Chapter 39: THE PLAYMAKERS

For all the goodbyes she had said in her life, Tory wondered that they never seemed to get any easier. But there was no time for sentiment now. Just before dawn, Cully ran into town to engage a carter from the docks; it were better if the players were not perceived to be breaking camp. Ada Bruce took the opportunity to embrace Jack in farewell. Jack entrusted Captain Billy with his letter of regret for the management of the hotel, and Billy provided him with several cards on which he scribbled notes of introduction to some of his theatrical connections in England.

"Capital business, England for the season," he beamed, as if their departure was an entirely professional decision. "We’ll look you up in London one day, I daresay!"

Edward was still asleep in the caravan when Jack and Tory went in. But Marcus was alert. His face lightened for an instant when he saw Jack, but he hung back from them both, his wide forehead furrowed with unhappiness, his dark eyes accusing. He must know they were leaving, and Tory could not blame him; she had scarcely been any older than Marcus when she'd lost her mama. She hugged him hard in goodbye, then waited by the door, in the shadows. Jack put out a hand toward the boy, where he sat on the edge of a little trundle cot, but when Marcus shrugged the gesture off, Jack crouched down beside him instead.

Marcus’ eyes flicked sideways at him. "Me know why you come."

Jack drew a breath. "I’m here to thank you. You did a man’s job last night. Tory told me all about it. You saved Alphonse’s life. You’ve made us all very proud."

"But you still going away."

"Not because I want to. Not because of anything you’ve done. You don’t think I would leave you if I didn’t have to?"

The child shrugged up his small shoulders, gazing at the floor.

"Marcus?" Jack pleaded.

"No." His small face tilted reluctantly toward Jack’s. "But me no want you to go."

"I don’t want to go either, not like this. But Alphonse needs our help. He isn’t safe here. We have to take him away." Jack made an effort to master his feelings and hurried on. "And now Cybele needs your help. She’ll depend on you more than ever."

"Me no play no more wit’out you," said Marcus.

"Of course you will. You have a very special gift, don’t you know that?" The child eyed him warily. "We’re leaving you your Pierrot costume and most of the props. They should last awhile, if you take care of them. And pretty soon, it will be time for you to teach Edward the trade."

"Edward!" Marcus hooted, in spite of himself. "Him too clumsy!"

"He’ll outgrow it, just like you did. You just have to be patient. You’ll make twice the profit," Jack pointed out.

Marcus cast a doubtful glance over at the smaller boy, then shrugged again. "When you come back?"

Jack’s eyes fell; he looked as if he’d been punched. "I...don’t know."

"Nevah," said Marcus, wistfully.

"Maybe not," Jack murmured.

"You fo’get all 'bout me."

"Never."

Jack reached for him, and this time Marcus did not resist. Then Jack was straightening up, hugging the boy to his chest, unable to say any more. For a moment all of the child’s dark limbs were tightly wrapped around Jack, and his face was hidden in Jack’s neck.

"I’m going to miss you so much," Jack breathed against Marcus' curly hair.

"Me too," sniffed the boy. "Me wish you no have to go."

"Me too."

Then Marcus sat up with sudden resolution in Jack’s arms, and Jack set him back on his bed. The child was done with crying. He only watched wide-eyed as Jack turned and hurried past Tory to leap out of the caravan. She followed him outside, found him standing in the dark, staring at the ground.

"Cybele will take good care of him," she told him.

Jack nodded slowly. "I just wish...I had more to give him."

"You’ve given him a piece of your heart," Tory whispered. "And he’s smart enough to know it. There’s nothing more you can do."

Jack shook his head miserably. "It’s not enough."

Cybele came out of the wagon and glided up to them, pressing a packet secured with strings into Tory’s hand.

"This all I have left in the wagon. Can you find such things in England? I do not know. I write out the receipts, but I only know the French name for some things. Alphonse must translate."

Tory could not respond before she was enfolded in Cybele’s thick, strong arms. "I hate to leave you," Tory whispered.

"Your destiny lies another way from mine, cherie, away from these islands. But I have something for your journey." Cybele stood back and dug out of her apron pocket a fistful of pungent, papery dried herbs and crushed flowers. She sprinkled some over Tory’s hair and kissed her cheek, then turned to anoint and kiss Jack the same way. Then she took both of them by the hand.

"The Great Mother in all her many names protect you both, wherever you go." Cybele joined Tory’s hand to Jack’s. "Love a more blessed thing than gold, and more rare. As long as you care for each other, the Great Mother keep you from harm."

Tory felt light-headed, she was so near to crying, but Jack looked very sober. He drew her to him, right in front of Cybele, and kissed her deeply, then held onto her a moment longer. Tory burrowed into his embrace, delirious and embarrassed, salt tears leaking down her cheeks.

"Thank you," she heard Jack whisper to Cybele, but she was far beyond words by now. She could only hold him tighter.

Cybele, however, was once again her old pragmatic self. "I put some food in your pack. It be a long journey, and you must eat."

Jack nodded. "We’ve taken our costumes and some day clothing and a few props that we can carry. And two blankets. Everything left in the wagon, that’s for you and Calypso and the boys. Sell whatever you can’t use. The wagon and the horses are yours."

"But no! You be too generous to me already, you and Alphonse. You put all your profits into that wagon. I cannot accept."

"We can’t very well drive it across the Atlantic."

"Then I pay you—"

"No, Cybele, you've done so much for us, and you’ve a family to raise," Jack declared. "We have enough for our passage and a little left over for our landing. We’ll be all right."

Alphonse emerged from the shadows, folding a paper, which he handed to Cybele. "Take this document to Mr. Jepson when the season here is over. I have noted the address. He will be expecting you." Cybele nodded and secured the paper deep within her bodice.

"The wagon must remain here after we are gone," Alphonse hurried on. "If the militia comes back...when the militia comes back—"

But Cybele waved off his advice, whatever it might have been. "I deal with foolish men all my life."



Jack would have preferred any other conveyance than a troop ship. But a low-rated frigate, carrying its weary crew home from a tour of the Indies, was the only vessel leaving for England when they finally arrived at English Harbour. Her captain had seen Jack and Tory perform at one of the Commissioner’s dinners, and was glad enough to earn three fares of passage on his own account. Far from the aborted plot on Nevis, they were simply players sailing home to try their fortunes in England. When the formalities were concluded, each of them signed the manifest. Miss Victoria Lightfoot. Mr. Alphonse Belair. Mr. Jack Dance.

They had spent a day in the back of an oxcart, jouncing along the Round Road out of Charlestown for the windward coast. This was followed by a night in a creaky little sloop Alphonse had signaled, after dark from a hidden cove, that carried them to Falmouth Harbour on Antigua. He had thought to engage the sloop for two nights running, he told them, in case there were any strays from Gingerland. He never expected that he would be one of them.

"At least you know your money was well-spent," said Jack.

"But it is a very cruel kind of justice that I should escape when so many others must stay and bear their misery," Alphonse sighed.

It was no less cruel, Tory supposed, that Alphonse should find himself facing an Atlantic crossing when he had yet to recover from his night in the sloop. Efficient parties of sailors were racing to man the braces and sheets, and swarming up the shrouds into the rigging to make sail, when she spied Alphonse gripping the rail nearby with both hands. He was frowning out at the grey water under a cloudy sky, as the ship began to lurch and shiver under sail.

"I hope this won’t be a mistake," sighed Jack, standing beside her amidships.

Tory turned to look at him. "Surely even Alphonse won’t be ill for the entire voyage?"

"I meant...everything. It seems like every time we try to make a fresh start, it all blows up in our faces."

"But we can’t stop trying. We'll make it all up anew, as we always have. Like a play."

Jack shook his head. "But what about you, Rusty? England isn’t your home."

"My home," echoed Tory. "Well, had I stayed in my home, I suppose I might have become an underpaid governess by now. Or some grey-faced matron wed to a...a greengrocer’s apprentice at sixteen, who wakes up after thirty years have slipped by to wonder what’s become of her life. Instead of—"

"A rootless vagabond in a tattered pantomime adrift in the middle of the Atlantic?" Jack suggested.

"A life I choose. With the man I love," she corrected him. "I’d do it all again."

Alphonse was coming toward them with careful steps, even though there was not yet much of a pitch to the deck.

"I go below now to die in peace," he announced.

"We’re not out of port yet, Alphonse," said Jack.

"If you let these English cast my bones into this accursed sea, my miserable jumby come back to hound you round the world for all eternity."

They watched as he lowered himself down the hatchway with great dignity.

"Will he be all right in England?" Tory asked a moment later.

"Alphonse will do splendidly well. He has more manners and polish than I could ever hope to command."

Jack said nothing more for a few moments. The white of spreading canvas began to blot out the scrubby green landscape of English Harbour, now receding into the background on either side of the frigate. Tory could feel the stirring of power as the sails caught the breeze, and the ship stood for the harbor mouth and the open sea. From every direction, plain, hearty English voices were calling out orderly commands and crisp responses. No trace of island music could be heard in any of the voices, nor was there any idle jesting or laughter among the men. When Jack turned back to look at Tory, his eyes were full of apology.

"Ah, Rusty, it’s an awfully damned civilized place I’m taking you to."

"I’d march into the flames of Hell, so long as we could be together, hombre," she declared. "You know that."

"Aye, we’ll get there soon enough, at the rate we’re going."

Tory smiled and slipped her hand into his behind the cover of her full skirt. Jack’s long fingers were warm and reassuring as they closed around hers. And the frigate bent her sails for England, the destination of all runaways from the Indies.

The End

(Top: Harlequinade Finale, Pollock's Toy Theatre Pantomime Characters, 19th C, as seen on freespace.virgin.net/.../Costumes/Costumes.htm Hand-colored by Lisa Jensen.)

Chapter 32: PIRATES AND ENGLISHMEN

September began with a fortnight of drenching rain during which all of Antigua was shut up tighter than a ship’s hatch in a gale. To celebrate the return of dry weather, Mrs. Cora Harvey held a private dinner for a dozen or two of her most intimate friends at her fine townhouse in St. John’s. There were three full captains in attendance, a brace of commanders, and a handsome young flag officer, a local surgeon and his wife and daughter, and some other professional gentlemen and their families. For an after-supper diversion, she sent round her dignified Negro houseman to engage Captain and Mrs. Billy Bruce for musical entertainment, and Mr. Dance and Miss Lightfoot, whose fame had spread all the way to Falmouth, for dramatic recitations.

Directly after the performance, the houseman escorted the entertainers out to the detached cook-house, where they were invited to refresh themselves with two bottles of French champagne, covered in cotton muslin and kept cool in a bucket of saltpetre and water. The Bruces carried one bottle outside, where Captain Billy made a great show of popping the cork, to the terrified delight of the kitchen women. Inside, Jack sat Tory at the large work table, found a dry towel to throw over the neck of the second bottle, and began to gently twist the bottle loose from the cork.

"It was a Papist monk who invented champagne," he told her as he worked, "which is certainly the only good the mother church has ever been to anybody. And this," he grinned, "is the only useful thing I ever learned in my brief adventure in London society." The cork disengaged with an abrupt little sigh, and the bubbles inside foamed up to the top of the bottle neck, but not out of the lip. Jack poured a little of the wine, as pale and delicate as moonlight, into two of the crystal goblets set out beside the bucket, and handed one to Tory.

"The monk said his creation tasted like stars," Jack went on, lifting his glass to hers. "See what you think."

Tory took a cautious taste, but she wasn’t prepared for the explosion inside her mouth. She swallowed too fast, then coughed, then laughed.

"Well, you are supposed to sip it," said Jack, and he demonstrated with his own glass. Before Tory could think of a suitable retort, he rose out of his chair, lifted her face with his free hand, and kissed her; she tasted the memory of the wine, yeasty and sweet on his tongue.

"Now I see how it’s done," she beamed at him. She washed down his kiss with another sip, enjoying the fine, clean taste, and the sparkle inside her mouth. "But ought we not to toast something?"

"Aye, who knows when we’ll ever come across another bottle of champagne," Jack agreed. "We’ll drink to our new venture, then. And pray Fortune stays merry with us."

He stood to pour another splash into each goblet, angling each glass carefully so the fizz never overflowed its rim.

"Bravo, my Harlequin!" cried the vibrant voice of Cora Harvey from the entryway. "I might have known you wouldn't spill a drop. I’m afraid our dear Captain Billy has spent most of his bottle watering my hydrangeas." She sailed into the room, launching a brilliant smile toward Jack’s startled face. "Oh, come, my dear! I’d be a sorry excuse for a woman and an exceedingly poor gossip if I failed to recognize the most attractive man in St. John’s, even without his mask. I always told you I meant to have you to my home. I never imagined I would have to pay for the privilege."

Jack tried out a guarded smile. "You’ve been very generous, Mrs. Harvey." He nodded toward the champagne. "Thank you."

"Ah, you have no idea how generous I might have been. Still, it is I who must thank you for a wonderful performance. Now I see what has had them all abuzz at English Harbour; we have rarely had anything like professional players in residence on this island. My guests are clamoring to make your acquaintance." By now she was close enough to place a discreet hand, very lightly, on Jack’s elbow as she passed. "It’s good to see you again, Jack."

"And you, Cora." Jack’s expression relaxed. "You’re looking impossibly well."

"I ought to, the fortune I spend on upkeep!" she laughed. The Widow Harvey had given up her mourning clothes and was now attired in the merest cloud of soft, gold-colored silk, low on the bosom and dramatically boned at the waist. Her dark hair was arranged on top of her head with several ruthlessly curled tendrils dancing in loose clusters over each ear to set off the wide tilt of her cat-like amber eyes. She did not look youthful, exactly, but her charms had been most carefully preserved.

"But I certainly haven’t come out here to discuss beauty secrets," she went on as she swept past Jack, and seated herself with a crisp whispering of silk in the chair he had just vacated. "I’m here to have a look at my rival."

And then those golden eyes fastened on Tory, who had been watching the scene in a kind of anonymous fascination as she sipped her wine. She had never seen the notorious widow up close, and she was wonderfully curious, despite her usual dismay in the presence of beautiful, confident, fashionable women. It did not occur to her to feel apprehensive, possibly because the cold, tingling champagne was beginning to warm her insides.

"I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, my dear. I’m Cora Harvey." She extended a white gloved hand, whose wrist was armored with a battery of thick bracelets of chased gold, and Tory could not help but think of the manacles she had worn in the Basseterre gaol.

"Victoria Lightfoot," she smiled, touching the extended fingers. "I'm so pleased to meet you, at last." Holding up her goblet, she added, "This was very kind of you."

"Well, perhaps I thought to get my Harlequin drunk," Mrs. Harvey sighed wistfully. "Although now I see I’d be wasting my time," she added, as her keen eyes appraised Tory. "You've more than youth on your side, that's plain enough, and I daresay you’re quite an improvement over the bloodless English belles we’re accustomed to out here. Poor little Miss Fletcher hasn’t a word to say for herself, not that her papa the doctor would allow it. But then, you’re not English, judging from your speech. And I doubt very much you are a native of these islands."

"I was born in America," Tory told her.

"Ah, America," Mrs. Harvey cried, with a wave of her hand. "My second husband had dealings in America. He traveled often to Boston."

"I know Boston." Tory took another sip of her wine and Cora Harvey let out a raucous laugh at the tone of her voice.

"Hah! A little England, was it? So I heard, that’s why I never cared to go there myself. And may I say, my dear, what a pleasure it is to find a woman who appreciates fine spirits. May the saints preserve me from genteel ladies who drink nothing but that hideous beveridge of sugared lime." She took an empty glass from the table as she said this, reached for the open champagne bottle, and poured herself a liberal tot with a skill equal to Jack’s.

"So you had the excellent good sense to leave that place," Mrs. Harvey went on, saluting Tory with her glass. "Fancy you turning up here. I wonder how you account for it?"

Tory felt herself disposed to like the widow's good-natured frankness, but she was not yet drunk enough to be imprudent.

"Fortune, Mrs. Harvey," she smiled.

"Ah, Fortune, that arrant whore!" Mrs. Harvey crowed. She cocked her head slightly, eyes alert, trying to gauge if she could pry out any more information. Abruptly, her eyes swung round to Jack, who was perched on the table’s edge, following their conversation with no little interest. "Oh, do stop lounging there in that rakish pose, Jack, my pulse is racing fast enough with the wine and the heat. You’re enough to make a poor old lady swoon quite away."

"I doubt that," Jack said dryly.

"Be an angel, won’t you? Run out and tell the Bruces my guests are waiting to meet you all."

"Of course, Madam. At your service." Jack rose obediently, casting Tory a wry grin over the head of their hostess as he turned to go. When they were alone, Cora Harvey inched a little closer to Tory.

"He cares a great deal for you," Mrs. Harvey observed. "I am accustomed to inspiring my men to romantic frenzy, or reducing them to stammering idiocy. I am not often treated with such bald indifference."

Tory remembered that long-ago morning on their last visit to St. John’s, when Jack had ravished her in the wagon, and she thought that "indifference" was not quite the correct word. "Your charms did not go unnoticed," Tory smiled again. "But we have been friends for a long time."

"I daresay." Mrs. Harvey reached out and caught hold of Tory’s hand. There was something more earnest in her expression. "Only take care, my dear. I've a thousand years of experience in these things, and you may find the rules that govern such matters far more strict in England. Which is why I choose to live abroad."

Taken aback, Tory felt a little flustered. "Why...then I suppose it’s fortunate we have no plans to go there."

"No immediate plans perhaps. But listen to me," Mrs. Harvey urged. "I have lived a long time and I’ve seen a great many players. Most of ‘em are vagabonds and tramps, but," she nodded in the direction Jack had just gone, "that one has a gift. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to realize it, or there’d be no living with him. But it is clear to me that these poor islands shall not contain him for much longer."

Tory did not know how to respond to this; she couldn’t tell if it was idle flattery, or a curse for the woman Cora Harvey considered her rival. Or a merely a friendly warning. In any case, Tory felt the gentle squeeze of the older woman’s hand, and nodded mutely into those amber eyes. Then Jack reappeared at the door with Ada and Billy Bruce, and Mrs. Harvey swept up to her feet.

"Ah! Here we all are. My guests are in a stupor of awe, and pining to meet you all." She paused to offer an arm to Tory, who rose and took it. "You must especially meet my new friend, Mr. Nash, the importer. Newly arrived and such a teller of tales! Do come along!"



They had performed in the parlor, a large, formal room adjacent to the dining room, in Mrs. Harvey’s very English house. But now their hostess led them to a more comfortable sitting room, fitted out with an impressive array of mahogany furniture covered in flowered chintz. One entire wall was given over to the late Captain Harvey’s library, and after an interlude of civil mingling and polite chat with the widow’s guests, Tory noticed Jack drift over to inspect the books. Miss Fletcher and another young lady were left giggling in his wake, until Dr. Fletcher silenced them with an affronted glare. Ada Bruce was entertaining the entire complement of naval officers, and Captain Billy was getting on like a house afire with Mr. Nash, who was small, muscular, fit and tanned, with fluffy brown hair and an open, ruddy face. His looks confirmed that he had been a seafarer; he and Captain Billy were trading salty stories and saluting each other with Madeira. Tory politely disengaged herself from a pair of cheerfully gossiping matrons to go join Jack.

"Gibbon and Scott," Jack grinned at her, nodding toward the bookshelves. "It’s plain they have a great deal of time on their hands in St. John’s."

Tory’s eyes began to rake across the leather spines with their delicate gilded titles. There was something irresistibly intimate about looking at someone else’s books. What a luxury it must be to own books in quantity to read whenever one wished.

"Seeing you among the books there, Mr. Dance, puts me in mind of a mercantile voyage I once undertook." It was Mr. Nash strolling toward them, beaming, his wine glass upraised, Billy Bruce at his elbow. "One of my last commercial voyages, only a year or two ago. Off the leeward coast of Cuba, it was, when we were taken by pirates. Brutish lot of Spaniards they were, herding all of us into the fo'c'sle whilst they stripped the vessel for bullion or whatever frivolous trinkets these low fellows crave. All but one, whom I spied in the cabin, stealing the captain’s books." Mr. Nash smiled a little, shaking his head with amusement. "And with such very great care, inspecting each one, as if he could actually read. The most extraordinary thing!" Mr. Nash took another meditative sip of wine, smiling at Jack over the rim. "Tall fellow he was, something rather nimble. Looked a bit like you."

Tory’s heart dropped out of her body, but Jack straightened and flashed Mr. Nash his most killing smile.

"A lot of fellows look like me, Mr. Nash. Especially in the Spanish islands, or so I’m told."

"Aye, that’s so," Nash agreed, pleasantly. "It’s seeing you poring through the books there, that called the scene to mind. To this day I can’t think what the brute was about."

Other curious eyes had turned toward them by now, including those of the inquisitive Mrs. Harvey.

"I am astonished they let you live to tell the tale, Mr. Nash, from what I’ve heard of those cut-throat bands," exclaimed their hostess.

"Why, they never harmed a one of us," Nash replied smugly. "They had nerve enough only for thievery, not murder."

"You sound disappointed, sir." It was out before Tory could check herself, although she managed to keep her tone mild.

"Why, what an extraordinary thing to say! What I mean, my dear Miss Lightfoot, was that our lives were spared due to their cowardice, nothing more. There was certainly no issue of conscience involved. After all," and he beamed again at Jack, "it’s not as if pirates were comparable to men."

"Certainly not Englishmen," Jack replied, his smile bland and fixed. The asperity Tory detected in his voice might have curdled cream. But the English never expected to hear anything less than the confirmation of their own opinions, and so were charmed by his patriotism.

"Indeed not!" laughed Mr. Nash, clapping him on the back.

"Hang the lot of ‘em, I say!" chimed in Billy Bruce, raising his wine glass. "Thieving scoundrels! And good riddance!"

All the gentlemen drank to this. Jack paused for an instant, staring into his glass as if something vile were floating in it, then touched it to his lips; only Tory knew what the gesture cost him. And not long afterwards, they found an excuse to beg the pardon of their hostess and take their leave.




Tory awoke when Jack’s elbow thumped into the wall under the window of the wagon. She half-turned to find him gasping for breath in his sleep, batting away the sheet.

"Jack?" She sat up on one elbow. The wagon shook with his restlessness. His legs were moving under the sheet, kicking or climbing. She thought he was dreaming of the slaver.

"Jack..." She put her hand on his arm, and he cried out, rolling onto his side so fast, the back of his shoulder slammed into the wall and his eyes flew open. He stayed pinned there for a moment, panting, staring eyes seeing nothing. Then he blinked and seemed to recognize her, and his terror melted into utter confusion. His mouth could not seem to form words.

"It’s all right, Jack. You were dreaming." Tory tried to keep her own voice calm, but it was difficult when he looked this wild.

"Rusty?" His voice was dry. "...oh, my God, Rusty..."

"Ssshh, hombre, I’m right here..." And she put her arms around him, gathered him close. He was shaking against her, his skin cold and pebbled with gooseflesh.

"I know, I know, hombre," she murmured. "It was the slaver again."

"Aye, but...it wasn’t slaves. It was you...and Alphonse and Calypso... and Cybele, all of you chained together and drowning...oh, Christ..." He closed his eyes but they snapped open again. "All of you drowning, Rusty, sinking below the waves, struggling...and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save you..."

"My sweet, sweet heart," Tory whispered, holding him tight. "It was only a dream. Listen to me, Jack. It wasn’t real. We’re safe now, all of us. Everything is all right."

She pressed her cheek into his damp hair, felt him struggling to command himself. "Everything is all right," she chanted softly. "We'll be on Nevis soon, away from here. Alphonse will be there. Nothing is going to happen to us."

If only she could make herself believe it.



(Top: Taking A Bow, by James Aschbacher © 2010.)

Chapter 31: THE LORD OF MISRULE

Tory awoke in the early morning to find the sun already creeping up, gilding the treetops, casting crisp shadows across the rocky ground. They had taken advantage of a dry spell to give Alphonse a turn alone in the wagon, and Jack was still asleep beside her, curled on his side with his back to her. His arm stretched off the pallet and out from under the edge of the sheer lawn netting that tented them. His head was bent forward on his arm, and a few heroic rays of the sun caught in his hair. Tory stirred the dark layers very gently with her fingertips, saw glimmers of black, cinnamon and silver as the strands sifted through her fingers, glittering like treasure.

"What is it...exactly...you’re doing, Rusty?" Jack murmured.

"Exploring." She pressed closer, still stroking his hair, and began to kiss the back of his neck. He tasted of salt and sleep and he lay still beneath her except to draw one slow, deep breath and then let it out again.

"Giving no thought to the...mmm...consequences?"

"I’m expecting them to be very severe," she smiled.

The night racket had fallen off to a low hum, and the morning was still pristine, sealed in dew, a gift not yet opened. Jack did not disturb it with any complaint as Tory stroked and nuzzled him.

"Are you sure you’re not part Indian?" she teased, nibbling at his ear. "Your hair is darker than mine."

"I suppose if they have Indians in the west of England, it’s..."

His voice trailed off into a sigh as Tory began to play her fingertips with cautious tenderness down his right side. A year after his beating, she knew his ribs sometimes still pained him. She let her hand dip inside his trousers, stroking very gently, and Jack’s next breath came out as a small groan of pleasure, very low, very soft. Tory pressed her cheek into his warm, scarred back and scooted herself closer.

Jack bore it for as long as he could, then rolled onto his back, caught her by the hips, and pulled her over on top of him. She propped herself up on her hands, and felt the soft netting against her back as she bent down to kiss him.

"You do realize I’m asleep," Jack murmured.

"Me too. Perhaps we’re only dreaming."

It felt like a dream, slow and steady and hushed. Tory closed her eyes, and felt as if she were floating in a warm sea, rising and falling with the swells out beyond the breakers. Gradually, the swells began to come faster and stronger beneath her, but she resisted as long as she could, enjoying the pull of the current, the raw hunger of Jack’s body for hers, after so long an abstinence; they had shared the wagon with Alphonse every night since Cybele and her children had moved into town. Now they rode the current together, crested at last, and broke apart, splintering like a million shards of sparkling glass, until she finally began to pool up again, safe and whole in Jack’s strong arms.

She lay there for a while, listening to his pounding heart. She knew she ought to get up and let him breathe; he was panting into her hair, his chest heaving under her. But he was still holding her fast. When she asked if he was all right, he laughed.

"Only don’t get too comfortable," he added, stroking her spine. "As pleasant as it is to wake up this way, it’s damned hard on the bladder. Not that it wasn’t worth it."

Tory rolled off of him, carefully and with great reluctance. Jack tugged up his trousers, clutching the fabric loosely round his waist with one hand, and shifted up into a wobbly crouch. Poking his head outside the netting, he glanced once at the closed door of their wagon—unusual for Alphonse to stay abed this late—and once at the Bruces’ caravan a few yards away. Then he bolted for the cover of the scrubby wood.

He made his way soundlessly between trunks of jasmine-laced evergreens and acacias, picking his way around thorny clumps of aloe as carefully as he could, given the circumstances. For all his eagerness in the heat of things, his side was still tender from his last encounter with Marcus, and his ribs were beginning to send out dull shockwaves of complaint. His limbs were sluggish and heavy with pleasure, difficult to manage in the thick undergrowth, but the need to relieve himself was obliterating every other sensation. The sun was high enough now to penetrate the wood with long, slanting beams of light, forcing him to creep deeper into the shadows.

It wasn’t until Jack had finally, gleefully emptied himself, and was buttoning up his trousers again, that he noticed a peculiar sound on the still morning air, not the usual drone of insects, but the murmur of human voices. Some random inflection, or perhaps the secretiveness of it, caught his attention. He grew still upon the instant, alert and straining to hear, turning his head slowly to catch the direction of the voices. What would anyone be up to at this hour in the middle of a wood? He thought of Tory alone at the edge of the clearing, and peered through the tree trunks until he spotted a human movement—the slow nodding of a dark head, the gesture of a white sleeve. There were two of them, not very far away, their stealthy movements just visible between the trunks and shrubbery; they huddled together in a guilty, furtive posture, speaking very low.

One of them was Alphonse.

The other was a Negro man Jack had never seen before, in the crisp white osnaburg rig and blue cloth cap of a well-kept slave. He whispered urgently to Alphonse, who nodded now and then in apparent sympathy, but without much enthusiasm. Jack couldn’t make out much of what was said and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to know. But he couldn't help but hear when Alphonse breathed out a weary sigh and said,

"Yes, I will come. I have given my pledge. Tell me where."

Then he and his companion retreated deeper into the wood.

Jack wished he had never left the clearing. He wished he was still tightly cocooned in Tory’s embrace, burrowing inside her, safe. He didn’t want to see this, didn’t want to think about what Alphonse might be up to out here at dawn, making promises to another man’s slave. There might be several explanations, all of them dangerous, most of them capital offenses, and none of them rendering up the slightest shred of comfort. Jack had thought he and Alphonse were on closer terms after their expedition to St. Kitts, but he'd told Jack nothing about this. The Lord of Misrule, Jack had once called Alphonse, turning the complacent, orderly world upside down. What travesty was he plotting out here in secret that was so dire, he would not even mention it to Jack?

Depressed, Jack slunk back the way he had come and found Tory curled up on one half of the pallet, waiting for him, her expression dreamy. He slipped in beside her and pulled her close, despite the dull throbbing of his ribs, taking what comfort he could from the warmth of her body.

"What’s the matter, Jack" she asked him softly.

"Nothing," he lied.




That evening, before they met the Bruces for supper, Alphonse told them he was called away on business that might require some time.

"But this is so unexpected," said Tory. "I hope it’s nothing we’ve done..."

"Oh, no, Victoria, how can you think that?" Alphonse looked genuinely distressed. "But it is the slow season, now. We can accomplish little at this time of year, and you do not need me when you play before the gentry. It is only that I need a...a holiday. To rest before the Bath Hotel."

The idea of Alphonse taking a holiday was so peculiar, even to himself, he could scarcely pronounce the word.

"You could take a holiday here," Tory fenced.

"I have other matters that need looking into."

"But where will you go?"

Alphonse shook his head, once. Tory felt chilled by the finality of it.

"I know I can depend on both of you to look after things here," he added, meeting her eyes again. Then he shifted his earnest glance to Jack, who nodded without a word.

"When will we see you again?" Tory persisted.

"It will not be long." Alphonse made a visible effort to brighten his expression, as much as was possible. "Are we not partners still? I will meet you at the Bath Hotel on the first of November. Not sooner, or the place will still be shuttered up."

"Make it the second Sunday in October at the Charlestown market," said Jack. "We’ll need to have a look at the stage before there are people about. And rehearse."

Alphonse nodded slowly. "I will be there. If for any reason I am delayed, proceed without me. I will send word soon."

He and Jack regarded each other for such a long moment Tory felt there was something they were not telling her.

"But of course, I will be there," Alphonse went on. "I always keep appointments."

"You will...look after yourself." Jack spoke, at last. It was more a command than a question.

"When will you go?" Tory’s voice was desolate. She had a sudden, dreadful feeling that she might never see Alphonse again.

"Tonight. I must stop in town first. I will leave from there."

When he came to squeeze her hand in farewell, Tory leaned over to kiss his furrowed cheek, commanding herself not to cry.

"Bon chance, Alphonse," she whispered.

He stepped back and showed her something like a smile.

"But it is not forever, Victoria. The second Sunday in October in Charlestown, on Nevis. We have a great deal yet to accomplish."




"Tell my fortune, Cybele."

"I thought you no want to know the future."

"I do if it's happy."

Cybele chuckled and Tory sighed. They were sitting on a quilt under Cybele's canvas awning surrounded by her herb baskets, but there was not much custom today, and the herb woman was idly shuffling her cards. It was Sunday, and Tory was visiting Cybele's stall at the market in St. John's while Jack and Marcus got in a little juggling between the showers that were falling again on Antigua. Without Alphonse, they had temporarily disbanded the pantomime, so Jack had Marcus out playing for whatever he could earn on his own account.

But without Columbine's antics to distract her, Tory found herself brooding. Alphone had been gone a fortnight now, and Jack's new enterprise among the gentry had her constantly on edge. When she expected her life ashore to be temporary, it didn't much matter which role she played, reinventing herself to fit the moment. But now that she had committed herself to the life she and Jack would build together, she was consumed with dread that Fortune would somehow retaliate for all the risks they were taking. Now that she had so much to lose.

"Do you think we're wise to tempt fate with our playing?" she asked Cybele.

"Tempt fate to do what?" murmured Cybele.

"To find us out. Have her revenge."

Cybele shook her head, practiced fingers sliding the cards over and under one another. "How can we know what fate intends?" she shrugged. "What we do in life touches other lives for good or ill, in ways we can never know."

Tory nodded emphatically toward the cards.

"You not in the proper humor," grumbled Cybele, still shuffling.

"What has my humor to do with it if it's all in the hands of the Great Mother?"

"You draw the cards, and it take all your strength of spirit to choose those with the most meaning," said Cybele. "Today, I think you only want to hear a pretty story."

"Yes!" Tory laughed. "Can't your cards tell me one?"

"You tell me one, cherie. What happen when you and Jack play for le bon ton?"

"They are scarcely the ton at English Harbour," Tory replied. "Commanders, post-captains, lieutenants—I'm getting an education in military ranking, if nothing else!"

She had been terrified at their first performance unmasked, at a small gathering of naval officers after dinner in the home of the Commissioner of the Dockyard. Jack had delivered Hamlet's "To be or not to be…" soliloquy, and then another scene with Tory as Ophelia in her dark green frock, her hair dressed beautifully by Ada Bruce. Jack’s amiable demeanor found favor among the Commissioner’s guests, and Tory’s nerves were taken for fetching female modesty. Asked how they happened to find themselves way out here in the colonies, Jack said they were touring the provinces until they could can command the experience to face a London audience.

"Indeed," a gallant young post-captain piped up. "And the very best of luck to you both, dear Miss Lightfoot and, ah, do forgive me, sir, but I am hopeless with names..."

"Dance," Jack smiled, accepting the officer’s handshake. "Jack Dance."

And as easily as that, Jack had written himself a new role to play in every parlor on the station.

"He charms them all, of course, when he wants to," Tory told Cybele. "He speaks their language. He says the more accustomed they are to seeing him as a harmless player, the less likely they'll believe any fantastic rumors to the contrary. And perhaps he's right. Everyone seems to take him for an English actor far from home."

"Not so surprising, since that is what he is," noted Cybele.

Tory blinked at her. Funny, she never thought of England, that far-off myth of a place where she had never been, as Jack's home.

"And what they take you for?" Cybele asked.

"Me? Jack's wench, I suppose."

"Jack nevah speak of you so," scolded Cybele.

"No, I'm always, 'my associate, Miss Lightfoot.' And then I must try to be charming, a far chancier proposition altogether." Then Tory dropped some of her cheekiness. "The fact is, they may think what they like of me, so long as Jack is safe. And they leave us in peace."

Since that first evening, Tory had also played Viola's comic duel with Jack's Aguecheek and Lady Macbeth to his Thane, although without the flying knives. Jack said they would bring out the pantomime again at Christmas at the Bath Hotel, and it couldn't come soon enough for Tory.

"Tell me what you see in the cards, Cybele."

The herb woman sighed and fanned open her cards, face-up. "Pick your card, cherie."

Tory selected her favorite, L'Etoile, the Star of hope with its female figure kneeling beside the river of life. She laid it on the quilt between them as Cybele set to shuffling the rest of the pack once more. When she fanned out the cards again, face-down this time, Tory touched one, and Cybele drew it out and laid it over the Star. She shuffled and fanned again, Tory chose another card, and this one Cybele laid across the previous one. Then she put aside the rest of the deck.

"This covers you," said Cybele. She slipped out the card covering the Star and turned it face-up. "Oh, la, la, do not look so, cherie. La Mort is not always so bad. One thing may end, another begin."

Tory tried not to shudder at the image of grinning Death, wielding his bloody scythe.

"The cards have no meaning today," Cybele went on calmly. "You no concentrate. Change in everyone's future."

"Well, what else?" Tory persisted.

"This crosses you," said Cybele, and turned up the card at right angles to the other two. "More change, and sacrifice," she sighed. "Not so surprising in these islands, eh?"

But Tory said nothing, eyes riveted to the image of Le Pendu. The Hanged Man.


(Top: The Lord Of Misrule, vintage woodblock, as seen on www.reason.com)

Chapter 30: HARLEQUIN FAREWELL

The summer rains came sooner to Antigua than expected. There was little custom on wet days at the Sunday markets in St. John’s. It was a sign, Jack supposed, that he must buckle down and work up some diversions for the Bath Hotel. It would be so important to succeed. And not only financially, so they could continue their more important work; if they were seen to be under the patronage of influential people, they might have less to fear from constables in the future as they plied their dangerous trade. Their safety might depend on how fervently the ton might clasp them to its bosom. But it would require a great deal of cozying up to the rich and frivolous, at which sport Jack was woefully out of practice.

He much preferred the company of Marcus. They were taking advantage of a dry afternoon after a drizzly morning to rehearse. Rain spent itself out quickly over Antigua, with no high, forested mountains to catch and hold the clouds, but showers came frequently and without much warning. Every moment one could steal out of doors was precious.

Jack was completing the second of three somersaults across the dampened ground outside the wagon when Marcus came careening into his right side, knocking them both askew. Marcus wasn’t heavy enough to do much damage, but Jack’s ribs took most of the impact; he had to stifle a sudden gasp as he sprawled over on his left side. Marcus, who had been turning cartwheels, easily disentangled himself as Jack scrambled up to his knees, fighting off the urge to seize his sore right side. It was the damp weather that made his ribs throb, Jack knew. How much longer he would be able to lark about like a boy?

"Sorry, Jack, but you say go on two," Marcus told him.

"I said three," Jack protested.

Marcus shook his head emphatically and held up two fingers, as if that proved all.

"Well, I meant three."

"You no teach me to hear what you mean, only what you say."

The spry boy was already up on his feet again. He offered Jack his small hand, and Jack felt like a feeble old man. Kneeling upright, he was just about eye-to-eye with the lad.

"Are you all right?" he asked, solicitously. "How’s your knee?"
Marcus had sprained his knee in the French islands, which had kept him out of their performances for a minute or two.

"Like it nevah happen," the boy crowed. He shook one supple young leg and hopped from foot to foot. "Cybele, her fix me up, for true. We try it again?"

Hellfire, the boy had joints of elastic, Jack thought, with an inward groan. So had he, when he was nine. Centuries ago.

"In a minute," he said, hauling himself up to his feet. "I thought Alphonse was going to join us."

Marcus made a face. "Him be off in the wood wit’ Calypso. Picking wildflowers."

Jack regarded him. "Alphonse is picking wildflowers?"

"No, him carry her basket for her. Ready?" Marcus was already in position to cartwheel again. Jack had an idea for a trick in which Harlequin and the little Pierrot Marcus played would come tumbling in from opposite sides and just miss each other. It was the near-miss they had not quite worked out, yet.

"Straighten your spine," Jack called, hoping to buy an extra minute to quiet his ribs. "Extend those arms. Like the spokes of a wheel." He crouched down for his somersaults. "Now, on three..."

"Halloa, Jack!"

Billy Bruce was descending from the door of his caravan across the clearing, then he turned to hand down his wife. Both were dressed in their most tasteful finery.

"Good evening, Captain," Jack sallied back, jumping quickly to his feet as they advanced upon him. "Mrs. Bruce. How splen..."

But he was interrupted by Marcus careening hell-bent in their direction, a whirlwind of flying feet.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there!" Jack lunged forward to block the boy’s progress, dodging his feet to grab him by the waist, and roll him more or less upright. Out of breath and laughing, Marcus fell back against him.

"You say tree!" he gasped, giggling.

"I’ll deal with you in a moment, sirrah," Jack pretended to scold, holding the boy in a death grip against his own stomach, before he could get up to any more mischief.

"What a dervish the boy is," murmured Ada Bruce, with the practiced politeness of someone who has been obliged to admire too many other people’s children. She surreptitiously dusted her silken skirt with the fringe of her shawl.

"Mrs. Bruce, you are a vision," Jack beamed at her. "What is the occasion?"

"We’re off to dine at Dr. Fletcher’s," chimed in Captain Billy. "Capital old fellow, a dear friend of the Commissioner, you know."

"All the fashion will be there," Mrs. Bruce added, eyes alight.

"And I’m sure you’ll outshine them all," Jack told her.

"Oh, really, Jack..." she giggled, the color rising in her cheeks, and Jack could feel Marcus squirming in his grip.

"I’m told he’s hired a fiddler from the regimental band for the evening’s entertainment," Captain Billy continued.

"Is there often entertainment at these affairs?" asked Jack.

"Yes, at the very best dinners," sniffed Ada. "Otherwise, the men would play at that horrid hazard all night, and there would be no conversation."

"But are you not driving your caravan? It will be a dusty walk," Jack suggested.

"Oh, no, Dr. Fletcher is sending a carriage. Ah! And here it is!"

Jack and Marcus watched as a Negro driver in livery handed the Bruces up into a small barouche with a monogram on its side. Jack thought about how far the Bruces had risen in island society through their friend, the Commissioner. It was no wonder they chose to stay on here, season after season. In England, no player of their modest status could ever expect an invitation to dine with a well-placed gentleman. But things were different in the Indies. Captain Billy had just enough of a nautical background to win him friends on the naval station, and Ada was that most rare commodity in the islands, a well-spoken and attractive white woman. Jack could see what a coup it would be to have her at one’s dinner table in this bleak season, especially when the warships came in, with their weary officers pining for England and wondering how to pass the time. What else was there to do but attend dinners? Dinners with entertainments.

"Him must be mighty fancy buckra to keep such a carriage," Marcus observed.

"Fancy enough," Jack mused.



Alphonse Belair was not a man given to much easy sentiment. He felt things as deeply as any man, indeed he had cause for much deeper feelings than most. But he had learned early in life that the expression of fine feelings and noble sentiments would forever be denied him. He knew he was a ridiculous little man, and had learned to accept his fate, even revel in it, as it provided him with his living. And a good living it was, unaffected by blight, recession or any other random act of God, unlike most other West India incomes. He had no cause to curse his fate when so many others suffered far worse every day. And as a rule he had little patience for the occasional traitorous emotion that wormed its way into his heart.

But this was different. Calypso was a raw wound gnawing at his vitals. He could not look at her now without seeing Betsy's face, and recalling Betsy's fate. He could scarcely offer her the protection of a suitor; he knew his deficiencies in that respect. There was no point allowing himself to even acknowledge such useless, self-indulgent, distracting feelings that might endanger his purpose. And not only his purpose: Jack and Victoria put themselves at risk every market Sunday as well. Still, there was something he might yet do for Calypso, for all of them, four young people of color who had the rare opportunity to live free, thanks to Cybele.

Jack had given him the idea, with his provision for that fellow, Hannibal. For years Alphonse had kept a share of his personal profits in a fund established by Mr. Jepson. When the amount grew large enough, he invested it in one of Jepson's commercial voyages. Jepson’s markets in England were secure, and his captains prudent; he rarely lost a cargo or failed to turn a profit. Alphonse's usual habit was to siphon off a modest share of the profit to live on, and reinvest the rest in Jepson's business on an annual basis. But how much more useful the fund might be if he transferred it into Cybele's name.

Cybele was a prudent woman; she would not squander her profit. Better still, the investment could provide her with an income that would allow her to settle in one place for the two years necessary to establish her children as legally free. Calypso and the boys: four more lives to weigh against those lost at Whitehall. It was not enough, it could never be enough, but it would be something. He was equipped to provide a signature now, and a date, and current address to legalize the deed; all he had to risk was one more visit to Mr. Jepson's agent in St. John's.



When Tory climbed into the wagon, she found Jack sitting cross-legged on the bed, his Harlequin mask on the window sill above the bunk, and his volume of Shakespeare open beside him.

"All settled in, are they?" he asked, when she came in.

"Oh, aye. Edward upset a barrel of corn meal and the place was invaded by chickens. But once we rousted them out, Cybele brewed Mrs. Meade a restorative for her nerves, and all was set to rights."

"I miss all the fun," Jack grinned.

Cybele had accepted an invitation to remove herself and the children to rooms above a dry goods shop off the parade in St. John’s. The proprietor, a free woman of color who styled herself a widow, offered to board them in exchange for Cybele attracting custom to the shop with her herbal remedies and cards at this damp and unhealthy season. Tory and Alphonse had ridden down with them in the cart to help them settle in, but Alphonse said he had some business in town, so Tory had come back up the hill to report to Jack. She knew he felt guilty not coming along to help, but they were still leery about a former pirate exposing his face in a town with such a military character.

"How is it that Cybele always manages to insinuate herself into the life of the town, wherever we go?" Jack said now. "Even with those calamitous boys to herd about."

"She has skills to trade that everyone needs. As long as people are ill or injured or lovelorn, Cybele will always be in demand." Tory leaned over to kiss him, then perched on the edge of the bunk, glancing down at the open book. "Hamlet?" she asked.

"We can't play the Harlequinade for much longer at the market," Jack sighed. "People buy necessities in bad weather, from whatever dwindling supply the island has to offer, but they don’t linger to watch a performance. Besides," and his voice dropped low even though the clearing was deserted and the wagon door firmly shut, "it’s madness to encourage runaways in the hurricane season, with no shipping off the island. And yet, we shall have to keep ourselves until the season begins at the Bath Hotel."

"Doing what?" When Jack went to such lengths to explain a thing, Tory knew it was something she was not going to like.

"There is a market for entertainment that we've overlooked, here in St. John's. In island society, at the private dinner parties they hold for each other, and the officers from English Harbour when the fleet comes in for the season."

Tory looked at him doubtfully. "Dinner parties? Awfully close quarters for the pantomime."

He shook his head and glanced at the window sill. "I must leave my mask behind."

"Jack, you can't!"

"I’ll have the element of surprise on my side. No one will be expecting a pirate when they engage a player, and a player is all they'll see," he assured her. "We'll do recitations, comic speeches. A word to the Bruces, and I expect the Commissioner would have us in to a few dinner parties, to recite after the porter and cigars. And those guests might have us in to their dinner parties. There’s precious little else to do during the storm season, we might find ourselves in high demand."

"Higher than we bargained for if you end up swinging from a noose!" Tory exclaimed.

Jack took her hand as if to prevent her pitching any more abuse at him. "We must be seen in society, and accepted, if we are to continue the Harlequinade. Everything depends on the approval of the gentry, everything Alphonse has worked so hard for. And it's not just for the Harlequinade," he went on, more gently. "I need to do this for us, Rusty. This is no way to build a life, running away, hiding in shadows. Do you know, when I went to call on Mr. Greaves in Basseterre, I couldn’t even send in a name. His people would not admit me. It was only through the kindness of that dear man that I was able to gain an audience. I need to be more than Harlequin, if we are to make a life together. I need to know who I am."

Tory swallowed the rest of her protests; they burned like bile, but she knit her fingers through Jack's, marveling again at his gift for making insanity sound so reasonable. She supposed he was right, in an abstract way. At least she could not complain he was not ready to commit himself to their future.

"It's not you knowing who you are that worries me," she sighed.


(Top: Sunday Market, Antigua, 1806, by W.E. nach Beastall, as seen on http://www.kunst-fuer-alle.de)

Chapter 29: GONE A-MAYING

It ought not to have taken long, the overland journey from Falmouth on the southern coast of Antigua across the interior to St. John’s. But Jack kept their pace slow. It wasn’t only concern for the horses, who were accustomed to pulling their loads in the tropical heat; Jack wanted to savor the spectacle of their procession in the landscape. The Bruces’ caravan had a fresh coat of red and white paint, and the pantomime wagon had been festooned with honey-scented white and yellow jasmine vines and pink oleander just this morning. It was their triumphant return to the English islands after a long interlude, and they wanted to make a show.

Which indeed they did. Jack and Cully walked at the horses’ heads, keeping their pace stately. Jack wore a colorful patchwork waistcoat pieced together from scraps, while Cully played a wobbly but cheerful tune on a cane pipe. Alphonse sat on the box, driving the pair, with a sprig of red flamboyant stuck in the band of his straw hat. Cybele and Calypso strolled behind with Tory, dressed in Columbine’s motley skirt and juggling painted pins. Marcus and Edward racketed around in the road between all the others, and the Bruces in their brilliant caravan brought up the rear. There was not much traffic on the road this morning: one or two astonished Negroes driving ox carts, occasional white gentlemen on horseback riding off on plantation business, washerwomen with their bundles of laundry, hucksters sniffing the back roads for items to trade. But Jack tipped his hat to one and all. He would never have thought he’d be so happy to be back among the English.

They had spent a happy and profitable spring in the French islands. Cybele had purchased a license and set up a stall in the Pointe-a-Pitre marketplace on Guadeloupe. After exploring the countryside, they began to perform their Harlequinade at the Sunday slave markets. The colony was made up of two large islands, and an aggregate of smaller ones, inhabited by sugar planters or fisher-folk, so there was no shortage of market towns to play at of a Sunday.

Tory had thrown herself into the work with her whole heart when told of their true purpose, inspiring Jack to devise ever more exuberant and hilarious business. Alphonse, of course, roundly proclaimed they must never endanger themselves on his account again. But they paid him very little mind, and when it became clear they would play the Harlequinade with or without him, he grumbled that he must resume his Punch role if only to maintain the quality of their performances.

They had all reunited with the Bruces yesterday in Falmouth, here on Antigua. It would be the rainy season, soon, yet they might get another month of playing out of the Sunday market in St. John’s before they retired to the protection of English Harbour for the hurricane season, to plan for the Bath Hotel.

But Jack could not worry about the future on such a fine, dry morning. It surprised him how much this trek through the interior lowland of Antigua reminded him of England. This arid island was not so lush and hilly, but the rolling flatlands planted in green and gold cane might have been any farmland in rural England. The few creeks and riverbeds they saw were dry at this time of year, but they passed a freshwater pond where mill cattle were driven to drink by straw-hatted boys. Of course, the boys were black, and the tall palm trees and clusters of spiky aloe, with their willowy shoots erupting in sunbursts of flame red, would have looked strangely exotic in Devon or Gloucestershire. But Jack had once seen English May Day revelers in Jamaica dancing around a towering aloe as if it were a Maypole.

May Day had come and gone while they were in the French islands, and with it another year of his life. It must be midsummer by now. But as he looked back to see the boys gamboling and giggling in the road, and Tory sauntering along, smiling up slightly at her work, he realized that every day felt like May Day to him, now that he knew how much Tory loved him. A fragment of an old Maying song from the West Country began to play in his head, an exuberant air he could no more suppress than he could have stopped the beating of his heart.

"Robin Hood and Little John
Are both gone to the Fair-O.
And we will go to the merry greenwood
To see what they do there-O!"

"Bravo!" came Billy Bruce’s hearty cry from the box of his caravan on the road behind the wagon. Jack laughed, and finished up what he could remember.

"For we were up as soon as any day-O.
And for to fetch the summer home,
The summer and the May-O!"

Jack had spent his childhood traveling through green country villages in company every bit as motley as this. For so long, he had forbidden himself to remember his boyhood at the English fairs; it hurt too much, with the reminder of all he had lost. But his boyhood memories were flooding back now, from every hidden corner of his heart, and he welcomed them, cherished them. Then his eye fell on Tory again, and he knew he was no longer a boy.



I heard Jack singing today, after a fashion, Tory wrote in her logbook, that evening. I would not have missed that for all the seas in all world!

She found herself smiling at the memory, and the memory of these last few busy and prosperous months ashore in the French islands. I don’t believe any man can truly understand how important it is for a woman to have something useful to do. Calypso has her needle. Cybele has her herbs and the raising of her children. And her cards, for which she is duly famed in Pointe-a-Pitre, where she is called la diseuse de bonne aventure, teller of fortune. To think that Alphonse tried to deny me the one contribution I have learned to make on dry land, my Columbine, because of the risk. There is risk in every moment of life, but we can't stop living because of it.

Tory lifted her pen and thought back to the day she and Jack had returned to the others. Her homecoming. Alphonse was so relieved, he almost smiled. Then he insisted they give up the Harlequinade.

"Has anyone actually run away because of our playing?" she countered.

"One or two of those Alphonse spoke to as slaves have become his informants in the free communities," Jack offered.

"Hellfire, we’ve actually done some good?" she crowed. "And you expect us to give it up? Besides, all your people depend upon you, Alphonse."

"What people?" he frowned.

"Those you employ in the hills. To aid runaways." To his astonished look, she added, "Do you not know a fellow called Quashie?"

"I know dozens. It is an African name for a son born on the first day of the week. Planters often use it as a name of derision, Quashie or Cuffee, or a salutation to a Negro they do not know."

Tory told him of the naked young Quashie, glistening with goose grease, who had helped her get off the mountain. She told him of the safe houses she had visited in her journey, some overgrown shacks but others neatly tended.

"But—I employ no one," said Alphonse.

"Perhaps he was on his own account," Tory suggested. "It must mean something to them, maintaining those places. Keeping the dream alive."

"You’re sure this fellow called himself Quashie?" Alphonse asked.

Tory nodded.

"In African tales, Quashie is sometimes the name of a hero who helps the people trick their masters. But he is...a myth."

"This fellow was real flesh and blood," Tory laughed. "But here’s another odd thing. I could swear once or twice, he called himself Jonkanoo. Like the parades."

"It is often spoken as a name, two words," Alphonse mused. "John Canoe. A personage."

"The Lord of Misrule," Jack smiled. "Like you, Alphonse. You show them a looking-glass world where slaves outwit their masters and invite them to act out the dream. Like the Lord of Misrule."

Since then there has been no more talk of giving up the Harlequinade, Tory wrote. And now that the performer in him has been unleashed again, Jack can scarcely be contained. I often find him in grog shops of a market afternoon, spinning tales to whatever sea dogs he can find who understand even a smattering of English or Spanish, embroidering some fanciful yarn about something he calls the Devil’s Ring. It may be that he's plotting a new scenario and wishes to try its effects before he puts it on the stage. It sounds a great load of rubbish to me, but perhaps it's one of those stories that comes off better in the playing.



A mild morning had given way to the dull, brassy heat of noon as Alphonse trudged up the hill from town toward their campsite. But he scarcely minded the heat when the morning’s business was so successfully concluded.

He had met with Mr. Jepson’s agent at his branch office in St. John’s to dispose of Jack’s business. Jack insisted on setting aside a generous share of his profits from the French islands for that fellow Hannibal in Basseterre, the informant who told Jepson where Tory had gone. It was enough for a manumission, and Alphonse was promised that Jepson would see to the matter without delay.

Alphonse was feeling almost chipper for another reason. At no time in their interview had Jepson’s agent spoken a word about the situation on Nevis. Their remove to the French islands had kept Alphonse far out of the way of Nevis and her troubles. He could not be accused of failing to honor his pledge if he were never contacted. Now that they were back in the English islands at Crop-over, with traffic between the islands at its busiest, however, he might be held accountable for his pledge at any time. But the situation might have changed on Nevis, he tried to convince himself. Perhaps the business would come to nothing, after all.

But Jack’s business had come to something and Alphonse was eager to tell him so. He found the clearing deserted, their wagon and the Bruces’ caravan standing quiet with the horses tethered nearby, and so decided to try the wagon. He jumped up onto the step, swung open the door and popped in over the threshold. His reception was a sudden, fearful gasp from Calypso, perched on the stool in the corner. She dropped her sewing in her lap as her dark eyes rounded in terror, then snatched it up again in two small, trembling hands.

"Mist’ Alphonse, you 'bout scare me to death!" she exclaimed. There was a deep, wine-dark flush on her cheek. "Jack say bolt the door, but I forgot."

"What does he mean, leaving you all alone like this?" Alphonse's voice came out too sharp, to cover his embarrassment. A sensible man would have knocked first. "Where are the others?"

"Cybele and Tory picking herbs, but I stay behind to finish this mending. Then Cully and Marcus come say they lose Edward playing chase in the wood, so Jack go off wit’ them to find him."

"Perhaps I ought to go help them."

But Calypso merely shrugged. "Edward get lost all the time. He like the attention."

The unfamiliar twinge of a smile tugged at Alphonse’s mouth.

"It is very dangerous to stray too far from the wagons. I wish you..." He had been about to say "you children," but that word did not seem to fit the small, neat young woman sitting before him, her fingers working with such industry. "I wish the boys would believe me," he amended.

"Cully getting too big to trifle wit’, Marcus be too fast and Edward too little for anyone to notice."

"Marcus was not fast enough in Charlestown."

"We can no be hiding all the time," Calypso reasoned.

"I suppose not," Alphonse agreed, gazing at her. How much more poised she seemed, these last months, than the timorous girl they had first met, wanting only to hide behind Cybeles skirts. When did the change happen? How could he have been so foolish not to notice? Alphonse did not know the precise nature of whatever had made Calypso so afraid, but he had lived long enough as a slave to imagine several plausible scenarios, each more horrible than the last and none of them at all out of the ordinary in the normal course of plantation life. Then he realized her dark eyes were dancing at him.

"Mist’ Alphonse, you boring a hole clean t’rough me."

Mortified, Alphonse stammered an apology and fled to the water jug on the sideboard. Glad of the chance to collect himself, he poured water into the gourd cup, which he managed with no little dexterity as he climbed the two-step ladder to perch on the edge of the bunk. From up here, Alphonse was almost at eye-level with any adult who came in the door, and slightly higher than Calypso, whose short black curls bounced above her shoulders as she bent her head over her sewing.

"I wish you would not call me 'Mister'," he spoke up, after a sip of water. "It makes me feel a hundred years old."

"Cybele say we must speak to you wit’ respect because you all be so kind to us."

"Oh? I notice no one ever says Mister Jack."

"It no suit him."

Did he himself seem that exalted, Alphonse wondered, that aloof from his companions? "It will suit me if you simply call me Alphonse."

The girl nodded and went back to her work.

"Mending for those boys must keep you awfully busy," he observed, to be saying something.

"But I don't mind. I expect to 'prentice out to a seamstress in a shop, one day. Or else I hire out for a place wit' some fine lady of the town."

"As a servant?"

"One day. I must live free two years in one place to get my certificate. Then I hire out."

Alphonse’s mouth compressed into a taut line. Even if they were able to settle down tomorrow in one place, this girl would be nearly twenty years old before she could be declared legally free. Free to enter into another kind of bondage, in many ways as dreary and humiliating as the one she had escaped.

"You no tink much of my plan," Calypso observed, watching him now with a more guarded expression.

"In my experience, there is little difference between servants and slaves."

"Servants earn a wage," snapped Calypso. "It be no shame to work."

Alphonse stared at her, amazed not because her sudden anger was so unexpected but because it was so familiar. It was exactly the tone he took himself whenever some well-meaning idiot was determined to offer him pity or sympathy. He knew what it was to be laughed at, jeered at, pursued, even assaulted; there were sure ways to deal with those things. But he would not be patronized like a child. In those moments, he could not bear his own fury and that was what he saw in Calypso’s eyes now.

"We must all work for our living, of course. I had no right to speak to you like that." There was nothing humble in his apology. He merely stated the fact and Calypso nodded, satisfied.

He set the cup behind him on the window sill and sat watching her work. It occurred to him he never saw her idle.

"If you had the choice," he began again, "to do or be anything you wanted, what would you choose?"

Her eyes were smiling when she met his gaze. She did not need to rebuke him with a reminder that she had very few choices and she was still child enough to be intrigued by the fancy of it. "Why, I tink I like to have a child of my own."

Alphonse kept his face composed, only wincing inside. How easily she would reach that goal, he thought, no doubt with the help of the husband of the fine lady she would serve. "And a home of your own?" he prompted.

"Or a shop!" she grinned. "So the fine ladies come to me!"

"And a fine, strapping husband, I suppose..."

Calypso’s sparkling eyes clouded immediately. "Yes...I s'pose... only..." she faltered, then gave him a plaintive look. "It no be easy for me to...talk to men, you see."

"You are talking to me."

It was out before he could stop himself and Alphonse wanted to bite off his tongue. Now he had invited her to compare him to other men. But Calypso did not laugh or dismiss him. If anything, her expression cleared a bit.

"Yes that’s so," was all she said.

Alphonse wished he had some sewing in his lap to distract him from that calm, steady gaze. But there was nothing for it but to bear her scrutiny until she spoke again in a more playful voice.

"And what about you...Alphonse? If you could do anyting at all in the world, what it be?"

"I’d see an end to slavery."

This time she did laugh. "Oh, that be a very fine ting, but it nevah happen. I mean for you’self. What you want for you’self?"

Alphonse had never been asked what he wanted personally out of life, nor had he ever asked himself. What did he want? What any normal man wanted, he supposed, although it would be fatuous of him to say so. He was hardly a normal man. Work he had aplenty. And companionship? That was new to him, but not unpleasant. Before Jack and Victoria, he'd had ony acquaintances. Love? But he had bolted the door of his mind to that subject long ago.

"You want more than a shop and a child, I tink."

No, less, he thought. If she only knew how much less he would settle for, if only it were possible.

"I have...much to do," he said, at last. "My...wife...I am afraid, would have to be a saint."

"Then you have a long wait," said Calypso, returning to her work.


(Top: View to St. Johns Harbour, Antigua, by J. Johnson, 1827. As seen on www.brunias.com)

Chapter 8: THE INFERNAL HOLE

Jack was alone in the wagon the next Sunday morning, between performances at the market in St. John’s. Their little troupe did not care to spend too many days in a row amongst the naval officers at English Harbour. Alphonse and Tory were taking a turn around the market with their drummer and Marcus was seeing to True’s feedbag outside. The bell had rung at St. John’s Church to signal the end of the service and Jack was drinking water when Marcus tapped at the door.

"Message come fo’ you, Jack," said the boy, poking his head around the door.

Jack frowned. "From who?"

Marcus shrugged, holding up a little folded scrap of paper. Jack set his cup down next to his mask on the shelf before the glass and leaned slightly off the stool to take it. He raised a curious eyebrow, but the boy only shrugged again and scooted out the door, pushing it closed behind him. Unfolding the paper, Jack found a brief note in a bold, neat hand.

My Dear Harlequin, When shall we meet? I can wait no longer. Send a reply by the bearer. I know you will not think of being cruel to one who has ever been your devoted C. H.

Jack frowned again. He'd encountered Cora Harvey once or twice more in English Harbour, wriggling out of her invitations by pretending not to understand them. But the thought that someone was watching his movements here in St. John’s, for whatever reason, disturbed him. Reply by the bearer—what the devil did that mean? He stood and took one long step to the door, pushing it open a few inches.

"Marcus...!"

The door suddenly swung wide, out of his grasp, caught in the unrelenting grip of Mrs. Cora Harvey, her form unmistakable although her face was hidden under gauze as she stood planted below the step. Jack spun around on the instant and dove into the corner for his mask, securing it just in time to see the widow sail in across the jamb, pulling the door shut behind her.

"I know you’re alone," she announced, unwinding her veil.

"I was." Jack was so furious, he could scarcely speak. "What are you doing here?"

"I’ve been to church. I do have a house in town, you know."

"I mean what are you doing here. It’s very improper for you to be here alone with me."

"I’m afraid I’m a most improper woman," she smiled. "As you would have known by now, had you accepted my civil invitations to tea. Think of all the time we’ve wasted." She tossed aside her gauze to reveal a most un-church-like and deeply flushed cleavage above her stays; her own audacity excited her.

"You must leave at once!" Jack declared. Even to his own ears, he sounded like somebody’s phlegmatic uncle.

"Oh, I think not, Harlequin. First we must talk. And if you mean to pitch me out, I warn you, I shall scream. The market is very busy today. It will be much worse for you than for me."

The thought had certainly crossed Jack’s mind, but he made himself stand still. If her late husband, the captain, had been held in such esteem, it was likely she was acquainted not only with the Commissioner of the Dockyard, but the Admiral in command of the station, and probably the Governor of the colony, let alone every other officer on the island. No matter how they spoke of her in private, none would fail to defend this flower of English womanhood if she claimed she’d been assaulted by a common mountebank.

"But why should we argue?" the widow continued, sitting decorously upon the edge of the bunk bed. She patted the open space beside her, between herself and the pile of rolled up sleeping pallets on the foot of the bed. "Come sit here and talk to me, my dear. I shan’t bite. At least not right away."

Jack stayed where he was. It was difficult to think clearly when he was this enraged, difficult to separate the heat of his anger from another, more insidious warming.

"Please yourself, then," Mrs. Harvey shrugged, enjoying herself.

"What...do you want with me?" Jack croaked.

"Why, I though that was rather obvious. Why have you not come to see me?"

"Mrs. Harvey..."

"Call me Cora."

"...no matter with what regard I may hold you as a person..."

"Oh, spare me your morality, my dear boy, I’m not remotely interested," she interrupted, with an impatient sigh. "Do you know what our late Lord Nelson called English Harbour? The ‘infernal hole.’ And I promise you, he didn’t know the half of it. Have you ever been bored, Harlequin? So well and truly bored, you could spit?"

Jack almost smiled, in spite of himself. "Then why do you stay on? It ought to be a simple enough matter for a lady of your…accomplishments to find some gallant officer to escort her home to England."

"Because I do as I please here. That would not be the case back in England. Good works and ladies’ societies do not interest me. At least at the Dockyard I am liable to meet some amusing men. Like my fine, lithe, raven-haired Harlequin." She smiled again, rising from the bunk and gliding toward him. "But I have not come here to tell you the story of my life."

Dark ringlets were escaping from her upswept coiffure, her golden eyes glowed, and the rise and fall of her bosom was hypnotic. Her scent filled the wagon, a deep, musky rose, as heavy as incense, as muddling as opium. And somewhere, beneath his anger and surprise and confusion, it ocurred to Jack how easy it would be to give her what she asked for. He could not deny how compelling it was to be wanted so recklessly. Time was, he'd have taken what he wanted with no questions asked, and the widow must know how to keep her affairs discreet; she was a figure of much idle speculation and very little known fact. Who would be harmed, after all, if he gave himself up to this tidal wave of silk and scent and desire?

But it was no use pretending not to know the answer. Was he so ruled by his prick he would squander all the love Tory had trusted to him—for this? A lark? An interlude? Was he no better than that cruel, callow Matty Forester, after all? And he backed away from the widow in mute fury, as if his momentary willingness to betray the woman he loved were her fault.

"A favor then, Harlequin."

Something had changed in Cora Harvey’s voice, as the widow began gathering up her hat and gauze. Her face had lost its color; she looked older in the harsh light from the little window above the bed. "I have little use for shame, but I do retain some pride," she told him. There was more resignation than anger in her tone.

"I’m sorry. You’re...a damned attractive woman," Jack said, honestly.

"And you’re a damned attractive man. It’s a pity we could not find some common ground, but..." She lifted one shoulder in a provocative gesture. "All I ask is one more glimpse beneath your mask. To remember you by."

She reached for his mask. But his eyes met hers in a clear warning, and after an instant’s hesitation, she drew her hand away.
"You don’t surrender much, my Harlequin."

She turned away with a defeated rustle of her skirts, and Jack sank back down onto the stool, shaken and furious with himself. They were playing a dangerous enough game in these islands as it was. How could he have let a stranger get so close, for whatever reason? The civilized world was a dangerous place, and he was too long out of practice at its games...

He started when a hand touched his shoulder, and jerked his head up to find not Cora Harvey, but Tory smiling down at him.

"Sorry, I thought you heard me come in. And why on earth have you still got that mask on? You haven’t been wearing it all this time, have you? You must be roasting." She undid the ties at the back of his head as she spoke, taking care not to pull his hair. "Who was that I saw skulking out of here a few minutes ago?"

"Mrs. Harvey."

"What? The notorious widow? And I missed her...?" But Tory’s grin faded when she saw Jack’s face. "Hellfire, Jack, you’re as flushed as a bride. What have you been up to in here?"

In answer, Jack reached up with both hands and drew Tory’s face down to his. The voraciousness of his kiss surprised them both, but Tory had no breath to protest. The mask thudded to the floor as her arms found their way around his neck and she sank down across his lap, surprised again by what she felt under Harlequin’s patches.

"What...has she done to you?"

"Nothing you can't do a thousand times better."

He steered her mouth back to his, pulled open the laces of her bodice, and dipped one hungry hand inside. She twisted in his lap, and when he felt the stool give way beneath him, he got his feet under him, stood up, and lifted her to the edge of the bunk, where the pallets were piled.

"We’re due...outside...in a few minutes," she panted.

"This won’t take long."

Her arms were closing fast around him, pulling him between her legs where he stood while she braced her back against the pallets. He shoved aside handfuls of patchwork skirt as her legs wrapped around him and he held on to her with all his strength, fighting for forgiveness, until he heard her soft cry and felt her shudder in his arms. Slowly, he became aware of her mouth moving very gently now, against his neck and his cheek and his ear.

"It’s all right, hombre," she murmured, holding him tight. He realized he was shaking; there could be a lot of reasons for that. He closed his eyes, buried his face in her neck, let her comfort him.

"Shh," she whispered, cradling him like a child. "Why do I feel I’ve just saved you from a fate worse than death?"

She was teasing, but Jack was too ashamed to smile back.

"I love you, Rusty," he told her plainly. "I just wish we were away from here."

Tory held his face before her and studied his expression, reading in his eyes what he didn’t say.

"Then let’s tell Alphonse,” she said, stroking his dark hair. "It’s time we got Marcus back to Cybele, in any case. We’ve tempted fate too long in this place."



Jack was so relieved to be leaving Antigua, he didn't notice the change in Marcus until the day they brought the wagon to the loading dock, from which they would board the barge for St. Kitts. Alphonse had told them custom in Basseterre would be brisk with the end of the gale season and the trade ships returning. They had sent word to Cybele to meet them there, but not even the prospect of seeing her again could dispel Marcus' gloomy mood.

"You don’t want to go to Basseterre?" Jack quizzed the boy.

"Me ol’ massa live in that place," the boy murmured.

"In Basseterre?" Jack prompted. "In the town?"

"On the hill. But obisha man, him be in town all the time fo’ the grog shops."

By this name, Jack knew Marcus meant the overseer of a plantation. Tory had confirmed the obvious, that Cybele's children were not really hers, but he'd never pressed the question of where they'd come from.

"We come down one day wit’ the driver wit’ provision fo’ the market," Marcus went on. "But all we coops upset and when t’oter boys run off to fetch the fowl, me run off, too, but...me keep running. Me stay off the road and one day, that Cully, him find me napping in a ditch and take me to Cybele."

"Was there no one to miss you on the plantation?" Tory asked.

"Obisha, him miss me most. Me used to fetch him rum." The boy shook his head, his face glum. "Obisha, him hide me for true, him evah catch me after me run off."

"Nobody’s going to hide you," Jack declared. "We'll put you in a mask, like Punch and Harlequin. Would you like that?" Marcus' expression grew more eager, in spite of himself. Jack smiled and caught the boy's shoulder in an affectionate shake. "I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise. We'll be fine in Basseterre," he vowed, hoping it was true.

(Top: English Harbour, Antigua. J Johnson, published 1827. As seen on www.brunias.com/)

Chapter 7: The Barracuda

St. John’s, the principal port town on the northern coast of Antigua, was not so bustling a place as Basseterre. But the very dullness of the place made the sudden appearance of the patchwork Harlequinade all the more of a sensation. Particularly among the homesick idlers with leave to visit the town, while their ships weathered the season at English Harbour, on the southern coast.

They had brought the wagon over on the barge from St. Kitts, camping in it at the edge of the open pasture overlooking the town where the public market was held. The island’s three main roads converged nearby, so they could keep watch on the traffic between the naval station and the town. Still, Jack kept to the refuge of the wagon. And since Cybele had stayed snug in Sandy Point Town with the rest of her children, Jack also kept watch over Marcus. Alphonse had warned of unscrupulous flesh traders who could profit from a healthy Negro boy on any estate in the Indies, so Jack kept the boy in his sight at practice, or when he was off scavenging about the marketplace after the stalls were taken off for whatever boyish treasures he might turn up.

Jack enjoyed their practice on quiet mornings like this, with Tory busy at her logbook and Alphonse off in town. But today was muggy and overcast with no trades to chase off the sticky heat. Jack’s shirt was soaked through in minutes and even Marcus was growing fretful. A gourd slicked out of the boy’s grasp and caromed down the hill into a stand of acacia trees. Jack scrambled down after it and when he drew aside one of the long, leafy branches that drooped almost to the ground, he nearly bolted out of his skin to find Alphonse sitting frozen beneath the hanging branches. He gazed up at Jack in solemn silence.

"Alphonse! Hellfire, are you unwell?" Jack gasped, struggling to recover his normal heartbeat.

"Unwell? No," Alphonse echoed. "It is nothing mortal."

His head turned away again toward the prospect of the town. The twin towers of St. John’s Church rose at one end, above a flat basin of orderly streets, municipal buildings and whitewashed townhouses. The bay lay beyond, a hazy blue-grey in the indifferent sunlight, dotted with small, steep islands and promontories. Three industrious Negro washerwomen were pummeling their master’s linen on the bank of a freshwater pond at the edge of the town. Alphonse saw none of it.

Jack crawled in under the shelter of the branches. "I thought you’d gone to town."

Alphonse only nodded. Jack noticed that he had a paper rolled open on his knees. Alphonse looked down at it, too.

"I was on my way," Alphonse's voice was without expression. "I am pledged to deliver this."

He handed the paper to Jack. It was a petition, two columns of neatly inscribed names and addresses. There was also an inscription at the top. Jack sat back and tilted the paper toward the light.

"We, the undersigned..." he muttered, his eyes quickly scanning through the script, "...free Persons of Colour of the Leeward Islands...loyal subjects of his most Royal Highness, King George Fourth of England…desiring to share in the Legal Rights enjoyed by all subjects of His Majesty, etcetera, etcetera…do pledge our regard for His Majesty’s sovereign Laws...and our opposition to the Abolition of Slavery..."

Jack stopped and looked up at Alphonse.

"Tell me I have misread it," said Alphonse, in that same empty voice. "I am not yet very skilled."

"Skilled enough. What are you doing with this?"

"I am pledged to carry it from the free people of St. Kitts to their fellows in Antigua, for conveyance to London. The first ships bound for England will leave from English Harbour when the storm season ends and I often carry such papers. Much is done through the writing of letters and the sending of petitions to agents in London, who lobby the members of the English Parliament on behalf of the freemen of color. But...never before have I been able to read what I carried. The ribbon on the paper came loose and I thought, who would be harmed if I stop a moment to improve my skills?"

"You mean to say that your associates, whoever gave you this..."

"I was told this was a petition in support of abolition," Alphonse explained in the same quiet voice. "I am betrayed."

Jack handed the petition back, marveling at Alphonse’s apparent composure. Ever one to mask his own feelings, Jack still supposed he’d rage like a lunatic if he ever found himself so deceived in a matter so close to his heart, as impotent as he knew his rage would be. There was something eerie about Alphonse’s calm, something infinitely more frightening than the heat of rage. For an instant, Jack remembered the silent purpose with which Alphonse had choked a man nearly to death in the hills above Old Road Town.

"But what purpose do they believe this will serve?" Jack asked.

"Their own," Alphonse replied. "For what other reason do men ever take action? The freemen no doubt believe that if they pledge to support the business of slavery, the English will be less afraid to grant them their own civil rights. Only cowards would stoop to it," he added, darkly. "Unscrupulous men and their credulous dupes."

"You can’t blame yourself, Alphonse. You couldn’t know..."

"But for my own common sense, which I chose to ignore. The freemen have no interest in ending slavery; they own slaves themselves. They might as well burn their own cane-pieces and plunder their own stores. I knew they did not share my goal, but I failed to see how determined they are to oppose it, now that they have throttled some few little rights of their own out of the English king. Such petty victories, Jack, you would laugh to hear them. The right to vote for the white Englishman to speak for them in the island Assembly. For some select few, the right to stand for the Assembly themselves, if they are white enough in their thinking to earn a grant from the governor. No one speaks of the right of the slave to be free. No one but the little fool they dupe to do their bidding."

"They can’t dupe you any more," said Jack.

"No," Alphonse agreed. "And I am very much afraid there has been an unfortunate mishap in the crossing." He gouged a little hole in the soft, damp earth with his heel and began slowly tearing the petition into bits. "It is always such a jumble at sea," he went on, his small, strong fingers working with precision until there was only a tiny pile of white parchment powder in the hole in the earth. He nudged the loose dirt over it and methodically tamped it down.

Jack felt his spine chilling at the utter composure of Alphonse’s fury, rivulets of sweat turning to ice against his back.

"What will you do now?" he ventured. "Sooner or later they must learn that their petition is not delivered."

"I suppose so," Alphonse nodded. "Although it will be no great matter to draft another one."

"Let ‘em do their own dirty work from now on, you’re well out of it," Jack agreed. "You can spend more time on the Harlequinade."

"The Harlequinade?" Alphonse sounded as if he'd never heard the word.

"Aye, we’ve still got a living to make. Tory, Marcus, we all need you. Your career as a messenger may be over, but there’s still plenty of useful work you can do."

Alphonse’s black eyes began to grow more thoughtful.

"Yes, that is so," he agreed. "My work is just beginning."



Even amid the slave vendors in their gaudy finest, heads turned when a trio of patchwork clowns and one small boy came tumbling into the Sunday market, behind a Negro youth slapping a drum strapped over his shoulder. Alphonse had engaged the drummer for the morning and curious vendors and customers blinked up from their business to hear it, following them with their eyes. It was a busy market; with no shipping out from Europe, the slaves’ provisions kept the town fed. Tory could feel an intensity of interest all during their performance, one of their typical comic stories about Harlequin and Columbine tripping up Mr. Punch in some folly, a riotous chase and the lovers’ escape.

"Must we have that confounded drumming all the time?" Jack grumbled later, when their drummer was off amusing himself. "I feel like I’m being marched to the gallows."

"It draws custom," replied Alphonse.

That afternoon, Tory was outside writing in her logbook while Jack, Alphonse and Marcus were poking about the wagon. The horse Calypso had christened "True," for his dependability, was cropping at the scrubby grass nearby when Tory looked up and saw the stranger.

"A good day to you, Miss, and a grand day it is!" the gentleman sallied, doffing his battered topper as Tory scrambled to her feet.
"Might I presume to introduce myself? William Bruce, at your service, Miss, although I am known to one and all as Captain Billy."

The man scarcely looked like a naval officer in his bottle-green coat and checkered trousers. Of middle years, his pink complexion did not look weathered and his cravat was tied with too giddy a flourish for a sober mlitary man. But Tory glanced off to see that Jack was still hidden behind the wagon.

"Captain," she nodded to his little bow. "I am Miss Lightfoot."

"Ah! The fair Columbine, if I am not mistaken? I wonder if you might conduct me to the proprietor?"

"Perhaps you can discuss the matter with me."

"The fact is, it’s a matter of some delicacy." Captain Bruce’s voice dropped so low, Tory braced herself for blackmail. What else could this brash fellow want with them, if he were not some mariner paid out of his ship in search of a quick profit?

"Perhaps I can help you," said Jack, materializing at Tory’s side. He was wiping wagon grease off his fingers with a rag, but his dark eyes were very keen. He was not wearing his Harlequin mask.

"Captain Bruce," Tory said, and Jack nodded at her inflection.

"Your servant, Captain. Please call me Jack."

"My pleasure, sir," beamed Captain Bruce. "The juggling Harlequin, capital stunt! The fact is, I’ve a little proposition of business to put in your way. You see, I myself am in the theatrical trade—Captain Billy Bruce, nautical songs and sentimental ballads. And my wife, sir, the famed Mrs. Bruce, is a follower of Terpsichore. You’ll never see her like in the matter of country dances, pas seul and the sailor’s hornpipe! We are but newly arrived on Antigua, that is, I was posted to the Station as a lad in the wars against old Boney, but this is my first visit back as a civilian, the winters being so damnably cold in England and the theatrical profession being what it is, as you well know. Mrs. Bruce and I are stopping at English Harbour with an old messmate of mine. Commissioner of the Dockyard now, and a grand good fellow, with the most pleasant little wife."

"A proposition of business?" Jack prompted, gently.

"In plain fact, Mrs. Bruce and I are looking for an engagement. We would consider ourselves most honored, no indeed sir, indebted to you should you consider the offer of our services."

Tory saw a grin tug at the corner of Jack’s mouth.

"Sir, we are only poor strollers who pass the hat," he replied.

"But you put on a capital pantomime; I saw you today in the market. What a sensation you would be in English Harbour! Mrs. Bruce and I are granted leave to perform there, not on the Dockyard itself, for women, Lord bless ‘em, ain’t allowed on the place, but a snug little situation in the village. We would be most honored to share it with your pantomime, to show you what we have to offer."

"Of course we must go," counseled Alphonse after Captain Bruce had gone. "We are invited by a personal friend of the Commissioner of the Dockyard. No one will trifle with us."



Harlequin’s mask was a wondrous device, Tory decided. She perched inside the wagon before the shelf that held the little glass, watching Jack dress behind her. It was dark brown paste, and it covered the top half of Jack’s face, leaving only his mouth and chin visible, the features that had been concealed when he’d worn a pirate’s beard. Yet the single painted expression could seem comic when Harlequin was engaged in knockabout tumbling battles with the little whiteface Punch, or poignant when he was pining for his Columbine.

And it kept Jack safe here in English Harbour, this wet, gloomy, festering place. The high, flat hills overlooking the deep twin pools of the harbor protected the ships anchored there from the brunt of any gales off the Atlantic, but also prevented any offshore breeze reaching the harbor, trapping all heat and moisture in the basin. Worse, the Bruces’ "snug little situation" was, in fact, the yard at Fort Shirley, the naval settlement of officers’ quarters, battery, hospital and canteen. But bored military men and their servants made an appreciative audience for the pantomime, as the English called their Harlequinade.

Tory tugged her neckline lower and fluffed out her full skirt with its riotous patches. She did love playing Columbine.

"I feel like we’re going to be rollicking today," she declared, winding up her hair into a knot on top of her head as Jack came up behind her. "I only wish we were playing back at St. John’s. Have you noticed how the market folk are always so excited over us?"

"Oh, they like us well enough, here, but the English are far less demonstrative than slaves and freemen," said Jack. "Unless Ada Bruce is flipping up her skirts."

Mrs. Ada Bruce was a small, shapely woman with vivid red curls who wore her bodices tightly boned and painted her eyebrows and rouged her lips, even during the day. Upon being presented to Jack for the first time, she dropped into a low curtsy and beamed up at him with so much ferocious blinking, Tory thought there must be something troubling her eyes. Onstage, she danced like a Fury, hiking up her skirts to tremendous response, while Captain Billy played his fife or sang one of his salty shanties.

"Aye, the English are entertained by our little shows," Tory agreed, "but it seems to mean more to the slaves, somehow."

Jack was leaning in over her shoulder, adjusting his mask in the glass. At that instant, they both found themselves gazing into Harlequin’s brown face.

"B’God, Rusty, you’re right," Jack murmured. "In English pantomime, Harlequin is always in a dark mask and Punch puppets are always white. But of course, an audience of slaves or any people of color would see things differently."

How must it look, Tory thought, a blackface man and a woman of color besting whiteface Mr. Punch at every turn. "Do you suppose Alphonse had this in mind when he suggested our pantomime?"

"It would not surprise me," said Jack. "He certainly enjoys taking Punch’s falls. And of course, he could depend upon the complacent English never noticing. Hellfire, I never noticed, and I’m part of the play."

After their pantomime, Alphonse collected their coins and took Tory aside to smooth out an awkward moment in one of their falls. Marcus was poking about the field where the audience had been, seeing what he could turn up. Captain Billy and Ada Bruce were regaling a handsome young post-captain and a handful of boyish midshipmen. Jack had his head down, as usual, intent on getting back to the wagon, when he felt a hand on his arm. He glanced up, startled, into the cat-like amber eyes of an elegant-looking woman. Her dark hair was swept up under a tasteful black straw bonnet, its veil rolled up to reveal a humorous red mouth and milk-white skin with a trace of crepeiness around the throat to mark her as a woman of maturity. But the swell of her bosom was no less alluring, even under its decorous covering of ruched black silk.

"Forgive my boldness, my dear Harlequin. I spoke, but you did not appear to hear me." The lady glanced apologetically at her hand, but she did not remove it from his arm.

"It is I who must beg your pardon, Madam," said Jack, trying to muster some gallantry to cover his surprise. She was a tall woman who did not have to look up very far to meet his eyes.

"I know it’s very naughty of me to approach you without an introduction," she smiled, "but you see, I do have a chaperone." She made a vague gesture behind her, where Jack saw a plump Negro girl tarrying at the edge of the clearing, some way off. "I was depending upon that rogue, Captain Bruce, for an introduction, but as you see, he is otherwise engaged at the moment, and when I saw you hurrying away..."

"Not at all," Jack smiled patiently. The lady’s hand slid very slowly off his arm, although her fingertips lingered a moment longer.

"But then, I feel like I’ve quite known you forever, my dear Harlequin," she smiled back, a reckless glint in her feline eyes.

"Then you have the advantage of me, Miss...?"

"Mrs. Captain Harvey. Widowed." She lowered her eyes for the merest instant.

"Please accept my condolences, Ma’am."

"You are far too kind, Mr. ..."

"Ah, but you know me already, dear lady," Jack fenced, not at all eager to reveal any part of himself to the wife of a British naval captain, deceased or otherwise.

Mrs. Harvey’s cats’ eyes brightened with intrigue. "My intimate friends call me Cora," she said.

"And how may poor Harlequin be of service to you, Madam?"

Her eyes lingered on him in shameless appraisal. "Do me the honor of coming to tea this afternoon. The girl will tell you the way. There will be sweets beyond imagining, for I know what a glutton my Harlequin is."

But it was Mrs. Harvey’s eyes that were doing the devouring; Jack wondered his paste mask didn’t melt. He hadn’t been so boldly propositioned since he was a lad, certainly not by a lady of quality, and he could not recall the last time anyone had asked him to tea. He supposed he ought to be flattered by her attentions, but he felt instead as if he had wandered into a rather mediocre play.

"I’m afraid I must decline your kind offer, Mrs. Harvey. We have, ah, an engagement this afternoon."

Mrs. Harvey looked mildly surprised, but nothing daunted.

"What a pity," she sighed, voluptuously. "But your next free afternoon, you must take tea with me. I won’t hear of a refusal."

"Madam, we would be most honored," Jack replied with a bland smile. Tory and Alphonse were collecting Marcus and heading for the wagon. "And now please do excuse me, I’m rather late."



"Not the Widow Harvey!" Billy Bruce chuckled later that night, over a bottle of porter the Bruces had brought them. "Keep a sharp lookout, my boy, she’s quite the barracuda!"

"You know her?"

"Ye gods, the whole station knows the Widow Harvey! The woman’s notorious! She’s buried three husbands, divorced one and, if memory serves, had one annulled. And there’s no telling how many, er, liaisons in between, eh?"

"Mr. Bruce!" cried his wife, looking thoroughly scandalized.

"But it’s true, my dear. The woman's quite a man-eater."

Jack wondered how the heat from those cats’ eye would have affected him if he were still an impressionable lad of nineteen. "But if she’s such a terror to all the poor little middies at the station, why do they not simply pack her off home?"

"Why, that’s the thing of it. The late Captain Harvey was a well-respected old fellow and a man of some means. Bought his wife a fine country house over in Falmouth, on the far side of the harbor, and now there’s no dislodging her, not with her taste for men in uniform."

"Then what the devil does she want with me?" Jack muttered.


(Top: St. John's, Antigua. J Johnson, published 1827. As seen on www.brunias.com/)