Chapter 19: PALE HECATE

"I shall speak to this fellow," Jack declared.

"If you must, but wait until nightfall," Alphonse advised. "It is not safe for you to be seen in the street. If the chief constable discovers you at large in his town—"

"If I find he’s had a hand in this business, he’ll see more of me than he bargained for," Jack muttered. And how could it be otherwise? There could be no one else who harbored such a grudge against Tory who also had the authority to make her vanish so completely. No sign of her had been seen here at Pugh’s tavern, where he and Alphonse had taken a tiny attic room. The landlady at Mr. Greaves’ lodging house had not seen her about the town, nor had any of the vendors at the public market who had enjoyed their Harlequinade last year.

Alphonse had turned to his friend, Mr. Theophilus Jepson. A free gentleman of color, Mr. Jepson was a trader out of Basseterre whose white father had sent him to be educated in England, to make contacts in Bristol that would further the success of the family importing and exporting enterprise. Mr. Jepson had gone himself to the Court House on a matter of business, and searched the gaol as well, but could find no one answering Tory’s description up on charges or awaiting trial.

Jack was tempted to believe Marcus had got the wrong town, but that the boy knew Basseterre so well. It broke Jack’s heart to think of that stout-hearted lad clawing his way back to Charlestown with nothing but a gold coin and his own determination. And all for naught, now that the trail had gone cold. Until today. A drummer they'd once hired for one of their Sunday performances told Alphonse he knew a fellow who might know something.

"Do not waste your breath on idle threats until we understand what 'this business' is," said Alphonse.

"You’re right. That’s why we must talk to this fellow now."

Jack was on his feet, again, but Alphonse motioned him back down. "Wait here," he sighed. "Downstairs, in an hour. Not before. I will fetch him here."

Alphonse bent over to roll his trouser cuffs up above his bare feet. He had replaced his tailored jacket and waistcoat with a tattered old shirt Cully had outgrown with the sleeves hacked short. With his wide straw hat pulled low on his head, he looked enough like a Negro boy to be ignored in a crowd. Or so they hoped.

In an hour, Jack stood in the shadows just beyond the back stairs at Pugh’s, in the alley that separated the tavern from the mercantile shop next door. A Negro youth of about twenty stood before him. He had set down his iron cook-pot, empty now, but for a few sticky yellow clumps of the corn pudding the islanders called fungee, and the half-gourd he used to ladle it out. He must have had a successful morning huckstering at the Tuesday market.

"Me auntie, her cook fo’ the gaol house," the lad explained to Jack. "T’ree days and nights, they bid her make up a special plate and one gaoler, him boast it be fo’ a special prisoner only him may see. A woman, him say. On the fourt’ day, him tell me auntie no more special plate."

Jack frowned at Alphonse.

"There was a public slave auction held on that morning," said Alphonse. "I have found the bill."

He unfolded a battered paper, yellowing and torn in the corners from its posting, and handed it to Jack. It was a public notice of slaves to be sold and let at auction, with a date over three weeks old, already. Jack scanned down the list of female names: Sarah, 14, House Servant; Sheba, Washerwoman; Queenie, used to the Nursery; Nancy, Servant and Nurse.

"But this tells us nothing," he said to Alphonse.

"There be anoder woman in the yard," the youth went on. "Her put up too late fo’ the bill. That gaoler, him boast too much, me tink he tell a tale. So me go see fo’ meself."

"You saw her?"

"Me see somebody," the youth shrugged. "Her be no much to look at, fo’ true. Tall, light-colored gal. Hair in a state o’ confusion."

"In what way?"

"Long. All the time fall out of her pins. Me auntie say long hair be too much provoking."

"Did she speak differently than the others?" Jack pressed on. "Not island? Not British?"

"Her nevah say noting but ‘no,’ but when they ask her name."

"What name did she give?" Jack was clutching the paper so tight, he was near ripping it in two.

"Why, her give a comical name, Massa," the fellow grinned. "Hecaty, or someting such. Auctioneer, him say it two times, it be so comical."

"Hecate?" Jack echoed, his voice faint. Pale Hecate, queen of the witches in Macbeth. "You’re sure? It didn’t just sound like Hecate?"

Alphonse glanced up at him. "Nothing else sounds like Hecate."

"Someting such," the huckster repeated, blandly. "Me nevah hear such a name before."

"Do you recall what happened to her?" Jack was fighting to keep the tremor out of his voice.

"Her sold up t’oder side of the mountain, St. Peter’s parish, Mas’ Birney’s place. Poor, shabby place, evahbody say. Him book-keeper buy her. Me sell fungee to him driver."



"We must go at once," Alphonse fumed, half an hour later, upstairs in their room.

"Aye, but what are we to say?" Jack countered. "I’m terribly sorry, sir, but your new slave was sold you by mistake. Hand her over like a sport, won’t you? There’s a good fellow."

"Offer him the purchase price and something extra for his trouble," Alphonse replied, with forced patience. "Never have I met a white man so reluctant to use the power of his race. It is not a wealthy place. They will take your offer."

"I cannot buy her," Jack protested. "I can’t compromise her freedom like that."

Alphonse stared at him. "You do not believe her freedom is at all compromised in being enslaved?"

"You don’t understand, Alphonse. All she has ever wanted is her freedom."

"I understand," Alphonse said quietly. "Those of us born into slavery are not any better suited to it."

"No, no, you know I didn't mean..." Jack's voice trailed off, but he tried again. "For Tory...this is her worst nightmare. When I think of her alone, possibly in chains, possibly beaten, possibly...Christ, I’ll do anything to get her out, you know that. But she will not appreciate being owned by me, don’t you see? It would always be between us, always. She would come to hate me for it."

"Then sell her back to herself." Alphonse was still exasperated, but his voice had softened. "Can you not make some arrangement later, when the danger is passed?"

"I would never hear the end of it."

"Then for the love of Almighty God, go in secret and spirit her away!"

"Steal another man’s lawful property? Hellfire, Alphonse, you’re a revolutionary after all."

"These are desperate circumstances. And I know many people on this island who will aid us."

"But that would make her a runaway in fact. With a price on her head," Jack shook his head. "The next time some overzealous constable takes it into his head to ask for her papers, it will be perfectly legal—"

He paused, staring hard at nothing. Slowly, something began to kindle in his expression. Alphonse narrowed his eyes.

"What?" he demanded.

Jack glanced at Alphonse, his dark eyes suspiciously alert.

"Whatever you are thinking, I don't like it," grumbled Alphonse.




It was close to midnight when Tory slipped away. The gentlemen had retired upstairs and the last of the supper things were being cleared away to the cook-house for the kitchen girl to wash. While the cook and the houseman were gossiping in the corner, Tory stopped at the table to nibble her share of the scraps off the plates. She folded the last of Cook’s little spice cakes, a quarter of a round of flat cassava bread, and a handful of sweet pickled peppers into a napkin she had removed while helping Pearl bundle up the table linens. She was tempted by the last of the cold pork, but meat spoiled too quickly in the islands, even overnight. This would have to be preserved in brine and boiled in a stew. It would be no use to her where she was going.

It would not be difficult to get away. She was not in chains, after all, and there were scarcely enough slaves in the household to do all the work, let alone patrol the grounds. She stuffed her napkin of food into her apron pocket and picked up Rathbourne’s grime-encrusted boots. If the others took any notice of her at all, they would think she was off blacking them, or else keeping her appointment upstairs. Nothing happened in the household that the domestic staff did not know about.

As an afterthought, she picked up the tin slops bucket, turning her face away from the bitter stench of ashes from the cookfire mixed with the contents of the household chamber pots. She carried it outside, away from the lights of the cook-house, and down some little distance to the waist-high dung heap near the kitchen garden. She had no trouble finding it in the dark; the warm, acrid, festering stench of rotting refuse, animal droppings, old cane trash, and mould and mud from the stream nearly choked her. There were many such piles around the place, on every place, the entire island in ferment, all ripening up until they were ready to be carried in leaky baskets on the heads of field hands to fertilize the newer cane-pieces.

Tory poured the contents of her bucket onto the heap. Then, grasping the bucket by the rim with both hands, she hollowed out a little depression in the crest of the heap, picked up the riding boots and plunged them deep into the squishy, yielding muck. That’s what I think of your orders, Mr. Ratbone.

She put the bucket on the ground, carefully settling the handle so it wouldn’t clank against the side, and continued walking down the slope. There were lights on in the mill and the boiling house below and behind her, where the night shift of slaves were crushing and boiling down the newly cut cane. But the still house was dark as she passed above it; rum-making would not begin until more of the sugar was cured. A few tiny lights twinkled in the slave cabins, clustered far below the still house down in the valley, but no one would be out here to interfere with her at this hour. Keeping to the shoulder of the hill, Tory followed the wooden-sided aqueduct that snaked away from the buildings and down into the welcoming dark.

It was her first time off the estate. She had no handiwork to sell, and had not been able to coax so much as a single green shoot out of her narrow allotment of provision ground, so she'd not been able to obtain a ticket-of-leave to attend the Sunday market in town. She was not even certain which town it was that the slaves paraded off to with such anticipation before dawn of a Sunday. But she knew her way to the stream, and water running down the mountain would lead her eventually to the sea.

A nearly quarter moon had risen much earlier and disappeared behind a high ridge of trees, but Tory didn't mind the dark as she made her way down to the stream and followed the soft burbling of its course. She could see why the slaves relished their Sunday escapes. It was not the expectation of riches, for few but the most industrious of them ever returned with more than a few coins, or rations of the precious salt fish that could be put away and eaten in the hungry times. No, it was the escape from master’s watchful eye that was so exhilarating.

Then the sound of the stream faded to silence. Tory tried to make her way down to the bank to follow it, but the slope had become too steep and it was too dark to see what lay below. It might be a cliff, or treacherous rocks.

The night suddenly seemed darker and less friendly. Tory turned reluctantly away from where the stream had been, and footed her way through the brushy dark until she felt some kind of trail that seemed to head in the same direction. It was very quiet now, without the comforting sound of the water, but for the hissing and clacking of the night insects, and stranger, wild-sounding noises from the forested mountain above her. Passing through more cultivated land, she dodged ripe cane stalks higher than her head, and stumbled across muddy fallow pieces. Twice, she ran into boundary fences that tore at her skin and clothing; she had to wrap her headscarf round her hand and drag open a passage to climb through.

The squat, dark shapes of outbuildings loomed ahead. She kept to the underbrush and moved as stealthily as she could. But one of them must have been a kennel; unseen dogs set to howling as she passed, lunging at their restraints. If they roused their master, if they were loosed to hunt her down, she would be torn to bits. She began to run blindly in the dark, frightened now, but no less determined. Hearing a cackle of chickens, she perceived a pinpoint of light ahead; a house or cook-house, near a coop. Still keeping to the scrub at the periphery of the cleared land, she crept closer, away from the sound of baying hounds, toward the light, hoping to draw near enough to get a better view of the landscape and still keep herself out of sight.

"Who’s there?" an angry male voice cried suddenly, just in front of her. There was a rattle of tin, the deadlights flipped open on a hand-held lantern, and she fell to the ground before the beam of light could find her. In the same instant, something snagged her by the waist, and rolled her down a short slope, into a little gully in the bush. She did not have to be told to keep still. The beam of light slowly probed the darkness overhead, fanning first one way, then back again. Tory did not breathe for an eternity, until the light began to recede and the grumbling male voice moved off.

Slowly she drew breath again. And over the drumming of her own heartbeat, she heard someone else breathing hard beside her, felt the heat of another body very near. She put out a hand to prop herself up and get her bearings—and felt feathers. The flesh beneath was warm, but unmoving. She jerked her hand away.

"Fowl no talky, Missy. Him be Quashie supper. Noting fo’ to fear now."

The masculine voice was soft, lilting, persuasive. Hands gently prodded her elbow and nudged her up into a crouch, urging her to feel her way along the slope of the shallow gully.

"No harm, Missy, no harm," her benefactor murmured. "Follow the gully. Quashie perteck you. Quashie know the way. Nevah ketchy Quashie."

The gully began to broaden and slope further downward. Somewhere below, Tory thought she heard the soft, clear, happy laughter of water.

"Is that the stream?" she whispered. "Where are we going?"

"Hist! Quashie know, but him nevah say."

Down they went, following the gully until they came out in a little clearing on the bank overlooking the water. A stream no more, but a river. This was her way off the mountain.

A deep cleft in the ridge of mountains above the river cradled the last of the quarter moon. Its sudden light seemed as bright as a bonfire, and Tory turned to face her new companion. He was a wiry young Negro, holding a dead chicken by its limp neck. He was a little taller than she, and completely naked; his slender, compact body, black as the night, glistened with more than sweat in the pale moonlight. He shone like liquid.

"Goose grease," he laughed at her astonished expression, rubbing at his own shiny forearm. "Nevah ketchy Quashie. Him always slip away."

"You do this often?"

"When Quashie must eat," he shrugged.

Tory glanced doubtfully around the shadowy bush. "Do you live out here?"

"Quashie live evahplace. Jonkanoo, him live evahplace."

Her eyes darted back to her companion. Was the fellow mad?

"Got to pickle this fowl. But Quashie roast him joint if you be hungry." He held the chicken up by its neck, suddenly sounding very rational. But Tory was not hungry for food.

"I’ve got to get off this mountain," she told him.

He nodded vigorously and pointed toward the river. "Follow water, water find the sea. Quashie hear the drums. Quashie know the way."

He crouched down and dipped his free hand in the dark, sticky mud of the bank, then bounced up again, his quick fingers streaking mud across Tory’s cheek before she could jump back.

"Covah up in mud," he told her, waving his muddy fingers at her. "Too much greasy to ketchy, like Quashie. Dark as night."

He was sounding more sane every minute. Tory dropped to her knees on the damp ground and began to smear dark mud on her arms and face. She shrugged out of Pearl’s old jacket, rolled it in the mud and eased the cold, slimy thing back on. She smeared dark mud all over her linen petticoat and apron.

"Her go in the dark, like a shadow," the fellow chanted softly, as she worked. "Hide in the day. Jonkanoo perteck you."

"Hide where?"

"Follow the river. The drums say so."

Tory cast him another sharp glance as she straightened up. "I don’t understand the drums."

The fellow clicked his tongue and shook his head. "No mattah, no mattah. Quashie, him know the way. Follow the river to the broken bush. Her must looky hard to find it."

"Find what?"

"The safe house."

The moon had already slipped below the crevice in the ridge, but Tory’s eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, and she meant to be well away from here by dawn. She fished out one, then two of the little spice cakes, and gave them to her benefactor, whose dark face lit up like a sun.

"Quashie, him feast tonight, fo’ true!" And then he was gone.

It had been a long day and night already, but Tory knew she must get off this mountain and find some port town. She must get home to Jack. Mindful of the dogs, she kept to the edge of the water, wading onto the cold gravel under the surface whenever she could, to hide her scent. She passed a little watchman’s hut on a rise overlooking the river that appeared to be unoccupied; further down, she crept past another hut above the opposite bank with a light inside. Grey dawn was glowing behind a high, forested ridge on the other side of the river when she came to a little clearing. It was not a natural clearing; the brush had been hacked away with the clean, slanted strokes, probably from the kind of cutlass the slaves used to cut cane. One single shrub remained in the small, cleared half-circle, a green, little bush whose upper third was nearly severed from its thin trunk. Its little crown of dead, browning leaves hung forlornly on one side, resting on the branches below. A broken bush.

Tory peered into the scrub beyond. Behind two tree trunks and overgrown with bramble and trailing vines, she thought she spied a wooden wall. Making her way past the clearing, through the scrub and around the trees, she found a wall with a door. Bramble covered part of it, but when she tried it, it opened inward.

With the sky beginning to lighten behind her, Tory pushed inside, into a very small, dark hut with a damp, mouldy smell. The roof sheared downward on one side, under its dense crown of thatch, but the walls were solid. A wooden latch was fastened inside the door frame to shut out intruders. There were no windows, only a slit between two of the boards in the wall facing the river, and another lookout cranny in the opposite wall, facing what Tory supposed was the nearest cane country. The most likely directions for pursuit. Between the trees and the thatch and the bramble, the little hut was scarcely visible from outside. A safe house.

Rolled up in a corner, she found primitive bedding. The canvas pallet stuffed with what felt like dried plantain leaves was as damp as everything else, but the coarse blanket rolled up inside was dry enough. She spread them out in a corner, plopped down, and wrapped the blanket around her against the pre-dawn chill. She thought about nibbling some more of her food, but she was sinking too fast into the irresistible whirlpool of sleep. The very last thought that sparked in her mind was of a far-off day in Old Road Town, when she'd overheard Alphonse speaking to a black stranger. A safe house, he had said.


(Top: Sale of a Slave, Surinam, 1839. Image Reference H016, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library)

Chapter 18: BAD BARGAINS

It hurt so much to straighten up, Tory no longer even tried. The constant dull ache in the small of her back was preferable to the searing stab of pain that shot up her spine and into her shoulder when she attempted to stand erect. So she remained stooped, as she leaned again into the tin laundry tub. Her chapped, reddened hands and wrinkled fingers could scarcely feel to grasp under the water, but she extracted the next sodden garment with particular care. Yesterday she had been cuffed across the face for bringing back a torn cotton stocking.

She had received worse blows in her time, but never under such humiliating circumstances. Never as a piece of property being broken to obedience. Still, that was not the worst humiliation she had suffered. Not by a long shot.



It was her last night in her solitary little cell in Basseterre. It was her last chance. Tory had not been imprisoned with the rest of the suspected runaways and vagrants, but kept in this dark lonely place. No one came to take down the particulars of her case, or offer to sell her a hearing at the Court of Policy—not that she could have produced any legal evidence in her defense. She was fed twice a day, corn pudding and cassava bread and baked yams. Starchy food to sleeken her for market. And this morning her gaoler had told her this was her last day under his care.

She had never seen her gaoler. He passed her meals to her through a waist-high opening in the wooden door, an oblong slot about the length and width of a large papaya. But he was a man, and Tory had nothing else left to sell or trade, not her knife nor her gold coin, nor any other thing of value. Nothing but the coin women had been forced to trade in since the morning of the world.

When she heard his familiar shuffling step outside her cell door, she sank to her knees in the straw, resting her fingertips on the sill of the slot. She heard the rap of knuckles on the door above her head, and his bored cry of, "Plate!"

"Friend," she whispered through the slot. "I need a favor."

"Who don’t, in this place?" the gaoler grumbled back.

Tory pushed her fingertips out the slot and felt stiff linen clothing, with flesh and muscle underneath. Trousers, not a coat.

"I’ll pay," she murmured, her fingers moving along fabric until they felt a buttoned flap.

"What’s this?" came the startled voice from he other side of the door. But he did not move away. Tory played her fingertips back and forth across the flap, and the fellow angled himself toward her. She slid one finger between two flap buttons. Warm, damp flesh quickened to her touch, and she rubbed, slowly.

"What’s this?" His voice was weakening.

"I’ll pay very well for my favor," Tory purred. It was clumsy with her wrists bound together, but her fingers worked one button open and she slipped three fingers inside, stroking with more vigor.

"What kind of favor?" he groaned, wrestling open another button.

Tory closed her fingers snugly around thickening flesh, the excited, anonymous male prick that was her only possible escape. "Unlock the door," she whispered, and drew him in through the slot as the door shuddered between them. She didn’t know if he was young or old, fat or lean, or even what complexion he was, for it was now quite dark in the cell. She could only pray he didn’t have the pox as she lowered her face and took him in her mouth for a minute, then took him out.

"Unlock the door," she repeated, his flesh hard in her hand, "if you want me to finish the job."

"You can...finish...from there," he grunted.

"Aye, but why should I?" She licked once, and waited.

"If you want me to...say aye."

Swallowing an impatient sigh, Tory closed her eyes and sucked. The door quaked steadily between them as he thrust his weight against it, and she tried not to think how ridiculous they must look. It was a farce, after all, and she had played it dozens of times, Columbine teasing what she wanted out of helpless Mr. Punch. She would not let herself remember how Jack tasted, or imagine him in the dark on the other side of the door. She would not bring Jack into this place to see what she did.

"Let me hear the key in the lock," she demanded.

"Aye. Aye!"

He jolted so suddenly in her mouth, Tory had to close her throat to keep from gagging. She jerked her head away and spat into the straw. Damn. His organ had slithered out of her grasp, but when she hooked her fingers around the sill of the slot and tugged, the door did not budge.

"Our bargain?" she whispered. But she already knew what the answer would be.

"I said ‘aye,’ didn’t I?" He was still panting, but she could hear the sneer creeping back into his voice, now that he’d had what he wanted. What she’d given up for free, like a fool. "I don’t have the key, my love," he went on, resettling his trousers. She could see his hands working efficiently through the slot, just out of her reach. "Only the chief constable has the key. But I’ll pass your offer along to him, if ye like."



Now she was standing in the stream at an hour past noon, with cold water up to her calves and the West Indian sun beating down on her back, gluing her bodice to her skin. Sweat was puddling in her armpits and streaming in little rivulets down her arms as she pried the next shirt out of the tub and sprinkled it with a handful of white sand. She threw the soggy thing upon the large, coarse rock that protruded out of the bank, and beat it flat with a long, thick wooden paddle, still stooping, for the rock was at a low point in the bank, just above the water. Then she peeled the shirt off the rock and plunged it into the stream for a vigorous rinsing.

After wringing it out between her hands, she turned to step out of the stream and scoop up more sand. Then she carried the shirt up to a grassy sward above the bank, flattened it out, covered it with another coat of sand and left it to whiten in the sun with the other things—three other everyday shirts, two fine Sunday shirts and assorted nightshirts, petticoats, chemises and handkerchiefs. Tory risked the white-hot flame up her spine to straighten a little, and glanced back down at their work. The clothing was almost finished, but they had not yet begun on the basket of bed linens.

Sweat leaked out from under her headscarf, but she wiped it off her forehead and walked back down the bank to the stream. The bubbling cool of water still drew her, although she could scarcely remember why. She didn’t mind the heavy labor; it took her away from the gossiping tongues and censorious eyes in the great house, and brought her down here to the water, to dream again of the sea. Her dreams, at least, were still her own. But they had never been so far out of her reach.

How clever she had thought herself, that last day in Basseterre. Having failed as a gaolhouse temptress, she had been so glad to get out of her dark little cell and into the open air, she could even bear the shame of appearing in the auction yard with her wrists bound, like a criminal. It was like being onstage, and she had decided on a new character to play. Only pure-blooded Negroes worked in the field, and if they meant to sell her as a servant, she would show them the folly of their plan.

"And do you sew?" chirruped the auctioneer when she was brought forward, the last of a group of black and colored females.

"No, sir."

"Cook, then?" the fellow continued to beam.

"No."

"Are you trained in the husbandry of herbs? Can you nurse the sick? Dress hair? Plant a garden?"

"No, sir."

"Then what are your accomplishments, girl?"

"I have none." She need not show defiance, only her natural incompetence. No one wanted to buy into such a bad bargain.

And it looked as if she might succeed. None of the mumbling, covertly chuckling crowd would meet the auctioneer’s opening bid. Tory contrived to look dull and downcast to conceal her rising spirits. Surely, if she went unsold, and could not earn the township a profit, they would let her go. Raleigh’s vengeful sport could not weigh against her continued incarceration at the town’s expense. The auctioneer grudgingly lowered his opening bid to no response, and Tory’s thoughts raced excitedly on. Even if she was bound over in Basseterre gaol while they decided what to do with her, it might yet buy her some time. She might yet get word to Mr. Greaves, whose kind face she had looked for but not seen in the crowd, this morning. And it was always in the back of her mind that Jack might learn of her plight, somehow, and effect some plan to free her. She wanted to be where he could find her.

But her plan turned against her. Her bid price fell so low that the only bidder at the auction desperate enough to have her could meet it. She had been brought to this narrow, unprosperous sugar estate in an unforgiving district high on a mountain—she was not at all sure which one. It seemed like hours that the hard wooden cart continued on, after the green, forested foothills below cut off Basseterre and the rest of the coastline from view. She only believed she was still on St. Kitts because she had not crossed any sea.

Well convinced that she had no particular skills, the proprietor of the place, Mr. Birney, had turned Tory over to his domestic staff to make what use of her they could. Unconnected by kinship to anyone else on the household staff, she was forced to take their leavings and put to as many menial tasks as they could crowd into her day. Up at dawn, she swept out all the downstairs rooms in the great house and the veranda, and hauled water up from the stream to scrub the stone front steps. It was not a wealthy estate, so the facade of grandeur was doubly important. She prepared the dining room for breakfast, mopping the sideboard and laying out the plate, silver, service and linens.

When she had filched what breakfast she could from whatever their masters had left, Tory accompanied the head launderess, Pearl, down to the stream for the day’s washing. Whatever remained of her afternoon was given over to the scrubbing and polishing tasks of a maid-of-all-work. Yet, because she had the lightest complexion of all the household slaves, Tory was also required to wait upon Mr. Birney and his nephew when they dined, standing in the corner at their pleasure, to fetch or carry or serve. Dinner at three or four in the afternoon was always an exhausting meal, coming so soon after Tory’s return from her laundering chores. But supper in the evening could last well into the night, if there were guests at table, and made no difference at all in the hour Tory was expected to rise the next morning to begin it all again.

"Have you not enough useless colored wenches about the place, already?" Mr. Lawrence, the attorney, had fumed to Mr. Birney, the first time he saw her at supper. "Why did you not buy another stout Negress for the field?"

"They came too dear," retorted Mr. Birney. "This one came cheap and my second book-keeper thought she would do for hard work, with the household so understaffed."

"The household is understaffed because your second book-keeper has removed his concubine to keep his own house," said Mr. Lawrence. "Lucy, the washerwoman’s daughter, is it not?"

Mr. Birney responded with a sullen look.

"Don’t imagine that I don't know what goes on about the place," the attorney continued. "I caution you not to make so free with my client’s money, in future."

Tory had heard that Mr. Birney was in fact the overseer of the estate, not its owner. But the legal proprietor had been so long in England, attempting to organize his financial affairs, that Mr. Birney had moved himself into the great house, and dignified his position with the name of "manager" under the supervision of Mr. Lawrence, a gentleman of business from Basseterre.

"Could you not have found something more presentable?" Mr. Lawrence grumbled on, casting another dubious glance at Tory. "Why is her jacket in such ill repair?"

"I gave her her allotment of cloth, but the willful thing refuses to make use of it," sniffed Mr. Birney.

The linen cloth, needle and thread still sat untouched in a neglected corner of the cook-house. Even if Tory could claim an hour to herself out of her daily labors, she could no more turn them into a new jacket than she could conjure a Spanish galleon out of thin air. She had only an old, worn jacket of Pearl’s to cover the bodice she’d worn since the day she was abducted in Charlestown, and the new linen petticoat she had been issued.

"And what is wrong with her hair?" demanded Mr. Lawrence. Tory noticed that one of her hasty plaits had slipped its pins and dropped onto her shoulder. "She must cut it short if she cant keep it tucked up under her kerchief. Darky wenches don't wear plaits."

"I am Indian, sir," Tory protested. Before she knew better.

The attorney glared at her as if a piece of the furniture had presumed to speak.

"Oh, aye," chuckled Mr. Birney to his guest. "Half the field hands on the place are Carib princes. The rest are Ibo kings."

There was a guffaw from the other side of the table as Mr. Rathbourne, the manager’s nephew, noisily hoisted the port decanter again. Young, dark, lean and haggard, he had a flushed face and a dissolute mouth. The servants said Mr. Rathbourne had fled to the Indies to avoid prosecution in London, taking advantage of his uncle’s sudden good fortune. He poured himself another drink, leaving a deep red puddle on the tablecloth that would be hell to scrub out tomorrow, and saluted the others.

"Well, at least with her looks and airs, she ain’t likely to run off with a book-keeper now, is she?" And the others laughed, too.

Yet, as much as Tory detested waiting at table, it was seen as a mark of favoritism by the other domestics, who resented her for it. She was as much an outsider here as she had ever been at the Worthen Female Academy, and her only feeble response was to sink deeper into the role expected of her, to assume the character of the dull, docile servant. It was the only way she could protect her true self, buried deep inside, until she could think what to do.

But she had no time or place to think. Domestics had no quarters of their own. They were fed like dogs on the scraps from master’s table, and slept in the hallways at night, deprived of any kind of privacy. The Negro field workers were treated worse than dogs, Tory knew, lashed and driven like beasts, now that the mill and boiler-house had begun their round-the-clock operation. But they at least lived in their own houses, far out of the manager’s sight. They cooked their own meals and had their own kin and friends around them through all their trials. Tory had no one.

"Why you no trouble to fix youself up, girl?" Pearl’s question startled Tory out of her thoughts as they spread out the last of the bedsheets on the bank.

"What for?"

"Fo’ you pride. Young colored girl mus’ tink of her future."

Tory eyed her, suspiciously. But now that Pearl’s daughter Lucy was established in the second book-keeper’s house, Tory supposed the old washerwoman could afford to be charitable toward her.

"You must find a buckra man to care fo’ you," said Pearl.

Tory bent back over the sheet. She'd had quite enough of buckra men. "There aren’t any," she replied. Mr. Birney had installed his favorite mistress upstairs and there was no first book-keeper, now that Mr. Rathbourne had promoted himself into the gentry.

"Young Mas' Rat'bo'ne need a steady girl. Him cat around too much. Me fix it up fo' you. Jus' you recall you Auntie Pearl when Young Mas' be giving you favors."

"But surely Lucy gets you favors, now," Tory reasoned.

"Book-keepers, they come and go," shrugged Pearl. "This one be gone soon enough. But Young Mas', him no get a bettah position on any ot'er place, on account of him uncle. Him can no go home to England. Him be here a lifetime."

If anything could possibly be worse than her present predicament, Tory imagined it would be a lifetime with Young Mas' Ratbone. She had seen sharks with more winning dispositions. Fortunately, he had never taken the slightest interest in her.

Pearl, however, must have taken her silence for approval. An hour after dinner, as Tory knelt on the cook-house floor polishing silver candlesticks from a more prosperous era on the estate, her hands black with tarnished froth, Mr. Rathbourne appeared. He stomped over to her and dropped his filthy, mud-caked riding boots in a wet, odorous heap in the middle of her work.

"Black these, while you’re about it," he commanded.

Tory kept her head down, to make herself invisible. But he stuck his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to study her. Something like exasperation crossed his face, then reconsideration, as his blue eyes narrowed.

"Never had Indian before," he smirked. "Bring 'em up to my room tonight, after supper. Bring 'em up, yourself."

"I’m not allowed upstairs," Tory reminded him.

"You’re allowed wherever I say!" he cried, shaking her chin. "I can have you whipped for refusing me." Tory knew he wasn’t talking about the boots. Damn that meddling washerwoman. "I’ll be waiting," he hissed, letting go of her, and nodding to the boots. "And they’d best be spotless into the bargain."

"As spotless as your reputation. Sir." She knew he would cuff her for that remark, if he had any reason to suspect she had the wit for sarcasm; she could see the impulse kindling in his transparent eyes. But his vanity won out, refusing to admit he could be bested by anyone so far beneath him, and his harsh features eased into a smug grin of agreement as he nodded and sauntered away.

Tory stayed where she was, staring down at her cracked, blackened hands. Her hard work would never be rewarded, here. Her time and labor belonged to the proprietor. Only her wit and her person were still her own. But for how much longer?

How long could she play at dull stupidity before she became dull and stupid in fact? She had no fear of Rathbourne using her; she was not a green girl, after all. She supposed he would be as easy to rouse as the Basseterre gaoler, and about as rewarding. But she could never bear his presumption of sovereignty over her, to which he had every legal right. And she would not be broken to his will. Once he’d had her body, he would have established his right to possess her, and that Tory would not permit.

There was no longer any point in expecting a man to help her—not Mr. Greaves, not her gaoler. Not Jack. She had sustained herself those first few weeks with the dream that Jack might yet rescue her. But how could he find her, here? Even she did not know where she was. How could she even be sure that Marcus had made his way back to the others? He was only a boy. It sickened her to think of all the things that might have befallen him on the road, all alone. Tory didn't know how she would get back to them, with no money or friends. They might not even be on Nevis any more, if March had come, and the season ended at the Bath Hotel. She had no idea where Alphonse might lead them next. But she must try.

Of all the times she had run away in her life, this would be the most dangerous. She would be committing a crime, the theft of her owner’s property, for which there were legal punishments if she were ever caught. If bills were circulated with her description, she would be branded a slave and an outlaw for the rest of her life. She might not ever be able to rejoin Jack; her presence would endanger them all. But none of that mattered. She could not stay here. She had no other choice but to flee for her life. Could she have any less regard for herself than an infant squalling in a box? She might die a fugitive, but at least she would not die a slave.


(Top: Washerwomen, Jamaica, 1820-21. Image Reference HAKE7 as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library)

Chapter 2: PLAYING JONKANOO

The end of the sugar cane harvest was called crop-over, the second most important holiday after Christmas in the sugar islands. On the plantations, the grinding mills and boiling houses were finally shutting down after their long spring labors. The cane juice had been struck, potted and cured, and all the molasses drained out and sent to the rum distillery. Roads were filling up with carts carrying hogsheads of sugar to the warehouses of Basseterre, to be traded locally to pay the planters’ debts or sold for shipping to England. The town was all abustle with merchants and attorneys, planters or their managers off the estates, overseers recently paid off in cash, slaves newly released from their crop-time labors, and crowds of Negro wainmen, carters and livestock herders accompanying the sugar into town. Enterprise and opportunity were in the air and coin would be changing hands one way or another.

But Tory was more interested in the ships sailing every day in and out of Basseterre Bay. Sloops, coasters, sugar droghers, cargo ships, all manner of vessels, all searching out a share of the crop-over profits. The waterfront was thronging with boatmen and sea captains all doing business on their own account. If she and Jack were ever to find another ship, it would be here.

After a breakfast for which their landlady refused to accept any payment, they emerged into the warm early morning. Tory carried her basket of belongings on her head, like any respectable island lady of color. But she was feeling frisky and invulnerable, her wits still pleasantly scrambled after last night’s lovemaking, and reeled off toward her first glimpse of blue water, beyond the square and the row of warehouses lined up along the beach overlooking the bay.

But their way was hindered by a press of people crowding into the square. In its center, Tory noticed a low wooden platform, like a stage. But the people being led onto it by a young constable were not players. A brawny mulatto sailor, an older black man whose hair was just beginning to whiten, an elderly African woman, a plump Negress of about thirty and two small children, a black boy and a mixed-blood girl. And all of them, even the children, were chained at the wrists.

"Do they imagine those babies will mount an insurrection?" Tory whispered to Jack. The boy might have been six, the girl less.

"I feel safer already," Jack muttered.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," cried a florid fellow who had hefted himself up onto the platform and strode out to its edge, clutching a fistful of papers. "We have some fine specimens for your approval this fine day. Gather round, now, and don’t be timid. The boldest bidding shall strike the soundest bargains today."

The prospective bidders crowded in. But for the threadbare sailor, all the people on the auction block were decently dressed and deferential. The older man bore it stoically when the auctioneer peeled back his lower lip to display his teeth, claiming he was sound as a gold guinea with years of service in him, yet.

"If slaves are so valuable, how do they end up here?" Tory wondered.

"Owners die or go bankrupt," Jack whispered back. "Slaves are part of their property sold to pay ther debts. Or some ailing planter forgets to manumit his black mistress and their mulatto children in his will, or his will is contested by his legitimate heirs. Or some unfortunate free person misplaces his papers and is taken up for a vagrant and sold as a runaway..." His hand closed gently on her arm. "Let's go," he urged her.

"Here’s a likely fellow for the fishing and boating trades," the auctioneer sang out, sweeping a hand toward the sailor. "He's..."

"I born free in Jamaica," the mulatto interrupted. "Cook's mate on the troop ship Valiant."

"So you claim," said the auctioneer, consulting his papers. "But in three months, you have produced no credible witnesses to testify on your behalf."

"Send to Jamaica, where I sign on. Evahbody know me, there."

"Why are you not on your ship?"

The sailors eyes flicked away. "I be...detained."

"Indeed you were, in the guardhouse for illegal gaming after the Sunday market," the auctioneer countered, eyeing his notes.

"And the Valiant sail next morning for Portsmouth wit'out me," the sailor cried.

"And all your witnesses with her. How convenient," the auctioneer rejoined, sliding a knowing smile toward the crowd.

Tory knew how easy it was to lose one’s shipmates in port. Jack was urging her away again when the auctioneer drew the plump black woman forward, the children following hesitantly in her wake. They were a family, Tory realized, despite the lighter complexion of the girl.

"What a fine breeder, eh?" the auctioneer cried, gesturing toward the woman’s broad hips. "Two brats already and capable of many more. This one," and he pointed out the darker boy, "is ready for the pickney gang already."

"Is there a discount for the lot?" queried a gentleman in the front row of bidders.

"Why, terms can always be arranged, sir," replied the auctioneer, and the bidding began.

The woman’s face remained impassive. But when one of the bidders finally named a price high enough to squelch the others, then added, "For the boy, as well," some of the stony resolve melted out of the slave mother’s face.

"Tanky, massa," she murmured.

"But I’ll not have the little colored wench," the bidder declared. "No profit in 'em."

The woman’s expression crumpled, but no sound came out of her mouth. She turned toward the girl, but the young constable stepped between them. The last thing Tory saw before she had to turn away was the stark incomprehension in the little girl’s face as her mother and brother were led away from her forever. A terror Tory knew all too well.

"Come away, Rusty," Jack said again, and lurched into the thoroughfare, winding around the hucksters, gangs of idlers and groups of festive latecomers still hurrying into the square. Tory stumbled after him, momentarily blinded by her own angry tears. But the next hand that gripped her arm was not his.



"Look what you’re about there, girl!"

Tory blinked up under the rim of her basket. The stranger’s features were in shadow, with the sun behind him, but she felt impatience in his grip and recognized the constable’s cap and jacket he wore.

"Sorry, sir."

"There’s no huckstering in the square today," he added, nodding up at her basket. When daylight caught his eyes, Tory saw a glint of vivid green in an otherwise unremarkable face, a pale, gemstone green like seawater over a sandy bottom. But there was no warmth in them; they were slits of cold green ice.

"No, sir. But I’m not..."

"Oh, no, ye never are," he mocked. "It’s sheer chance you happen to be out with a basket of rubbish to sell in the middle of a slave auction. But look here girl," and he jerked her arm for emphasis, "there’s some as turn their heads when you lot spill into the streets as if ye owned ‘em and do as you please. But not me. I know the law as well as you, and in this town you’ll confine your business to the market on legal market days. Understood?"

"Perfectly, sir." Tory didn’t know how much groveling she could do in her present temper, with a basket on her head, but this was not the moment to pick a fight.

"Unless you want the Clerk of Markets to reconsider your license." He paused and peered at her with renewed menace. "You have a license, I suppose?"

"I’m afraid you misunderstand me," Tory replied, as humbly as she could over her suddenly pounding heart. "I’m not selling..."

"No? Then let’s have a look in your basket. What’ve ye got in there, eh?"

Nothing of value Tory knew, only a few scraps of clothing and a ship’s logbook. The log of the Blessed Providence, in which she’d scribbled a history of her life in the pirate trade. Hers and Jack's. The constable’s hand manacled her wrist, there could be no twisting away from him. So many people in the busy street and not a single friendly face. She could only pray that Jack was far away.

"I’ll have a look," the constable repeated, and Tory reached up to lift the basket off her head, as slowly as she could. It was clumsy work one-handed, but she wrestled it onto her hip.

"These are only personal things, sir. Nothing of interest."

"But you would be surprised what interests me."

Tory had to force herself not to jerk the basket away when he reached for her tortoiseshell comb.

"Now if this is not merchandise..."

"Why, here you are, my dear!" sang a cheerful voice, and Tory looked around to see a beaming Amos Greaves, tilting his top hat off his clipped, receding curls as he bustled toward her.

"Mr. Greaves! What a pleasant surprise!" Tory cried, with more feeling than she had ever before uttered the phrase.

"Not so surprising, as I walk these streets every day of my life! Indeed, I was just popping round to see how you had passed the night. But I do hope there is nothing amiss," he added, casting only a mild glance at her captured arm. "If any mischance has befallen you in my establishment, my dear Miss Lightfoot, I shall naturally see to the matter myself."

His amiable gaze strayed to the constable for one brief instant, and Tory felt the hand melt away from her wrist.

"No mischance, sir," Tory smiled, thanking every god she could think of that Mr. Greaves had remembered her name. "There is such a crowd today, I’m ashamed to admit I lost my way."

"Then you must allow me to escort you, my dear," Mr. Greaves declared, offering her his arm and tucking her freed hand into the crook of his elbow. With another brief nod and a dismissive, "Thank you, officer," he swept Tory off into the street.

Behind them, Tory saw a distinct flash of green anger before the constable lowered his eyes and mumbled a response as deferential as any slave. Then he strode off in pursuit of a colored vendor of spruce beer. Not knowing how to explain what Mr. Greaves had just witnessed, Tory thought to distract him instead.

"How is your daughter this morning?" she prompted, resettling her basket on her hip.

"Why, she is well, Miss Lightfoot, very well, thank you," the gentleman beamed again. "She is fashioning quite a tale out of her narrow escape from that cutpurse. I heard it three times at Mrs. Hampton’s recital last evening, with the result that my Emily is invited out to a tea and a luncheon next week to tell it again. She embroiders it and tucks it up with each retelling, you see, so that one may say it has become the very tablecloth of her existence, in that she shall dine out upon it so often!"

"That must please her," Tory laughed.

"Indeed, her invitations are from the nicest sort of people."

"And that must please you."

"Yes, yes. Only now that her circle is widening...why, it pains me to say it, but even the nicest sort of young gentlemen do not always behave with perfect discretion, although I’m afraid you would blush to hear it, my dear."

Tory doubted that. "But even very, ah, inexperienced young girls will behave sensibly, if given half a chance," she ventured. "You must trust your daughter."

"It is not my daughter I mistrust, but...why, look here, Miss Lightfoot, here comes your friend!"

Tory had almost begun to relax until she saw Jack’s face, bloodless and worried, as he came slicing toward them through the crowded street. His color deepened when he saw her, and he even managed an actor's practiced smile when he recognized her companion. But silent anger darkened his eyes. Tory knew that look.

"Good morning, Jack!" cried Mr. Greaves. "See who I have found!"

"Why, thank you, sir," Jack sallied back. "I was just wondering where I’d mislaid her."

Greaves was ready to hand her over like a parcel of goods, but Tory dug in her heels and kept hold of the gentleman’s arm.

"Mr. Greaves has been telling me about his daughter," she prompted.

"Indeed, I’m afraid I was complaining to Miss Lightfoot about how easy it is for the fair sex to be misled. To make mistakes. Do you not find it so?"

"Yes. Often," Jack agreed.

"But she must learn from her mistakes," Tory suggested.

"Why, it is all very well to say such a thing," sighed Greaves. "But quite another to step aside and let the person one loves above all else gallop out unprotected, as it were, into the maelstrom."

Jack stood rapt, awaiting Tory's response.

"But what better expression of your love than to allow her the freedom to make her own choice?" Tory rejoined carefully. "How else will she ever learn to choose wisely?"

Something flickered in Jack's expression, but he glanced away before she could read it.

"I daresay you're right, my dear," Greaves sighed again. "But here I am boring you with my trifling affairs," he exclaimed, brightening again. "Behaving like an old fool when my intention was to call on you and wish you good morning. And here I find you out and about your business already. Most admirable!" He patted her hand as he released her, and Tory moved discreetly nearer to Jack.

"We must make our living, Mr. Greaves," said Jack, rallying as well. "You can appreciate that, as a man of business."

"Indeed I can, and I find it most admirable," Mr. Greaves repeated. "I confess, you intrigue me, sir. It takes determination to set up in this sort of trade, living hand-to-mouth, depending as it were upon the generosity of strangers, which is no certain thing. Considerable determination."

"No more so than setting up as a planter," Jack reasoned. "Or a printer. One makes use of whatever poor skills one has."

"Yes, but I wonder that more fellows of our complexion don’t follow your example. Some of these fellows, er, the lower orders," Greaves continued, his voice dropping low, "...er, the Irish, you know, and the like, so many of ‘em can’t be bothered to do a decent day’s labor. Act as if it’s beneath ‘em, even if it would earn them the means to get a leg up in society, and buy some little property in slaves. As you have done."

"Miss Lightfoot is not my property." It came out so fast, it might have been taken for a retort had Jack not engineered an affable smile and a look of only mild surprise. "She is a freewoman, sir. We are partners in business."

"Oh, indeed? Then how fortunate for you to have such an enterprising protector, my dear," Greaves smiled at Tory, not losing an atom of his conviviality. "Most enterprising."

"Indeed, we ought to be off about our business before we lose any more of the day," said Jack. "We’ll not keep you any longer, Mr. Greaves. It was kind of you to call."

"Most kind of you to humor a prattling old man." And shaking hands again, Amos Greaves bustled off into the crowd.

The road was filling with people dispersed from the auction as Jack slung the satchel of props over his shoulder and slid a hand gently but firmly under Tory’s arm to steer her into a quieter street.

"I thought you were right behind me," he whispered, at last.

"I was! That constable came out of nowhere."

"Aye, that’s what constables do."

Tory glanced up and saw the tight line of his mouth; he was working so hard not to scold her like a child, he was like to choke with the effort. But she could see how frightened he had been, and knowing she was the cause cut her like a blade. Jack had been half a world away at sea when the only parents he had ever known and loved had died, poor and alone, with no one to look after them. He had blamed himself ever since. She knew how desperately he needed to protect what he loved, and yet she'd behaved like a wilfull child. Who was she to speak of wise choices, capering off into an officer of the law, getting herself accosted. Jack deserved better than a fool for a partner. Hers would not be the only neck in the noose.

"I’m sorry, Jack."

Jack halted, drew a breath, turned to face her. "Don’t be sorry," he murmured. "Be careful. Please, Rusty."

Tory nodded. "He took me for a huckster," she added.

"I know," Jack sighed. "He was moving ‘em out of the square during the auction. The colored ones, anyway."

"But why? They do no harm."

"People of color moving about freely, earning their own living? Sets a dangerous example for the slaves." Jack shook his head. "I only wish you would try to stay closer to me when we’re out in a crowd."

"But if I must hide in your shadow every minute of the day, I might as well be your slave." He looked at her sharply, but she hurried on. "Don't you see? If I must play the helpless female every day, in need of your protection, that’s what I'm in danger of becoming."

"It’s only play, Rusty, only a role. You’ve played others."

Tory sighed over her basket, tucking her things back in place. "You’re the player," she reminded him. "Not me."

Glancing beyond her basket, she saw her own shadow together with Jack’s begin to fade on the ground before them. Looking up, she saw a fat, moist wedge of silver clouds sailing across the sun. Thunderclouds grumbling with the season’s first rainstorm.



Rain forced them to spend coin on a sour-smelling tavern room that night. The pattering of rain on the tin roof of a shed in the yard seeped into Tory's dreams, like the simmering of shell-filled calabash gourds on Jonkanoo night. It all came flooding back to her, their first night in Basseterre, months ago, Christmas night, when the slaves were turned loose to dance and drum and sing in the streets, to play at being free.


The dark, forbidden spirit of freedom was pouring into the town. The streets were flooded with Negro dancers, drummers, chanters and singers, pipers and costumed mummers, a laughing, hooting, jostling tide, swelling and falling to the melody of the cane pipes and the pulsebeat of the drums. Their abandon could be felt all the way to the Court House on the square, where nervous white sentries from the island militia stood guard with their primed muskets. It was only a play rebellion, this licensed anarchy. But how easily it might become the real thing.

"Nobody's thinking about pirates, tonight," Jack assured Tory, as they moved along the outskirts of the crowd. "They're far too worried about a slave insurrection."

Vendors of spruce beer and hucksters bearing trays of pickles and sweetmeats and toys and ribbons on their own account threaded their way through the mob. Drumming and chanting filled the air, and the crowd swayed to the rhythm as the last of the day gave way to dark, and that giddy joker’s scepter, the moon, began to glow white in the black sky.

Freewomen of color, gorgeously dressed in the latest London fashion on their way to private balls, paraded through the square to show off their finery. Rambunctious parties of town slaves were trooping between the houses, accosting spectators in the street for coin. There were female groups dressed as gaudy queens and their trains, each boasting a young woman singing comic songs about their master. A troupe of male mummers passed by in more outrageous motley, grouped around a fellow in a white paste mask with white powder in his hair, under a gilt crown, brandishing a wooden "sword." His retinue cried, "Make way fo’ Ole Mas!" or "Make way fo’ the King!" When Tory heard "Make way fo’ King Richard the T'ird!" she caught Jack’s eye and laughed.

"Richard, George or Old King Cole, it’s all one to these fellows," Jack grinned back. "They only know that a king commands their white masters. And that’s worth some play."

"Play?" Tory echoed.

"Sport, show," Jack explained. "It’s only during the holidays a slave may joke at his master’s expense and not suffer for it. He’s only making play, you see; it doesn’t mean anything."

"Does the militia know that?" Tory wondered, recalling the strained faces of the Court House sentries.

"Every white man in the Indies knows the slaves' fiction of freedom must be maintained for this one night," Jack replied, "or they risk a riot in earnest. They're only fools' revels, so the masters must take no notice."

The laughing and singing and percolating rhythms seeped into Tory’s bones, recalling another Christmas night and the first slave revels she had ever seen, in the town of Santiago on the southern coast of Cuba. Memory conjured up a fair, handsome face, blue eyes like a turquoise sea under a halo of golden hair. Matty. What a night of foolery that had been, searching for love in Matty’s powerful arms and astonishing body, but finding only humiliation—and damn little relief. Had it only been a year ago that she had been that ignorant chit, trusting herself to Matty’s reckless affections? She valued herself more highly, now, thanks to Jack, yet she could not repress a shiver of shame for the fool she had been. Jack felt it and drew her closer, and she smiled to herself in the dark.

Now, gangs of Negro men and boys were flowing into the square, some masked and costumed, others carrying wooden frames stuck with candles to light the way. Candlelight skittered crazily across the faces of dancers and spectators alike, turning them all into eerie masks, a sea of phantoms glimmering in the dark.

"Look, Rusty," Jack cried, "it’s a Jonkanoo party! There, that fellow in the huge headgear and his companion."

Tory saw a black man capering into the square in satin breeches that had once been white and a tailcoat studded all over with gilt and glitter and broken bits of mirror. He danced a rousing jig, despite the impediment of what looked like an entire house in miniature perched upon his head. It was missing one wall, so the interiors of the rooms were on display. The entire edifice sat in the hull of a pasteboard boat that served as the brim of the hat, all of it painted in hilarious colors. Another Negro man trotted alongside draped in a brown nappy cloth, wearing long paste horns on a circlet around his head. Every so often, both men paused, made a formal bow to each other, and began to dance in place in a kind of duel, the horned man leaping and prancing as the other jigged. A gang of whooping boys canvassed the crowd for tribute.

"It’s the Jonkanoo man and his bull or devil or whatever it may be, nobody remembers any more," Jack laughed. "Jonkanoo comes out at Christmas and all the rules are turned upside-down. Everyone has license to go about in disguise and deceive their fellows and poke fun at their betters and do whatever they please, all in the name of Jonkanoo. He’s like the Lord of Misrule."

The Jonkanoo party came dancing up with the capering boys banging sticks together and shaking gourd rattles.

"Say how-day Mist’ Jonkanoo," one of the boys chanted at Jack. "Him playing antics for you, massa, fo’ one macaroni."

Jack bowed and opened his empty palm to show he had no money. The Jonkanoo man and his bull-devil found this a great joke, laughing and slapping each other on the back, and began to dance a fast, frantic, scissor-kicking step. The howling boys closed in and Jack joined in, dancing the same frenzied step, in lieu of tribute.

"What was that all about?" Tory laughed, when the dancers had moved on and Jack had caught his breath.

"Just playing my part. All these fellows know how to play at Jonkanoo."

A sudden burst of light and shouting drew them further along the bustling street to the next corner. Peering over shoulders and between backs, they spied a tiny juggler perched upon an upturned crate, spinning three flaming torches in the air. Each torch somersaulted dangerously high, yet the juggler always caught them handle-first. He was dressed in a loose white tunic with black-edged ruffles at the cuffs. His star-pointed collar jingled with tiny bells and he wore a conical white hat with a tufted black ball at its peak above a garishly white paste Punch mask. And he was very small, scarcely any bigger than a Punch puppet, certainly no bigger than a child.

"It’s only a boy," Tory whispered to Jack.

Jack shook his head. "No doubt he earns much more if they think so. But his skill is far too mature. And look at his arms, small but muscular, like a little ox. What an artist! If that’s the sort of busker they’re accustomed to, here, we’ll have to hone our skills in the provinces before we play here in Basseterre."

"But surely the profit is here in the capitol," Tory protested.

"Not until later in the season, when the sugar crop comes in. Until then, we ought to make our way about the smaller towns and practice."

When Jack looked away from the square and out toward the dark bay, Tory heard his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken them. She too saw the tiny points of light that marked the swaying masts of the ships in the bay, with their promise of flight and freedom. And then, again, at the edge of the square, the militiamen with their muskets at the ready, perched on the Court House steps.

"We’re not at sea any more," Jack sighed. "We must play at Jonkanoo every day to survive in this place."


(Image above: Harbour Street, Kingston, Jamaica, 1820. Image Reference: HAKE6, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library.)