Chapter 10: FURIOSO

"Constable, what the deuce is going on here?"

The blackness ebbed away and Tory saw a well-dressed white gentleman of middle years astride a fine horse riding toward them through the remaining onlookers. A black youth about Tory’s age, walked alongside the horse; he was not tall, but stocky through the shoulders, and dressed in a waistcoat and rolled trousers above bare feet.

"This man is a public nuisance," declared the head constable. "I’m taking him up on charges."

The gentleman’s face clouded and he looked at Jack.

"We are players, sir," Jack explained, with a nod that took in the three of them and their patchwork costumes. "We were not aware there was an ordinance against the pantomime."

"Why, there isn’t," replied the gentleman, leaning his arm on the horn of his saddle. "Did you apply for a permit?"

Jack hesitated for an instant. "No, sir."

"Ah. Well, there’s some small fine," the gentleman shrugged, sitting up straighter. "I forget what, exactly, but as a justice of the peace, I can impose..."

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Spence," the constable interrupted. "The play was indecent. They were agitating the darkies."

The justice shot him a noncommittal glance, then gazed around the remaining onlookers.

"Why, they seem rather peaceful, just now, Mr. Raleigh." Leaning forward again, he added, "Best to keep it that way, eh?"

"But they were disturbing the peace and creating a nuisance," the constable protested.

The justice sighed. "Mr. Raleigh, what will happen if you charge this fellow? He’ll have to be held in separate quarters from the Negroes, probably in the Deputy Marshal’s office, or in yours. You will need to find six justices to hear his case, which will be difficult now, with the planting underway, and all of us off about our private business. It will cause a great deal of bother for a very minor nuisance."

He had been speaking very low, as if to save Constable Raleigh further embarrassment. But while the constable held his tongue, his face remained choleric.

"Now, in my capacity as a justice, I am authorized to impose a fine in lieu of imprisonment..." The justice broke off and glanced again at Jack. "You’re not an indigent, are you?"

"We can pay," Jack replied.

"Ah. You see, constable, how easily it’s all arranged. I find for a fee of, ah, five pounds to be forfeit to the island treasury, payable at once to the chief constable here. I shall have my secretary draw up the legal papers for the report. In the meantime, Mr. Raleigh, I instruct you to convey these players safely out of town." He tilted his head vaguely eastward, his voice dropping again. "Just see ‘em down to the Neck and keep ‘em out of trouble. It’s too late in the day to transport 'em off-island, and I frankly don't care what they get up to, as long as they’re out of our district, eh?"

The conspiratorial approach did not mollify the officer.

"But, sir, I don’t believe you realize the danger..."

"Ah, but I do." The justice lost his veneer of joviality. "It is a Sunday. Leave your men to disperse this crowd and get those people away from here. Now, sir." He sat up a bit in the saddle. "Take along my boy here, to save yourself the bother of reporting back to me." He leaned forward one last time to add in a whisper, "Although you shouldn’t have much to fear from one man, a woman and a dwarf."

Constable Raleigh’s agitated face hardened to stone. "Aye, sir," he snapped coldy, and gave his commands. The justice spoke privately to his black slave in the waistcoat, and then rode off, leaving the silent youth behind.

Alphonse produced two gold Portuguese joes from their profits and made up the rest in Spanish dollars and shilling pieces to pay their fine, which Constable Raleigh accepted without comment. They gathered their things in their satchel and were herded through the streets, like a flock with an ill-tempered shepherd.

"Hurry along, now," he commanded them.

The officer had his club out in his hands, the silent black youth following behind him. Jack fell into step between Tory and Alphonse, two paces ahead of Raleigh, in the still-bustling Bay Road. Tory was glad of all the people still in the street, watching this odd parody of their pantomime procession. It was almost funny, but that the seething constable frightened her beyond measure. She had seen the hatred in his eyes when he looked at Jack, and that was before the justice had rebuked him in public. Her instinct told her to run away, but she knew they must enact this charade of simple players with nothing to hide until they were safely away across the town limits.

But the white stone buildings of Basseterre were soon behind them. They passed the last of the little wooden outbuildings that clung stubbornly to the margins of every West Indian town, then the Bay Road gave way to the scrubby track that sloped down into the lowlands and salt ponds of the panhandle called the Neck, the eastern extremity of the island. They were quite alone out here; the path was growing more treacherous through outcroppings of exposed rock and thorny brush, but still the constable herded them forward.

"You were fortunate today, but you won’t be, next time," Raleigh hissed from behind them as they passed through a little grove of palms. Tory saw Jack mouth a silent oath as he hitched the strap of the cumbersome satchel higher over his shoulder. "I saw you going about the town, speaking to slaves," the officer continued. "The law is very specific about trash like you. If ever I see you again in Basseterre, I’ll have your neck in a noose, and there’s an end to your playing. Do you understand me?"

Tory felt Jack’s hand on her arm and saw his other hand on Alphonse’s shoulder, propelling them slightly forward, putting himself instinctively between the two of them and the danger behind them. She hurried forward, abreast of Alphonse now, until a muffled thud made her spin back around. Jack was stumbling forward, the constable behind him, his club clenched high. The awkward swing of the satchel tangled up Jack's arm as his shoulder slammed against the stony ground. Before he could get his feet under him, Raleigh trotted up to kick him in the side, and the constable's club came down a second time.

"Damn it! You’ll answer me when I speak to you!" the constable shrieked, hovering over Jack, who sprawled on the ground with one arm over his head and the other twisted beneath him, struggling to draw up his knees. The constable's club slammed down again with the sodden thunk of hardwood hitting flesh and bone, an officious Mr. Punch beating a defeated Harlequin who did not spring up, roll over, fight back, as the club flew up again.

Tory never even knew she was moving. She only saw that upraised arm and charged it out of instinct, throwing all her weight against the constable’s side, feeling him go down under her. She kneed him flat against the ground, threw herself astride his back, and somewhere in the dirt her hand closed around the dropped club. Her first clumsy blow caught him across the shoulders, but the next one came down harder, and the one after that, one blow for every scar Jack bore, once for everyone in the world who had ever hurt him.

She had half-risen to a crouch when a hand closed around her upraised wrist from behind. But she pulled free and feinted back with her elbow, striking something solid.

"Christ Almighty, Rusty," Jack wheezed behind her. She whirled around to see him stumbling away from her, doubled over in pain, his face drained, both arms curled over his right side, a mess of torn and tattered patches and blood.

Tory dropped the club—she could not remember why she was holding it—and ran to Jack, catching him by his right elbow when he started to sway toward her. But he caught himself, shook his head and kept his feet, and Tory saw Alphonse materialize on Jack’s other side, supporting him with his powerful arms.

"This way," Alphonse hissed, propelling them once more south-by-east into the Neck. Behind them Tory glimpsed the constable’s motionless figure on the ground and the impassive face of the young black man, watching them. He had not moved when the constable assaulted Jack, nor when Tory attacked the constable. He made no move to stop them, now, as they hustled Jack away, but he did take one step toward the constable, then knelt down beside him.

"Victoria!" Alphonse snapped, and she turned quickly forward to help steer Jack away from a patch of prickly scrub. They were stumbling through bush and briar and flinty rock, but all of her attention was on Jack panting beside her, head down, bent forward, leaning heavily on the support of her hands under his arm. His body was so battered under the torn patches, she dared not hold him anywhere else, and she had seen blood trickling down his face from somewhere under his hair. He stumbled every other step and almost fell twice, but kept going. His labored breathing had taken on the low, steady cadence of words, and Tory began to recognize a litany of vivid, animated curses.

The sun was sinking below the treeline behind them, the shadows were lengthening and a mist was forming out on the water. It would soon be too dark to see where they were going, yet Alphonse kept urging them forward.

"We’ve got to stop!" Tory blurted out.

"No!" hissed Alphonse.

"Jack needs to rest! Are you trying to kill him?"

"Don’t stop," Jack grunted, his jaw clenched.

"No, don’t," Alphonse agreed, glancing up at her sharply from Jack’s other side. "Unless you’re planning to carry him the rest of the way. I know I cannot do it."

"Oh, hellfire," Tory muttered, angry and close to panic as they staggered along. "Bloody goddamned hell..."

"That’s…the idea..." Jack grunted again.

Tory did not know how long they blundered along in the shadowy dark, only that Alphonse kept them to some kind of track. Jack labored to keep himself alert and on his feet as they dragged him along until at last the outline of a small wooden house loomed up within a stand of concealing evergreens. Alphonse steered them onto the front veranda and rapped loudly at the wooden door. After a moment, it was drawn slightly back to reveal a man’s brown, wrinkled face under a receding cap of silver curls peering out at them under an upraised lantern. Alphonse spoke to the man in French and the door opened wide enough to admit them all.

Two younger black men and one woman rose to their feet as they tumbled into the plain room, inside. After some brief, terse conversation in French, one of the younger men took Jack’s left arm from Alphonse and drew it over his own sturdy shoulders. The woman moved to Jack’s other side, but Tory would not let go of him.

"Eh, bien," murmured the woman, backing away to an inner doorway on the far side of the room and motioning them toward it. Inside was a very spartan sleeping chamber with a wooden bunk built into one corner.

"Entrez," said the woman, gliding ahead to peel back a thin blanket from the straw-filled pallet on the bed and directing them to bring Jack in.

Thanks were beyond him, but Jack made a heroic effort to acknowledge his benefactors with a nod before the last of the color drained out of his face, and he slumped across the bed.


(Top: Detail, Orestes Pursued by Furies by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.)

Chapter 9: HARLEQUIN IN BASSETERRE

Chief Constable Stephen Raleigh sat at the duty table in the ground-floor apartment that served as a watch house in the Basseterre Court House. It was a fine, dry Sunday morning, the night watch had been dismissed and he had sent the constables out on their rounds. At such a moment, he could persuade himself that the public peace of Basseterre lay entirely in his hands, for the Deputy Provost Marshal preferred to keep planters’ hours and was never expected in his office before noon on Sunday. Or any other day.

Not so Stephen Raleigh, who believed in vigilance. With vigilance, he had gotten this far. With more vigilance and a judicious investment of his pay in certain ventures, he would go further, still. He had his eye on a commissioner’s office, Commissioner of Public Roads, perhaps, or Clerk of the Market. Both were positions in which a clever fellow might bargain for the sort of interest necessary to advancement, the sort of interest naturally bestowed upon the wealthy of good family. And Raleigh was clever. If he were in the position of the Deputy Provost Marshal—and he paused to savor the sound of it, Deputy Provost Marshal Raleigh—he would not be caught napping of a Sunday morning, when there was work to be done.

But the current holder of that title, that ridiculous bird-like creature, was too fond of his drink and too weak not to give in to it. Raleigh believed in rooting out weakness. There was no trace of what he had been born in the man he was, now. He was as respectable as any white man in Basseterre, more so than most, for he scarcely ever drank and never gambled at cards nor dallied with colored whores. Still, he had to admit to one lingering weakness—his anger. He must contain it until he rose to a position of enough authority to put it to good use.

Not so easy, he thought, leafing through the watch reports and public notices on the table before him, when there were so many abuses going on. The damned slaves grew more insolent every day, and all this foolish abolitionist talk only made them more bold. And the free darkies were worse. Agitating for their so-called civil rights, as if they were as good as the whites, buying plantations, owning their own slaves, as if their blood were as pure as anyone’s. Like dogs who thought owning other dogs put them on the same level as their masters. But strip away their tawdry finery and they were still dogs underneath.

It was hard to credit that there were white gentlemen of standing who would enter into business with the coloreds, dine with them, have them into their homes. White lawmakers who had given them a vote, votes the magistrates and Assemblymen might buy back at their convenience, Raleigh acknowledged, but a vote all the same. More than they’d ever given the Irish. That was the sort of thing that happened when a dog tried to usurp its masters’ place and gentlemen of authority were too weak to stop it. Such things would never occur when he was Deputy Provost Marshal, whatever orders came out of London. He knew right from wrong, if no one else did.

His eye strayed across a bill among the notices and he pulled it out. Another runaway. That was two in scarcely more than a week, counting the notice he’d received from St. Anne’s parish, near Sandy Point Town. And just when the planting season was getting under way, as well, when they could least be spared. It all came from want of vigilance. One or two darkies getting that damned abolitionist drivel into their heads and the next thing anyone knew, they were running off from their masters and fomenting risings to demand their freedom. But there would be no disturbances of that kind in his parish. Not like that business on Demarara some years ago. Or that notorious rising at —what was the name of the place? Whitehall, yes, that aborted rising that had cost the Barbados treasury so much in property damage and compensation for dead slaves. All that trouble and expense because some insolent coloreds were never taught their place—

A discreet tapping made him look up to see young Constable Baker standing in the doorway to the small outer office.

"Beg pardon, sir. A Captain Trent is here to see you."

"Show him in, constable."

Raleigh affected a smile and rose as far as his dignity would allow as Captain Trent of the Barbary Anne sauntered in, looking every inch the smuggler he was. With his hat tucked under his arm, ruddy, chapped face and keen—one might say mocking —grey eyes, beneath a curly salt-and-pepper thatch and side whiskers, he looked pickled in brine. Raleigh hoped the man would not presume to bring his business into the watch house, but as the two of them were engaged in a private venture, he must not seem impolite.

"Captain. What a pleasant surprise."

"Your servant, Constable Raleigh. Aye, ‘tis a fine morning to be out visiting one’s friends," the captain beamed, lowering his large frame into a chair across the table from Raleigh.

"What a pity you find me on duty," Raleigh half-smiled back. "Is it, ah, business that brings you out this morning?"

"No, indeed," grinned Trent, his voice dropping suddenly low, "we cleared all that up last time we met, as I recall. And I’m thankin’ ye again for your generous terms, Mr. Raleigh. Much more reasonable than the Custom House."

Because I, unlike the Custom House, need not share my profit with the island treasury, thought Raleigh to himself. These fellows were going to offload their illegal cargoes one way or another, in any event. Why should he not use his position to claim a share of the profits? Basseterre was his town, after all, and there were many ways for a clever man to get on. But it would never do to speak of such things here.

"Fact is, I’m here to extend an invitation. As I recall, you was wanting to invest in some property in slaves. It might be worth your while to come round to the Medusa tonight, an hour after bell-ring. We’ll be holding what ye might call a private auction, if you take my meaning." Trent smiled and angled forward to lean an elbow on the table. "Fair prices guaranteed. In return for the favors you done me."

The Medusa Tavern, possibly the most squalid grog shop on the waterfront. Raleigh knew of the illegal vendues held there among the smugglers, the quickest way to dispose of unclaimed runaways, mutinous crewmen and cast-off mistresses. He could well believe the goods would come cheap. But he only smiled back.

"It’s good of you to think of me, Captain. But a man in my position must confine his purchases to the public auction." When he was advanced enough to own property, he intended his purchases and his prosperity to be a matter of public record.

"Well, I suppose you know best," replied Trent, with an affable shrug. "But the invitation stands, should ye be changing your mind."

His visitor was about to depart when Raleigh heard some kind of racket out in the street, more than the usual Sunday din of country slaves heading for the marketplace. He could swear he heard some sort of Negro drumming above distant shouting and laughter.

"Baker!" he cried, "What’s that damned commotion outside?"

"That’d be the mummers, sir," reported the young constable. "I passed 'em earlier in the street."

"Mummers?" echoed Raleigh. "Has a permit been issued for the Court House?"

"No, sir. I believe they was headed for the market."

"The slave market?" Raleigh frowned. "What the deuce have mummers to do with the darkies?" It was probably nothing, but anything unusual in the lives of the slaves might be a matter of concern in these troubled times. "You run along after 'em and see what they’re up to," he said to the lad. "Report back to me at once, if you see anything odd."



The Sunday market in Basseterre was kept closer to the Court House than Tory liked, but today the slave vendors were even more jubilant than usual at having emerged from another dreary gale season. Cybele set up her stall in the shade of the wagon while the Harlequinade players roved out into the bustling marketplace. Flouncing her Columbine ruffles at the hapless Punch and feinting away from his clumsy lunges to fly into Harlequin’s arms, Tory stole a lewd kiss under his mask for the fun of seeing how Jack would repay her. He retaliated by dodging out of her sightline, then rolling between her legs, emerging, bat and all, from beneath Columbine’s ruffled skirt. Jack said the Italians called it furioso, playing with such abandon, like crashing chords in music. The crowd was delighted, and Jack was insufferably pleased with himself.

A tavern-keeper offered to trade them supper if they would play in his yard just east of the public square to attract custom from the crowds of mariners, hucksters, freemen and slaves dispersing from the marketplace. It was mid-afternoon by then, the market was closing down and they had already dismissed their drummer, but Jack said they deserved a free meal, if not a medal, and so off they went.

Tory had a new set of props to play with, some rusted old cook house utensils purchased for next to nothing in Old Road Town, which she began to juggle in the street on the way to the tavern yard. Jack joined her, and when Alphonse gave chase in Mr. Punch’s mincing side-stepping trot, the pantomime was in full swing. With Marcus in his black silk mask galloping alongside with their satchel of props, they cut a riotous path across one street and down the next, as a merry band of onlookers began to follow them, shouting out gleeful encouragement. Harlequin leaped upon a railing for tying up horses, and pirouetted down its length like a rope-dancer while Punch tumbled cartwheels beneath him. They landed on opposite sides of Columbine, tumbling over and under each other as they danced around her. When Punch lurched to grab her, the crowd yelled, "Look out, ya, Missy!" and "Devil him come!" Columbine turned handsprings over Punch’s head to get away and the crowd howled with victorious laughter. When Harlequin tapped him lightly on one shoulder with his magic bat, danced behind him when he spun around and bowled poor Mr. Punch over with a somersault, the onlookers cheered.

Jack was about to administer the last light tap of his bat to cue Alphonse’s three-handspring finale, when the crowd suddenly split apart before them.

"Stop! Stop this at once!" shouted a furious voice. "This is a public disgrace!"

There were three of them shoving their way through the spectators. Two were ordinary constables, one rather young. The third, the man shouting, had a little extra braid and brass on his cape to distinguish him as their commander. His face was purple with outrage, but not so discolored that Tory failed to notice his cold green eyes. He might not remember her; she had been dressed more plainly when they met before. But she was frightened, all the same.

"I order you to stop in the name of the Provost Marshal!"

Jack rolled instantly to his feet, and Tory saw Alphonse melt sideways to where Marcus stood with their satchel. He whispered urgently to the boy, and in the next instant, Marcus was gone.

"There must be some mistake," Jack said amiably, dusting off his patched trousers as Alphonse, then Tory, came up behind him.

"That there is. You made it when you decided to stage this... spectacle in my district."

"But it’s only a play—"

"Oh, aye, I know you fellows and your playing." The officer gave the word a peculiar, sneering emphasis. "But you don’t deceive me. I suppose you have a license?" He fisted his hands onto his hips and Tory noticed the short, stout club attached to his belt.

"No sir, we don’t," said Jack. "We have nothing to sell."

One of the constables sniggered and poked the toe of his boot into the pile of Columbine’s warped and rusted kitchen things.

"Look here, sir," he called. "Ask him for his ticket of sale."

"Aye, there’s laws against huckstering stolen merchandise," agreed the green-eyed chief constable.

"But we’re not selling anything," Jack repeated patiently.

"And you’ll have that off when you speak to me!" the chief constable cried, glaring at the Harlequin mask. Jack slipped it off over his head and Tory thought she saw an instant of surprise in the fellow’s expression. Had he actually mistaken Jack for an African? But his choler returned, hotter and more focused.

"There are other ways to traffic in stolen property," he hissed at Jack. "Can you prove that little darky is yours?"

"I cannot. He’s a free man."

The chief constable’s ice-green eyes rounded with malice. "Is he now?"

"I have my manumission papers," said Alphonse. The chief constable glared at him.

"Manumissions! I see a dozen a day, half of 'em forgeries and the rest improperly done. That’s all right, though, there’s a place for you at the workhouse 'til we sort yours out. If you’re unclaimed after two months, I have the authority to commend you to the road gang."

"My manumission is in order," Alphonse replied implacably.

Tory glanced again at the constables. One was seconding his leader’s every point with a righteous nodding of his head while the younger one looked uncomfortable, hanging back behind the others. Many members of their audience had slunk away, but there was still a sizable half-circle of dark faces looking on curiously, as if they were still watching a play.

"And what about this bonny wench?" the chief constable continued, fixing his mocking green eyes upon her. "I’ll wager your rightful master would love to have you back."

"She has never been a slave." Jack’s voice had lost none of its polite calm, but the very air around him turned cold.

"Seduced you away from your master, has he?" the constable sallied, pretending to ignore Jack, although he thought better than to try to step past him, closer to Tory. "No doubt he told you he’d free you, they all say that. But it’s a felony to carry off another man’s property, a hanging offense if he’s convicted. But don’t you worry, Missy, you’ll be locked up safe in the custody of the Provost Marshal until it’s all over. Then, if your old master don’t step forward, we’ll find you a new one."

"No need to trouble yourself," Jack broke in again. "There is a respectable white gentleman here in Basseterre who will testify to her free status."

The chief constable burst out with a nasty laugh. "Who? You?"

"Mr. Amos Greaves, member of the Assembly."

The laughter stopped, but the constable’s face was furious. Tory had forgotten about Mr. Greaves, but Jack had gambled wisely; Mr. Greaves would certainly not have forgotten them. And he must be a name to be reckoned with, judging from the constable’s reaction.

"We had the very great honor of meeting Mr. Greaves and his charming daughter this summer in Basseterre," Jack pressed his advantage. "They will testify that my companion was a free woman, then, as she is now, if only you might send for—"

"Don’t presume to tell me my business," the chief constable seethed. "I know the law. I’ll have you taken into custody and bound over for sessions—"

"On what charge?"

"Obstructing the roads. Disturbing the public peace. Inciting the niggers to riot."

Jack almost laughed. "But there’s been no rioting here. Not yet."

"There are extra penalties for threatening an officer of the peace!" The chief constable seized Jack’s arm. "And don’t expect any special treatment where you’re going. You give up the privileges of your race when you consort with niggers and whores..."

Tory didn’t hear the rest of the invective. She only saw the hand close on Jack’s arm and everything else melted into roaring blackness around that image. With a sudden, sick horror, she realized this madman had the power to take Jack away from her.


(Top: Mummers Vintage clip-art, hand colored by Lisa Jensen, 2010)

Chapter 3: ENTER PUNCH

At first, no one realized it was a competition. Jack was too busy watching Tory, relieved that she was being so attentive this morning at the busy Sunday market, the day the slaves ventured down from the hillside estates to sell their own produce, livestock and wares on their own account. The marketplace was thriving with custom, but Jack noticed their audience thinning. Glancing off to see why, he spied a Negro boy just down the way, juggling. No, it was a small man in a white paste Punch mask, powerful arms and a muscular torso above short legs, juggling gaily painted wooden pins.

Damn the little fellow, could he not find some other corner in all the town? They could not claim the whole market for themselves, of course, but they had a right to defend their pitch. Jack concluded his trick with Tory, who spun around to catch the last ball and sank into a curtsy. Coins clinked into his hat as he handed Tory to her feet, showing her off.

When they were finished, the other fellow began a new trick, somersaulting four pins in the air at a time, two up, two down, as effortlessly as blowing kisses. Tory noticed him now, too, waiting until he finshed before she began again. Jack wished their gourds were brightly painted, but contented himself with tossing them in more elaborate patterns to Tory than any performer could alone.

By now, the two groups of casual spectators had stretched into a ragged half-circle facing all three performers, shouting out cries of encouragement or challenge. When their gourd trick concluded, and their rival produced rings, Tory signalled to Jack that he should continue without her, having already reached the limit of her skill. Jack delved into his memory for the most senstional tricks he had ever seen, or performed or could improvise on the spot, including throwing his knife with two of their balls, which drew a chorus of ghoulish delight from the crowd. But the other fellow responded with equal dexterity and invention. Jack‘s hand was on his razor to double the danger when he suddenly realized how winded he was; he was not a lad of fifteen any more. Tricks not done gracefully, with the appearance of ease, were not worth doing. His foster father had taught him that.

"Never beg your audience, lad," Old John’s soft Cornish voice advised him. "Do all 'ee can and quit when 'ee must, or you’ll lose their respect. And once that’s gone, there be no getting it back."

And Jack turned and made a sweeping bow of submission to his rival, who bowed graciously back. Jack knew he ought to be disappointed, but between the high pumping of his blood and the sudden, sweet memory of Old John, all he felt was exhilaration.

"If we are defeated," murmured Tory, passing nearby to pick up his straw hat, "why do you look so damned happy?"

Jack grinned, but could make no rational reply.

His grin dissolved when Tory returned with the straw hat and a perplexed look. Their take was small, for all his heroic efforts, just when he'd been feeling so pleased with himself. Then he turned to see the little black fellow standing before them. Hardly a boy, but neither was his an old face, despite sun-creased pockets under the eyes and furrowed lines on either side of his sober downturned mouth.

"Do you know Pugh’s Tavern, off the Bay Road?" the little fellow asked.

Jack nodded.

"Allow me to buy you dinner there in half an hour." Turning to Tory, the stranger added, "Please do not refuse, it will be my pleasure. We have much to discuss."


It was not a place frequented by the first class of white men, Tory observed, but it was too neatly kept to attract the commonest wharf rats. Most of the custom were freemen and women of color, merchants or shopkeepers. Some of them spoke to the little juggler in English or French, as he led Jack and Tory to a small table in a back corner, to which he responded with equal facility in both tongues, overlaid with a harmonious trace of island lilt.

"Alphonse Belair," he introduced himself, when they were settled. "I am very pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Your servant, Monsieur Belair," Jack smiled. "And may I present Miss Lightfoot?"

Belair took Tory's fingertips in his small, warm hand, and made a courtly little bow where he sat, across the table. "Enchante," he murmured.

Tory tried not to giggle over his solemn formality. "And this is my partner, Jack," she responded.

"Only Jack?" Belair frowned. "But that is a slave name." When Jack only shrugged, Belair sighed. "Since we are being informal, you must call me Alphonse."

"And please call me Victoria," Tory chimed in. Something about him encouraged her to produce her most civil, best-remembered manners. Such as they were.

"Did we not see you here in Basseterre last Christmas?" Jack sallied, as the boy brought the wine. "You were dressed as Punch."

Alphonse nodded. "But I did not see you."

"We weren’t performing, only watching. And a damn fine job you made of it, too," Jack smiled. "I’ve rarely seen the like, not in fifteen years at the fairs. You have a gift."

"Ah, but you have her," Alphonse nodded at Tory, who could only gape in surprise at the compliment. "But I fear we are working at cross purposes here in Basseterre," Belair went on. "Crop-over is a busy time. Most people have only a few moments to be diverted before they must be off about their business, and we offer them only confusion."

"Some customers who could not choose between us today kept their purses closed," Tory agreed.

"Or spent their coin wagering with each other on the outcome," Alphonse nodded. "If anyone is to profit by our skill, I believe it ought to be us."

"Aye, but what’s the remedy?" Jack said, on guard. "Surely you’ll not suggest that one of us forfeit?"

"Not at all," Alphonse replied. "I propose we join forces. Occupy the same corner, pass only one hat and divide the results."

"A partnership," said Jack.

"Exactly. A fellowship of colleagues. But one which may be dissolved at any time if it does not succeed, so long as we agree."

"I only wonder what you want with us," Tory ventured, "when you have cleary done very well for yourself on your own."

"Aye, that is puzzling," Jack agreed. "You scarcely know us."

"But you are too modest. It does me no discredit to work with such skilled performers."

Jack took no notice of this flattery. Tory watch as he and Belair regarded each other for a silent moment.

"I have many calls to make in Basseterre," said Alphonse. "If I am seen in the company of a white man, it will be...advantageous."

"I’ll not pass myself off as a slaveowner," Jack frowned.

"Nor I as a slave," said Alphonse. Leaning slightly forward, he added, "Only seem to employ me, as you do Victoria..."

"But I don’t employ..."

"People see what they like," Belair interrupted, with a wave of his hand. "And she is seen to be under your protection."

Jack’s mouth twitched. "You wish me to protect you?"

"I wish to travel unimpeded."

Jack had to swallow a laugh. "I’m afraid I have little influence with the law in these parts. Despite my obvious wealth and rank."

"But you have powerful friends," Belair observed, gazing into his wine. "Mr. Greaves sits in the island Assembly."

Jack was watching him keenly. "Mr. Greaves is Tory’s conquest."

"Conquest, rubbish," Tory injected. "The poor man is desperate for a sensible woman to speak to about his daughter."

She could see Jack wondering what Belair was up to. There was nothing but his color to suggest he had ever been a slave; indeed, his manner, speech and well-tailored clothing all denied it. He did not behave as if he had anything to hide, far bolder about his business than she and Jack dared to be. But it was the Indies. Color was a factor. It could be unfortunate for a runaway to ally himself with a couple of outlaws.

"You are not without papers, I suppose," Jack finally asked.

Alphonse reached inside his waistcoat and withdrew a small leather tube. From it, he extracted a scroll of parchment, which he rolled out on the table before them. It was a certificate of freedom, the ornate script a bit blurred in the printing. On the line for the bearer’s name, Alphonse Belair had been inked in. Beneath it was a crude 'X' and the notation, his mark. Various official-looking seals, stamps, and signatures in one corner identified courts and officers from the island of St. Vincent. The document was dated 1818.

"I am a free man," Belair told them calmly. "I am manumitted these seven years."

"I did have a reason to ask," Jack apologized.

"But I do not object to showing you this document. I am always happy to show it. I worked very hard for it."

"You manumitted yourself?"

"Fortunately for me, Victoria, I was very cheap to buy. As you see, I am only a poor cripple of no use in the fields. It was not worth keeping me for the slave tax I cost my master. But there was a price, and court costs, and then the fees to recognize the document."

"It must have taken you forever," Jack marveled.

"Ten years, beginning when I was a boy of six clowning at the Sunday market. But worth the trouble, no?"

He rolled the paper into its leather tube and slipped it back inside his waistcoat.

"Do you mind if I ask how you came by this trade?" ventured Jack. "Not the usual sort of thing to learn on a plantation, is it?"

Alphonse sipped at his wine. "There was a Negro watchman on the place when I was a boy, a man of middle years. As a youth, he had been sold to a troupe of players touring the islands. They took him back to England, where he became a clown at a famous London circus..."

"Not Astley’s?" Jack interjected.

"The very place. But he grew lame in the trade and had to leave it. He was a free man by then, but he had no more money to show for it than when he started out."

"Aye, that’s a player’s life, all right," Jack laughed.

"He came home to the Indies, to his sister, a cook on our estate who cared for him. He was a kind old fellow, full of stories. He taught me handstands, at first, to strengthen my arms, when I understood how little use my legs would be to me. And then the rest, when I knew I would need a living. A steady living, it has proved out." Alphonse reached again for his wine. "Which I look forward to sharing with you both."

"To partnership," Jack agreed, and he and Tory raised their glasses.




"Drink, Constable?" asked the Deputy Provost Marshal, rising to cross to the sideboard of his small office in the Court House.

"I am on duty," replied Stephen Raleigh, sitting straight in his chair on the far side of the Deputy Marshal’s cluttered desk. "Sir."

"Commendable, I’m sure," muttered the Deputy Marshal, pouring himself a generous tot of island rum. He came back to his desk, lowered himself into his own chair with an immoderate sigh and poked wearily through the rat’s nest of papers before him. Not yet forty, his thinning hair was already going grey, tufting up around his balding dome from the pressure of his recently removed cap. With his beaky nose and rapidly blinking eyes, the Deputy Provost Marshal looked like the bald, downy offspring of some grotesque bird. And his visitor wondered how a man in his position could allow himself to look so ridiculous.

Constable Stephen Raleigh glanced down at his own impeccable uniform jacket, his clean, crisp cap sitting on his knees. No one could have any cause to complain of his appearance.

"Ah, I have it now," said the Deputy, liberating a file of official documents from the jumble on his desk. "You are recommended for a promotion, I see, Constable Raleigh."

"Yes, sir."

"Mmm. The committee has reviewed your performance..." the Deputy mused, glancing through the papers. "Most zealous in the pursuit of runaways, I see. And in clearing the streets of illegal hucksters."

"More often than not they are one and the same."

"I daresay..." The Deputy’s tired eyes blinked laboriously across the pages. "But upon occasion, I see you have apprehended colored hucksters in possession of a valid license."

"These people have their place," replied Raleigh. "They must keep to it."

"Mmm, the market, yes..." The eyes blinked up at him. "But as chief constable, you shall be responsible for protecting the rights and welfare of all citizens. Including the coloreds. They can vote now, you know, Constable, and there’s talk of some of 'em being granted permission to stand for the Assembly."

Raleigh nodded, not trusting himself to reply. Bide your time, that was his motto, watch and wait. But, it galled him to think that damned mongrel race had wrested away legal privileges so far above their station, when there were white citizens even now who were denied the right to vote in spite of their pure complexions. And why? Because of their ignorant Papism. The damned, ignorant Irish, no better than slaves.

"We’re obliged to treat 'em fairly. Whether we like it or not," the Deputy coached him. "It’s the law."

"I am sworn to uphold the law, sir."

The Deputy nodded. "Your service record appears to be in good order," he continued. "Employed for some time as a member of the watch in Sandy Point Town and never once absent from your shift. Most dedicated."

"We were privately funded."

"Ah. And turned out several times with the island militia. I wonder, Constable, with Brimstone Hill so near, that you never considered a military career."

"I...have no interest, sir," Raleigh admitted. "I am an orphan." And he certainly did not intend to spend the rest of his life among the rank and file.

"I see. Island-born?"

"Yes, sir. I was raised at the charity school." Best not to seem ashamed of humble beginnings. A direct manner engaged sympathy and convinced one’s hearers one had nothing to hide.

"And...your parents?"

"I was...very young." But not so young he could ever forget the smell of sour ale and sweat and oily soap steam from the laundry they boiled themselves because they were too poor to hire a Negro laundress. Or the drone of Irish Jimmy Reilly in his cups, prattling on about the dream they would never live, the new life in the New World. The Irish had come to St. Kitts like the Africans to serve as slaves to the English, but James Stephen Reilly had never risen above it. At the end of his seven hard years of indenture, he was surprised to learn that no one would do business with a damned Papist who was a transported convict into the bargain. Disillusioned, without income, he gambled and drank away the last of his payment in sugar, with nothing to show for it but resentment and the brat he got off the complacent Irish Town slattern who took him in.

"Family?" the Deputy persisted.

"Dead, sir."

"Of your own, I mean, Constable."

"Oh. No, sir." He sat up to focus his attention. It was dangerous to let it wander. "I wish to establish myself, first."

"Very commendable. And...er, no other dependents?"

Stephen Raleigh’s posture stiffened. Colored bastards, the Deputy meant. As if he would pollute his own bloodline, the only asset he possessed, with some colored wench. Faith could be denied, names changed, but his white complexion at least was irrevocable.

"No, sir."

"Dedicated to your profession, eh?"

Raleigh remained still. Was he being made sport of?

"Yes, well, everything appears to be in order...oh, see here, Constable Raleigh, have a drink with me, there's a good lad. And top mine off while you’re about it, eh?"

Raleigh set aside his cap and rose, took the Deputy’s proffered glass and went to the sideboard. He stared at the decanter with a fixed expression, but he poured a reasonable portion into the Deputy’s glass and a much, much smaller splash into a glass for himself. The Irish drank. It might be a kind of test.

"Not a Papist, are you, Constable?"

He straightened, nearly dropping both glasses, or crushing them, his back still toward the Deputy.

"Sir?"

"Oh, just my little joke, Mr. Raleigh, too good to be true and all that. We shall have an opportunty to get better acquainted should your promotion come through. And I shall give it serious consideration, I promise you."

A small framed looking glass hung on the wall above the sideboard, and Stephen Raleigh found himself staring into it. The Deputy Provost Marshal was still seated behind him, fussing with his papers. It must have been a joke, after all. And then his gaze shifted to his own reflection. Neat brown hair, not too long. Plain, reliable face, not much given to color or emotion. Nearly thirty, nothing callow about him. A man of substance. A man of worth. There was nothing left of his father in his face or his speech or his manner or his heart. Not since the day he buried the old man’s cheap gilt crucifix, his only inheritance, and presented himself to the charity school with a more English-sounding name. There was nothing at all left of Irish Jimmy Reilly in his son but for those startling pale green eyes.

(Top image, Mr. Punch, by Lisa Jensen © 2010.)