bells rang ten o'clock when the cousins reached Marseille. The entrance gate was closed for the night, and there was no cart in sight. Andrew and Harold rode around along the walls and crumbling ramparts until they discovered an unguarded back street beyond a pile of rubble. They slipped into the city behind the Fort of St, Jean, housed the horses at the first stable they passed, and hurried back to the harbor on foot. They passed the deserted City Hall and walked around the rectangular harbor toward the Anne Maria Jane, contemplating how to interrogate her crew. There were no carts on the dock. The loaded barquentine sat low in the water and all the sails were accounted for. The ship was ready to sail in the morning.

“What the hell?” Harold and Andrew recognized the man on the deck – he had driven the cart earlier in the evening.

In Marseille, the business continued when the night fell - taverns, inns and many shops conducted a brisk and profitable trade till the early hours of the morning. Collecting supplies for pyrotechnics was only a matter of time. Andrew and Harold patronized a dozen shops with purchases of black powder, fuses, ropes, clay storage vessels, and waterproof oiled cloth. The cousins intended to blow a sizable, but repairable, hole in the Anne Maria Jane's hull – that should prevent her from sailing away until they figured out what had happened to the trunk.

Andrew and Harold circled the harbor once again, and forced open a window at the City Hall. Once inside, they stripped to their breeches, tightly rolled the clothes around their pistols, and wedged the bundles, along with hats and boots, under the hard benches. They secured the purses, swords, and daggers across their bare chests and eased into the tranquil water of the harbor. Each young man carried a clay vessel lined and covered with waterproof oiled cloth. Each vessel contained black powder in dry sacks, rope, fuses, and kindling lint. The distance across the harbor was less than a quarter of a mile, but the swim took an eternity. Harold and Andrew each paddled with one hand to keep the containers above the water line with the other hand, and they took care to avoid causing even a slightest splash. Both were excellent swimmers, but by the time they grasped the anchor chain, both were exhausted and gratefully hung on to catch their breaths before climbing up on the deck.

Harold wrapped his leg around the chain and pulled himself up with one arm. His other arm was tightly wrapped around the clay vessel, which showed an alarming and pain-inducing tendency to slide down and scratch his side. He could pull himself only a short span at the time, and he could no longer tell if the moisture on his forehead was sweat or water dripping from his hair. When he slid over the railing, he collapsed in the shallow space below the railings. He had barely caught his breath by the time Andrew climbed up, his side bloodied and bruised by the heavy container.

“We should have brought extra rope to haul these pots.” Andrew gulped for air.

The cousins secured the black powder sacks together and lowered the parcel outside of the rail just below the deck level. They ignited the ends of the fuses and counted to ten, watching to make certain the fuses remained lit before sliding down the anchor chain. Ignoring the burning sensation in their sides, they hastily swam across the murky water – without any burden, they crossed the harbor in minutes.

The moment Andrew and Harold staggered on shore, the spectacular explosion shook the harbor. The cousins watched in fascination as the flame leapt into the air and the tongues of fire flared toward the sails. The sentry rang the alarm bell and hurried to hack at the wood with the axe. He meant to separate the burning section and to drop it into the harbor, but upon his third swing, a flaming piece launched into the air and landed on the folded sail of the neighboring schooner. The canvas ignited like a giant torch. The men of the ship ran along the deck, shouting and blindly firing musket shots at the hull of the Anne Maria Jane.

“Ship under attack!” The signal sounded from a Navy corvette moored at the Anne Maria Jane's starboard. The boom of a cannon discharge resonated in the air. The ball flew across the harbor, clipped the figurehead of a brigantine, and splashed in the water. A naked man ran out of the captain's cabin. “Repel the boarders!” he roared to his crew.

“Damn!” Andrew and Harold recovered from their dumfounded astonishment. They rushed to retrieve their clothes. There was no time to dry and the water dripped from their hair while they struggled to half-button their doublets over their soaked shirts. They wriggled their wet feet into the boots, and hoped that the leather cases protected the pistols from moisture.

The bells of St. Laurent's church and St. Victor Abbey rang and blended with the sounds of whistles from the city night watch and of the horns and bugles from the Navy ships. The cacophony woke up the citizens, and the pandemonium raged on shore as much as on the water. Half of the ships in the harbor declared a war at each other and the men jumped from one ship to other brandishing weapons. Darkness receded as the red and yellow flames increased in size and ferocity.

Andrew and Harold ran around the harbor toward the Anne Maria Jane. On their way, they noticed that under the respectable pretense of salvaging the goods from incidental small fires, mostly unauthorized and highly disputed transfers of barrels, sacks, bags, crates, and trunks took place left and right in the chaos.

On the deck of the Anne Maria Jane, panic and confusion still reigned, but two men carried the familiar trunk down the ramp. Once they reached the ground they collided with a group of four cutthroats carrying the trunk of the same size and shape. Both groups dropped their cargo, bared cutlasses, and hollered defiantly at each other. Harold and Andrew's further advance was cut off by a gang disembarking from a brigantine named the Sacred Allegiance, moored at the Anne Maria Jane's portside. These men also carried a similar large trunk, but abandoned it in front of Harold and Andrew to fend off the group of sailors pursuing them. The cousins veered off to the side, but yet another skirmish blocked their way. They circled around it and into the path of a large barrel rolling on its own. The cousins frantically leapt out of its course and detoured into the shadows of the buildings surrounding the harbor. They proceeded on their way toward the Anne Maria Jane, and lined up with the barquentine just when five men carried the trunk back onto the ship's plank. The gang from the Sacred Allegiance chased after the trunk and succeeded in wrestling it away and carrying it back toward their ship.

On the dock, the isolated brawls merged to create a battlefield where the combatants no longer seemed to know who or why they fought, and the gang from the Sacred Allegiance was forced to once again abandon the trunk and to defend themselves. The orders were shouted from the deck of the Anne Maria Jane. In the pattern of a tidal wave, more crewmen poured out onto the dock, and the seamen from the Navy corvette entered the fray. Illuminated by the crimson and orange plumes of fire, the men punched each other with bare fists, exchanged blows with sticks, struck with the pommels of their swords and pistols, and tossed rocks at each other. A chorus of curses boomed in the smoke-filled air. The intensity of the battle diminished as the casualties mounted. Some men were knocked unconscious and sank to the ground tripping the others. Some men staggered in disorientation outside of the battlefield, a couple of enterprising souls sneaked away, and those who remained standing paused to regroup.

“Now!” Andrew and Harold took the opportunity to weave their way through the exhausted combatants. The cousins grasped the handles of the trunk and almost fell on their faces upon realizing its weight.

“That one!” Andrew and Harold moved to heave another trunk, picked it up and even carried it a half a dozen paces before the mob of men roared and rushed to attack. Harold and Andrew swung and tossed the trunk forward to trip the assailants, but that did not deter the crewmen from the Anne Maria Jane. Neither did it deter the gang from the Sacred Allegiance, the sailors from the Navy, nor Prassal himself.

Andrew and Harold wasted no time in retreating. As they had been taught, they swung their swords backwards, in the hopes of preventing anyone from diving down to grab their ankles. The moment Harold placed the blade in position, he heard a yell of pain behind him. He risked a glance at his cousin. Andrew raised his arm, drove the blade backward, and one more pursuer dropped behind. The cousins ran up the hill away from the harbor. The austere shape of St. Victor Abbey loomed ahead, and on their right, they glimpsed the soldiers from the neighborhood of Citadel running toward the harbor.

Andrew and Harold gained a safe distance from Prassal and his men, but their lungs were on fire, their hearts pounded like the hooves of galloping horses, their mouths were parched, and they wobbled on their feet when they reached the long narrow street between the sheer stone walls of St. Victor Abbey and the residential houses across from it. The thin light from the open windows afforded a glimpse of a thick sturdy vine covering the front of a three-story building, the thick branches extending to the roof. Andrew hoisted Harold up to the first balcony. Harold hooked his leg to the iron railing, grasped Andrew's hand to pull his cousin up, and tentatively tugged on the vine. The branches creaked, but underneath the leaves, Harold felt the sturdy rods. The trellis had to be nailed to the wall. He climbed up to the second balcony and motioned for Andrew to scale up to the roof. A flock of birds flapped out from their nests; the branches creaked and swayed but held. The moment Andrew grasped the ledge of the roof, Harold resumed his ascent and, not a moment too soon, the cousins collapsed in exhaustion on the muddy roof.

The band of panting and cursing pursuers spilled into the street and reluctantly halted to helplessly gape into the quiet and gloomy alley.

“Where did they go?” Prassal wheezed.

Harold and Andrew held their ragged breath. They had the advantage of higher ground, and they could take two more men out with their boot knives. Blood had already spilled in this chase, so they had nothing to lose now. On an optimistic hope, if their adversaries were reckless enough to climb up all at the same time, maybe the vine would break. “Did they climb up?” A question drifted from below.

“Up these walls?” another man said with disbelief. “Do you see any rigging up here?”

“Did the monks shelter them?” a third man chimed in.

“Search the street,” Prassal ordered. The company below fanned out to cautiously check every shadow, corner, and nook.

“Sooner or later, they will notice the vine.” Andrew wiped the sweat off his forehead.

“Can we make them believe we took sanctuary inside the abbey?” Harold said.

The cousins conferred in hushed whispers. They amassed tile pieces, pebbles, shards of wood, and loose clumps of dirt, and squeezed water from their hair to paste the debris together. When the men below finished their futile search and regrouped, Andrew hurled a heavy piece of a broken tile into the lit abbey's window, and followed up with another projectile into the unlit window positioned above the group of men. At the same moment, Harold half-dropped, half-tossed the handful of small hard pieces into the abbey wall under the window. The fragments bounced off the hard stone and rained onto the men's heads.

A man with a musket on his shoulder spun around when the debris hit his bare head, and the musket's barrel banged against the head of another man. The man reciprocated with a blow to the stomach. Two other men attempted to pull the combatants apart, but were assaulted themselves.

“Stop it!” Prassal's scream was overshadowed by the shouts from his men. “Friars are hiding them!”

The diversion worked better than Andrew and Harold hoped. To the accompaniment of the abbey's bells signaling the attack, the rowdy and incensed sailors converged at the abbey's door and pounded on the heavy wood. More windows opened in the residential building, and the unhappy citizens screamed at the sailors to go away. From behind the abbey's walls, the dismayed monks screeched threats of eternal damnation. The frustrated sailors yelled demands to yield the criminals. The earnest night watch marched in and hollered for peace and order. A group of enthusiastic soldiers from Citadel marched in and bellowed the orders for everyone's surrender.

Neither a hurricane nor an earthquake would dislodge Andrew and Harold from the safety of the roof. They remained there long after the monks spilled outside of the convent with raised clubs in their hands, the soldiers pushed the monks back and chased away the residents who ventured into the street, and the night watch arrested the sailors and Prassal for the raid on the abbey. The cousins waited till the skies above the harbor lost their yellow and orange hues and the noises subsided. The residents extinguished the lights and shut the windows, the flock of birds settled back in their nests, and the night darkness and calmness descended once again. Harold and Andrew fought their drowsiness until a thin strip of dawn light shimmered on the horizon. They crawled to the other side of the building and eased from balcony to balcony to the ground. They successfully avoided the groups of patrolmen now scattered on the streets, and found the stable and their horses without any incidents. In the pre-dawn soft light, Harold and Andrew brushed the dirt off their still damp and newly stained clothes, saddled the horses themselves, and blatantly rode out to the city gate.

“No one leaves the city today,” the guard said pompously. “Not after the battle last night.” He suspiciously eyed the stains on their clothes.

“Battle?” Andrew raised his eyebrows in his most sophisticated courtly manner. “Did this battle cause such insufferable noise last night?”

The man looked at him with contempt. “Where were you?”

“A paradise,“ Harold winked at the guard. “My friend would never admit his attendance either to his mother or his beloved.”

“Ah. Yes. No.” Andrew held the most placid expression he could muster. “Every man should enjoy himself.” He pulled a coin from his pocket. “Here, I recommend a girl named Anne.”

The guard pocketed the money, cracked the gate open, and waved them on.