Chapter 7: The Barracuda

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack stopped and looked up at Alphonse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alphonse’s black eyes began to grow more thoughtful.

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



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

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

"It draws custom," replied Alphonse.

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

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

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

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

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

"Perhaps you can discuss the matter with me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Please accept my condolences, Ma’am."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Harvey looked mildly surprised, but nothing daunted.

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

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



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

"You know her?"

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Chapter 6: HARLEQUIN AND COLUMBINE

Tory was not accustomed to being cloistered indoors with the women and children. But it was proving a wet season, if not yet a violent one, and when she could find nothing more to write about in her logbook than how much she missed Jack at night, she realized she must find some occupation. When the boys were off underfoot at the tavern yard, she helped Cybele sort out the wild grasses and roots collected on her travels. What Cybele could not find growing wild, she traded for, bartering her potions for what the slaves cultivated on their provision grounds at the Sunday market, or journeying up to the mountain estates on foot. Her mother had been an African medicine woman who came to the French island of Guadeloupe as a slave and knew the properties of everything that grew in the earth.

In the damp, sultry evenings, Tory hit upon the idea of teaching the children to read. Jack said it was the governess in her coming out, the governess they would have made of her had she stayed in Boston. When she had a moment alone with Alphonse, she invited him to join them. He regarded her for so long without speaking, she feared she had insulted him.

"You realize," he spoke up, at last, "it is a crime to teach a slave to read in these islands."

"I shall add it to my catalogue of crimes," Tory shrugged. "If there's room."


In the event, Alphonse was not too proud to join them, and he took his lessons very seriously. So it was unusual for him to miss two nights while off about his calls. On the third day, he called Tory and Jack into the wagon; it still smelled strongly of whitewash, but it was more private than the tavern, or the lodging house.

"It is nearly September, our obligation to Cybele is almost over," Alphonse told them. "It is time to move on. I suggest English Harbour on Antigua."

"The Leeward Island Station?" Jack gaped. It was the heart of the British military presence in the Indies, the naval base at English Harbour on the island of Antigua. "Why not throw a rope over that tamarind tree and string me up right here?"

"We can consider that in a moment," Alphonse agreed. "English Harbour is the best-sheltered port in the Leewards. In the hurricane season, every British warship in the islands must go there to ride out the storms. Thousands of sailors and soldiers are stranded there, in need of diversion."

"Aye, a good hanging always fills the house," Jack grumbled. "Besides, there’s no profit in a lot of poor seamen who won’t be paid off until they return home to England."

"But what of the officers with private incomes who take lodgings in the town? What of the civilians employed upon the station and the tradespeople who profit by them? There is money to be made there, if we act soon."

For a moment, Tory was dazzled with the vision of a harbor full of shipping destined for ports all over the Indies—the Windwards, Jamaica, perhaps even the Republic of Colombia, where the Providence had gone. But they would be military ships, warships sweeping for pirates. And her vision of a welcoming harbor alive with possibilities gave way to a bleaker vision, a hempen rope around Jack’s neck. She could not risk it, not even for the sea.

"It’s too dangerous," she decided, shaking her head. "I don’t mind for myself; no one is likely to pay any mind to another colored wench in the Indies. But I won’t put Jack in any danger."

"But there will be no danger," said Alphonse. "You have seen the costume I wear at Christmas time?"

"Punch."

"Yes. But before he was a puppet in a box, Punch was a player in the pantomime," nodded Alphonse. "At Whitehall, we had many kinds of entertainment. Once, an English puppet theatre. Once, a pantomime. Mr. Punch had associates at one time. Partners. A ragged man in patches, always up to mischief, and a saucy girl."

Jack was beginning to grin. "Harlequin and Columbine. In the English pantomime," he explained to Tory. "Theyre a tedious pair now, but for centuries before, at the fairs, they were a very ribald couple. Harlequin is a merry devil who tweaks the beards of anyone in authority. And Columbine is his paramour, a lusty serving wench twitching her tail at all the men and laughing at her masters."

"But...are they jugglers?" Tory was still puzzled.

"Jugglers, tumblers, acrobats," Alphonse nodded. "Things in which you are already very skilled. Why have we never thought of this before?" he demanded of Jack. "Imagine the profits."

"But how is this more safe than what we do now?" Tory wondered.

"Because Harlequin wears a mask," Jack beamed. "Harlequin is always masked. There’s nothing suspicious about it. We could do it all with tumbling and mime. But...we’ll want costumes." He frowned. "It might be costly."

"Any old patchwork clothing will do," said Alphonse.

"Cybele and Calypso keep scraps for mending," Tory volunteered.

"How much time have we got?" asked Jack.

"It will be September in another week."

"A week," Jack echoed, sobering again on the instant.

"Play a part and the part is what people shall see," Alphonse urged. "The best place to hide is often out in the open."



It was not his usual nightmare of the slave ship that kept Jack awake that night, but his own misery. A week! So little time to see Cybele and the children properly manumitted, to somehow teach that eager boy Marcus everything he knew. Only a week, and he would never see Tory again.

He rolled over to the edge of the thin mattress, eyes open in the dark, his back to Alphonse, who slept on a cot beside the bed in their upstairs tavern room. His thoughts were thundering so loud, he was afraid Alphonse would hear them, and know what he was up to. Alphonse and his damned Harlequinade. Masked or not, Jack knew he could not go into English Harbour. Not only to save his own skin; if that were all that was at stake, he might brazen it out for the sheer joy of playing at Harlequin. But there was Tory to consider.

No one would take her for a pirate any more, not as ripe and blooming and female as she was now. She was right about that. It was only her proximity to Jack that put her in danger. But anyone might recognize Jack, any sailor who had ever served on a merchant ship or a cruiser chasing pirates in Cuban waters. Hellfire, there must be a dozen English merchant captains in the Indies at this moment who had watched Jack plunder their cabins for books.

And if he were taken up for piracy, how could he trust Tory to keep her mouth shut to save herself? Piracy was a capital offense, and in this one respect no distinction was made between the sexes. He and Tory would be gallows-mates as surely as they had been shipmates and bedmates, and that was one crime Jack would not commit. He had already stolen her maidenhood and robbed her of the freedom of the high seas. But he would not be the agent of her death. Whatever it cost, however much it hurt, he must give her up. And he only had a week.



"Ow!"

Tory sucked on her pricked finger. She was hopeless with stitches, yet she felt obliged to help with the sewing in the short time they had to transform their spare garments into patchwork costumes. But too often, nodding over the monotony of her work, she would poke herself with the needle or start awake to find the irregular track of some drunken fowl across her cloth, not the neat, even rows produced by Calypso and Cybele. She glanced up to see Cybele’s pitying smile, as knowing as any voudon priestess.

"Was your mother an obeah woman?" Tory demanded.

"Obeah," scoffed Cybele. "She was a healer. When the slaves fell ill, she tend them in the sick house. She nursed young master through the fever and lived with him in the great house after."

"Lived with him?" Tory echoed.

"He was my papa," Cybele explained, stitching calmly.

Tory nodded, impressed anew at her friend's eventful history. "Could she read fortunes too?" Tory ventured. "Your mother?"

"No, oh no," Cybele chuckled. "My French grandmama taught me the cards. She saw the Revolution coming, the Terror. She saw it in the cards. When I be no bigger than my Edward, my grandmama say I had the gift. Her gift. The gift of sight. She named me for the mother goddess more ancient than the Greeks. And she taught me to respect La Grande Mere. The Great Mother."

"You mean Fortune?"

"Something far greater than Fortune, cherie. The mother of the earth and sky who is older than the gods of men."

"Sky Woman," Tory offered, her expression brightening. "My mother said she gave birth to Creator, who made all the world."

"Many people call her by many names," Cybele nodded. "She is the Virgin or the Lady. My African mother call her River Woman. She is the voice of the wind, the eye of the moon, the turning of the seasons. She is the heart of the world. Some hear her voice in dreams. Some, like my grandmama, see her hand in the cards."

"But, I thought the French were all Papists. Jack says that’s why the English distrust the Irish, because they share the French faith."

"The gods of men," Cybele snorted, working her needle. "What do they bring? Terror. Ruin."

"What became of your grandmother?" Tory wondered.

"She grew very old and wished to die in France. My papa sold his estate and took her home. We never saw them again."

"They left you behind? His wife and daughter?"

"White men do not marry their slaves," Cybele shrugged. "And these islands full of children left behind."

Tory scrutinized her friend for a long moment. "Like yours," she ventured. "You're not their real mother, are you?"

Cybele stitched on, undisturbed. "I clothe them and feed them and raise them up when no one else will. These little island mistakes nobody else care for."

"But…why do you do it?"

"Because somebody must. I have a gift for it, you see, for raising children, and it be most unwise to squander a gift from the Great Mother." Turning to Calypso, she added, "Run to Marcus' things, che, and bring me his old red kerchief. I snip a scrap that child never know is gone."

Calypso scrambled up and trotted out the door for the boys' little attic room, under the eaves.

"So many island children born for the wrong reason," Cybele continued, when the girl had gone. "Out of violence or because a woman know no better. Or because she wish to lessen her labor. Yes, it is a law," she added, to Tory's puzzled look. "A slave woman who give birth to six live babies may retire from the field to care for them."

"Six babies!" Tory blanched, seeing again her mother's lifeless face, dead in her childbed.

"Six live," Cybele corrected her. "Many women die in the attempt, and their babies with them. And some women wish to lighten the blood of their grandchildren with a buckra man."

Her look was so pointed, Tory knew she was speaking of Jack. A sore point for Tory, at the moment. Lately, Jack spent all his time with Marcus, or concocting business for their Harlequinade with Alphonse. Avoiding her. Retreating into that secret place inside himself where she could never follow. It was what she feared most, the cold, silent Jack as she had first known him on board the Providence, who gave nothing of himself away. She had fought so hard to earn his trust, loved him as ferociously as she could, yet she was always afraid it would not be enough. There were times she felt she might lose him in an instant, the blink of an eye, and never even know why. And she sighed aloud.

"Like your man?" Cybele murmured.

Tory glanced up to see Cybele attaching a patch to Jack’s trousers with swift, sharp strokes. Perhaps she was half-witch after all. "You think want Jack to—what did you say?—lighten the blood?" Tory fenced.

"But surely, he tell you what a precious gift it is, the white man’s seed," Cybele went on, addressing the trousers. "How women of our complexion long for it. Ah, there is witchcraft beyond the most skilled obeah! Three generations removed from the African grandmama and they call it Jamaica white. White by law. They all say their magic seed is a gift to the women they use, if she want to receive it or no."

"Jack does not 'use' me," Tory bristled. "We are partners in business."

"But, cherie, only two kinds of business a white man enters into with a woman of color. And, forgive me, but it be plain he no value you for your domestic skills."

"So if I am not his servant, I must be his whore?"

"Oh, la, la, la," Cybele cooed, as if she were soothing one of the children out of a temper, applying her needle vigorously to another patch. "Only listen, cherie. You need not submit to your man."

Tory could not suppress a laugh as she tried to imagine any aspect of her private relations with Jack that might be described as submission. But Cybele mistook the nature of her response.

"Or if you must, you need not suffer the consequences."

Tory looked up. "You can make the woman blood come?"

"I can. But that be a poor solution. Precaution always better than remedies after the fact."

At that moment, Calypso glided back into the room, Marcus’ red bandanna clutched in one hand and a fearful expression on her face. "I almost no find it, he hide it so deep away," the girl murmured, handing it to Cybele. "Then I find a ting inside."

Cybele shook out the red fabric and a roll of parchment fell into the patches in her lap. From the surprise, relief, anger and sadness that chased across Cybele's face as she gazed at it, Tory knew what it was.

"Your manumission."

Cybele nodded slowly. "He must have discovered it after we met up with you, and hidden it. He no want you to leave us. He want so much to be le bateleur, like Jack. He talk of nothing else."

"I’m sure he meant no harm," said Tory. "He’s a boy. He probably never even thought of the danger he put you all in."

"No, they never do think," Cybele sighed. "No one ever trouble to teach them. But they must learn if they are to survive." She glanced again at Tory, her expression apologetic but guarded. "I suppose Jack be very angry when he learn the trick we play on him."

"He was a boy, once," Tory smiled.

"We must tell him at once," Cybele decided. "He do us a great kindness in Old Road Town and we repay it by wasting your time."

"I’ll go now," Tory volunteered, gratefully pushing aside her half-patched skirt. "Only...first, Cybele, I need to consult you. On a matter of business."



Tory was soon scrambling down the rocky path to a hidden smugglers’ cove west of the town where Jack and Alphonse went to rehearse. When the tide was out, it offered privacy from the island road above, and a strip of soft, sandy beach for landing and falling.

She dropped down to the sand and followed the little crescent of beach back under the high, rocky overhang of scrub and dripping succulents. She was delighted to find Jack alone, standing at the edge of the blanket they spread out for tumbling, gazing up the leeward coast at nothing Tory could see.

"And I thought you came out here to work!" she called out.

Jack started and spun around to face her. "Rusty! What...a surprise. I was just thinking about you."

He had just been wondering when and how he was going to tell her goodbye, and damnation, here she was. But not now, not yet. It was too soon.

Tory noticed Jack was not smiling at her arrival, but she would soon fix that. "Where is Alphonse?" she asked casually.

"Off instructing the boys in the care of the wagon." In fact, he had lost patience with Jack’s melancholy and stalked off. "Did you not see them in the tavern yard?"

"I didn’t come that way. I was looking for you. I have good news."

Jack scarcely dared to look at her, she was so damned radiant about something. How could he even think of leaving her, even for her own good? But there would never be a better opportunity and he must stand firm in his resolve.

"I’ve something to tell you, as well," he murmured.

"Me first," she beamed up at him, slipping her hands around his waist. She thought she saw him hesitate for a moment before he rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. "You are a free man!"

"What?"

"Cybele found her manumission paper. She and the children are no longer your responsibility." When he did not respond, she frowned. "Hellfire, Jack, I thought you’d be pleased."

"I am. For her sake," Jack said, quickly. But so soon? They might leave for Antigua tomorrow, if they wished, there was no reason to stay here now. This might be his very last opportunity to hold Tory in his arms. He drew her an inch closer. "It was kind of you to come and tell me," he whispered.

"I haven’t come out of kindness," she grinned, grasping him by the hips and pulling him closer. "That’s not all my good news," she added, leaning up to steal a bold kiss. Jack felt the flesh melting off his bones.

"Rusty, it’s the middle of the day..."

"Well, I’m to play this Columbine, am I not?" Her hands slid down to close around his backside.

Jack would not let himself hold her any closer, but he could not stop himself lowering his face into her loosened hair. "Rusty ...please...listen to me..."

She bent back a little to peer up into his face. "Let me show you something. Some little business. You’ll enjoy it."

Her hands slid up to the small of his back, she smiled like an angel and her right leg suddenly hooked round the back of his knees, toppling him off his feet. Jack collapsed hard onto his tail bone and sprawled across the blanket as Tory fell on top of him, laughing.

"Hellfire, woman, are you trying to cripple me?" Jack roared.

"I have not yet begun," Tory declared, drawing up her skirt and bracing her bare knees astride him.

Jack closed his eyes for an instant, pressing his fisted hands into the blanket, but it was like trying to resist a hurricane, all wet, roaring heat and furious motion. So much for his resolve; he was standing firm, all right, in the wrong damn place. The ache in his groin intensified under her weight and he began to forget what an artless, helpless innocent Tory was, in need of his manly protection.

Tory yanked his shirt free of his trousers and peeled it up to his armpits, then drew the fingers of both her hands lightly down his naked torso. Jack yelped, his body jerking upwards under her touch.

"How can your hands be so cold in the middle of the tropics?"

"It’s been too long since you warmed me up," Tory murmured, bending down again to establish a slow, meandering tributary of kisses from the mole over Jack’s heart down to his navel. He groaned and his body arched up again, more slowly, feeding himself to her hungry mouth, and the last of his resolve evaporated as he thought, why not? Why not, this one last time?

Tory slid herself down over his knees and set her hands to work unfastening the flap of his trousers.

"I’ll be no good to you frozen," Jack warned.

"I’m warming up by the minute," she purred, peeling back the fabric and liberating him. Then Jack felt her mouth on him again.

"You didn’t ask me," Tory murmured, between kisses, "what my good news was."

"It seems to have...completely...oh...Christ...slipped my mind..."

"Cybele. She’s an herb woman."

"Nothing...could delight me...more," Jack groaned again.

"You don't understand," Tory laughed, sitting up but still kneading him gently in both her hands. "She has herbs for me. For us. Protective herbs."

Jack's arms were still bound awkwardly inside the sleeves of his twisted up shirt. "I understand that if you expect any help from me, you’d better untruss me this minute before it’s too late."

Laughing again, Tory scooted herself up to wrestle the twisted shirt off over his head. Before she could straighten up, Jack reached for the front of her bodice. She wasn’t even wearing a chemise underneath; when he put his hands inside, he felt warm flesh under his fingers. Tory moaned with pleasure, and with a Herculean effort of will, Jack sat up—he was not an acrobat for nothing—cast off her bodice, and lowered his face into her breasts. He could feel one of her hands creeping up into his hair and the other snaking down his spine, caressing every one of his old scars. He lifted his face to kiss the upward slope of her breast, the hollow at the base of her throat, her neck, her chin, working his mouth at last along the underside of her jaw.

'Warming up now, are we?" he murmured against her ear.

"Mmm. Like a torch. You could roast a pig over me."

"Maybe later. If I run out of other ideas."

His hand gently cupped her cheek and he kissed her mouth. She had begun to rock to some purpose in his lap, and he managed to tumble her over onto her back while still cradling her close in his arms. She kicked free of her skirt, still fastened around her waist, and wrapped her long legs around his exposed backside. Her next breath came out in a whimper, and Jack smiled.

"Did I not tell you to let me help?" His mouth brushed her cheek again, then he whispered, "You’re sure about those herbs...?"

"Very, very sure," Tory moaned, sliding both her hands down the long curve of his back. Cybele had not won her reputation by not knowing her business. "It’s my worry now, hombre, not yours. Stop being so sensible."

"A sensible man would have burned you at the stake long before now, mi bruja."

"A sensible woman would never, ever let you out of her sight again." Tory urged her body upwards and pulled Jack down to her. How long had they been apart from each other? How long had she let Jack be the sensible one, protecting her? She must have been out of her mind. "I’ll not be...separated from you...any more," she whispered.

"Don’t worry, mi vida, I’m not going anywhere," Jack vowed. And he knew it was true; he could never give her up. He lacked the strength and the courage to give her up. And the cruelty. He could not abandon her, as he had abandoned others. They belonged to each other as surely as if they had been carved out of the same flesh and bone. They would face English Harbour together, as they had faced everything else, and damn the consequences. He was hers for as long as she wanted him.

Then, too, what a splendid, wanton Columbine she would make! What a pleasure it would be to play her Harlequin. He could not help chuckling as he rocked in her arms, just to think of it.

"It’s good to hear you laugh again, hombre," Tory murmured, raking his back very gently with her fingers. "I’ve missed you so much."

"I’ll be singing...bloody Heart of Oak ...in a minute."

"Save your breath," she giggled. "You’ll need it."




"I did promise to ruin you," Tory reminded him, much later.

"I assumed it was a figure of speech," Jack groaned, stretched out across the rumpled blanket with just enough strength left to keep his chin propped up on his folded arms. Hidden under the overhang of the cliff, they had loved each other with heedless abandon until they were bruised and sore and sated. Curled up beside him, Tory could not resist running her fingertips down the long, slick groove of his spine. Jack groaned again, his head dropped forward across his arms and Tory laughed.

After awhile, Jack fell asleep beside her and Tory was content to let her eyes rake over him. Sun and weather and hardship and fever had all taken their toll on his raw-boned frame. But rough-hewn as it was, Jack’s body was neatly plumbed and joined together, despite the fretwork of old flogging scars across his back, a relic from his time in the merchant fleet and other, less savory berths. Asleep, his long limbs carelessly outstretched under the overhang, beneath a primordial riot of flowering vines and plump, cascading succulents, he looked like the first man on earth in the morning of the world. And Tory knew she had reclaimed him. For now.

Later, he rolled onto his feet and sauntered down the sandy strip of beach to bathe in the warm sea. If there were such things as mermen, she thought they must look a lot like Jack when he emerged again out of the surf, seawater glistening like fish scales in the curly hair of his chest and belly and groin, dark hair slicked back and falling in wet coils to his shoulders.

The civilized world seemed very far away.

"Are you worried about English Harbour," Tory ventured, later, hoping that was all that had been worrying him all along.

"We’re in danger wherever we go, Alphonse is right about that," Jack replied." I suppose there's a sort of safety in numbers if we stay together."

"Marcus wants to come with us. Cybele told me."

"I know," Jack sighed. "I’ve tried to take no notice of his hints, but he’s damned persistent, that boy. What does Cybele think of it?"

"She says he talks of nothing else. She thinks he must hear the voice of the Great Mother because he wants it so much."

"The Great Mother?"

Tory nodded, "the goddess of all things. When the Great Mother makes you want something, you must pursue it at all costs."

"It can’t be much of a religion if it allows people to do whatever they want." Jack observed.

"It’s not a religion, exactly. She’s more like a benevolent spirit. Heed her wisdom and she’ll bring you good fortune."

"Well, we’d better have the lad along, then," Jack nodded. "And the Great Mother, as well. We’ll need all the good fortune we can get, where we’re going."

(Top: Harlequin and Columbine. Toy theatre illustration, published by William West, 1824. As seen on www.benpentreath.com)