Chapter 38: PLEDGES REDEEMED

Tory sat perched on the stool in the dark of the wagon, as the minutes crawled by like centuries. Captain Billy had the idea to keep Alphonse and Calypso and the boys safe in his caravan, where they were not expected to be; if the militia came back, they would be far less likely to bully an English gentleman like Billy Bruce about the property in his wagon. Tory had begged Cybele and Ada to share her wagon, or let her sit up on watch with the rest of them, but Ada would not be parted from Captain Billy, nor Cybele from the place where her children were. But Tory knew they did not wish to intrude upon what was already perceived as her sorrow.

She jumped now, every time she heard a rider pounding down the road, or the distant howling of dogs. But whenever she raced to the window, all she ever saw was an empty track, and the late moon growing smaller and paler as she crossed the arc of the sky.

Oh, Goddess! Listen to my hopeful cries,
Your mortal sister. Do not turn away!

What rubbish. It seemed like a thousand years since she had chanted that rhyme. Every day of life would be an eternity without Jack. The devil was making play, all right, and she could do nothing but sit here, waiting. And she rushed to the window again, eyes straining into the night, trying somehow to mold the darkness into Jack’s familiar silhouette, loping along as if nothing were the matter. But all she could conjure out of the shadows was the shape of an officer bringing her bad news, or even a party of militiamen, drunk with their blood sport, bringing back a long, twisted body to fling into the dirt beneath the wagon as a warning to other meddlers.

Nonsense, she scolded herself, there was no reason for anyone to connect Jack with the slave conspirators. No reason except Alphonse. And his presence on the estate on the fateful day. If Jack was discovered as the conspirators’ hostage, would the militia be more or less convinced of his innocence? Would they take special pains to insure his safety because of his white skin, or sacrifice him willingly in the crossfire? And if Constable Raleigh was one of the militiamen who discovered Jack… There were so many ways for a man to die, that’s what Captain Hart always said. It was damned odd that she could not will the dark to assume Jack’s living shape before her eyes, when she could see him battered and lifeless in the dirt of some nameless roadside gully all too clearly.

A creak brought her head snapping round to face the door. It might have been the melancholy sigh of a tree limb in the wind, but the dark seam between the door and the frame seemed to widen. Tory tried to blink away the hallucination, but the door was moving. She leaped for the tinder box and the cold lantern on the shelf before her. A hand shot out of the darkness, closing on her wrist.

"No, Rusty, not yet."

She dropped the tinder box, clutched at Jack’s hand, lurched toward his ragged voice and found him in the dark, throwing her arms around him as he swayed against her. His shirt was soaked and smelled of sweat and smoke and ripe earth, his skin was hot and wet and his lungs heaved against her, struggling for air. She clung to him long enough to feel the racket of his heartbeat, the desperate strength in his arms wrapping around her. When she tried to step back to let him breathe, he would not let her go.

"Is…Alphonse back yet?" he managed to gasp, at last.

"Hours ago!" Her words burst out of her like a sob, the spell of fearful silence broken. "Oh, Jack, oh, God, I’ve been so frightened! When Alphonse came back alone—"

"I know, I know, I’m so sorry."

Her hands felt for his face with desperate gentleness. "Are you all right? You’re not hurt?"

"No, no," He bore her caress, then pressed his face into her hair. "A few scratches from crawling about in the scrub, but—"

"Alphonse said he saw Constable Raleigh."

"He did." Jack’s arms tensed around her. "Where is Alphonse? We must get him away from here."

"Now? Why?"

"He’s implicated in the slave plot—"

"By Venus, you mean?"

Jack’s head came up. " What do you know about her? No, but there’ll be other witnesses soon enough. Any one of those fellows they catch. I saw the soldiers trying to flog it out of 'em; they’ll get the names they want before long. I’m surprised the militia hasn’t been here already."

"But they have. Jack, listen to me. They were watching us all evening. They found Alphonse here, but they let him go."

Jack stared at her, puzzled; his face looked exhausted in the fragile moonlight.

"There were dozens of witnesses who swore he’d been here all night," Tory went on. "Including the militiamen."

"But...how?"

"Marcus. He wore the Punch costume."

Jack continued to stare at her, speechless. Whatever reserve of strength had brought him this far was fast draining away.

"Come sit down, hombre." Tory steered him to the bunk and he sank down heavily on its edge. "I’ll fetch some water. Are you hungry...?" She started to turn away toward the water jug, but Jack caught her hand.

"In a minute," he whispered.

So she sat down beside him, cradling his hand in both of hers. "Why did you send Alphonse back alone?"

"There were militia all over the damned place, he had to get away from there. He was the one they suspected, not me. If he'd been found anywhere near the conspirators—" Jack shook his head. "Our Alphonse is a man of many gifts, but running like the wind is not among them."

Tory could not quite smile, but she pressed his hand against her cheek. She saw him wince in the same moment she felt his sticky palm against her own skin.

"Hellfire, Jack, what’s happened to your hand?" She drew his hand toward the moonlit window, saw a ragged scorched circle of dark blisters.

"It was hellfire." His voice was a dry rasp.

"I’m going to get Cybele—"

"No, Rusty, please. Stay. Please stay."

His desperate expression made her sit down again, slide her arms around him, hold him again for another long moment when neither of them could speak. His grip was like a drowning man clinging to his only lifeline. What terrible things had he seen on the mountain tonight?

"I’m going to take care of your hand," she said evenly, at last, stroking his damp hair. "Tell me what happened."

"It was Raleigh." Jack sat up wearily again as Tory slipped away to the shelf where Cybele kept her pots of balm.

"Raleigh did this to you?"

Jack shook his head. "Raleigh is dead."

Tory’s head spun around. "Are you sure?"

"Completely."

"By whose hand?" she demanded; her blood was crashing in her ears.

"His own. It was an accident."

Tory brought Jack a cup of drinking water and sat down beside him with a basin of washwater and strips of gauze and a pot of balm. She tended his burnt hand as he gulped down the water and described the inferno that had been Stephen Raleigh’s last moments of life on earth.

"It was Fortune," Tory whispered fiercely when the awful tale was over. "I wished him dead. I can’t say I’m sorry."

"No," Jack said grimly. "Odd, though, how little satisfaction there was in it."

Tory nodded, still cradling Jack’s bandaged hand in hers. She would have expected to feel triumphant in this moment, as if she had won a great victory, but she only felt sad and disheartened.

"In a peculiar way, I suppose he died for what he believed in," Jack suggested. "No less than Alphonse’s companions."

"He believed in nothing but his own hatred," Tory sighed.

"Aye. And that, unfortunately has not died with him."

Jack had slumped back against the wall, and Tory crept alongside him. She put her head on his chest and her arms around his middle, in spite of his rank clothing. The merry, charmed world of Harlequin and Colombine and Mr. Punch, gaily dancing the grateful slaves to freedom, now seemed very far away. What a foolish conceit it had been. Jack’s arms closed around her and they were both quiet.

"There’ll be nothing but blood and death and misery in these islands, soon, mi vida," Jack murmured. "Slavery can’t continue for much longer. The planters can’t keep flaunting their privilege in the face of the people whose labor supports them, and expect them to accept their lot gratefully, because it’s convenient. As if they lacked the dreams and the heart and the muscle of other men to want something better. But how it will end, and at what cost to whom, that’s the issue. If there’s a war between the blacks and the whites and the people of color, what will happen to you and me and Alphonse? What becomes of our partnership, then? How can we possibly choose sides?"

"You think it will be a war?"

"It is now, only the planters don’t know it." Jack sighed. "Yet. But I know this much. It’s time for us to go home."

"Home?" Tory echoed, her voice hollow. "Where’s that?"

"England. And we must take Alphonse with us."

Tory drew a deep, silent breath. "You could be hanged for a pirate, Jack."

"I’m more likely to be hanged for an actor. Besides, Jack Danzador, the scourge of the Spanish Main is long gone."

"What about the Bath Hotel?" Tory fenced.

"We must tender our regrets, and leave the Bruces to fill the bill with their usual panache. Most unprofessional of us, but we can scarcely take the engagement at the risk of Alphonse’s life."

"But why England?"

"Because it will be safer for Alphonse. We are running out of islands here. It’s only a matter of time before someone positively connects him to this slave plot. Or the next one. He’s not an easy figure to mistake. But no one owns slaves in England. Of course..." He frowned at her wistfully. "If it was just us, we might return to the sea."

Tory shook her head. "That part of our life is over, hombre. Besides, Alphonse is a terrible sailor."

Jack nodded. "We can make a living in England, I’ve done it before. Unless you'd rather go back to Boston."

"I’d sooner swing from a gibbet at Gallow’s Point!" Tory exclaimed.

She felt the hum of laughter in Jack’s chest. "You confound me, Rusty. Most women would be in a fit of hysterics by now."

"I was saving those for when you didn’t come back." But her own words chilled her and she leaned up to find Jack’s mouth, and kissed him to stop her own shivering. He clasped her tightly to him, then abruptly let her go, and she realized she was tasting dirt and soot.

"Sorry, Rusty. I’m completely foul."

"As if I cared." But she got up to retrieve the washbasin and pour more water, while he pulled off his shirt.

"Whose idea was it to send Marcus out as Punch?" Jack asked as she finished mopping down his back.

"Mine. Calypso altered the outfit."

"It was brilliant."

"It was nearly a disaster. The militia almost found him out."

"But they didn’t. Alphonse can thank you for saving his neck."

"It’s Marcus he must thank. Oh, Jack, he was so wonderful, never a moment’s nerves or hesitation. You would have been so proud of him. If he hadn’t been so convincing..." She shook her head as she wrung out her cloth. "I couldn’t stuff all the costumes."

"What?"

She told him about the stuffed Harlequin. "I didn’t expect anyone to think it was you, exactly, but you can’t have a pantomime without Harlequin, can you? All the characters had to be accounted for, and the poem was meant to explain it."

"Poem?" Jack echoed, amazed.

"Oh, you know, a verse to set the scene, like you always write."

"You wrote a poem? Since this morning?" When she nodded, he smiled just a little. "Well, let’s have it."

"Oh, Jack, it’s so silly..." But he insisted she recite it from beginning to end. When she finished, he said nothing at all, making her even more uneasy. "I told you it was no good."

"It was perfect." He reached out to take both her hands in his. "I’ve sailed with few enough men who could have kept a cool head for as long as you did, tonight. And I’m damned if any of ‘em would have the wit to write a poem into the bargain. I only wish I could tell you the worst of it was over."

"It’ll never be over, not for us," Tory sighed. "Not in this place. But even Alphonse says it would look suspicious to leave tonight. You must try to sleep now, while you can."



But it was not a night for repose. The oppressive stillness had rolled off the mountain to embrace the town, and while Tory’s brain grew dull, her eyelids were on springs; she could not force them to close. She could feel Jack lying awake beside her, jerking himself out of every fitful doze before he could dream, until she put her arms around him and felt the tension under his cold flesh. Half-asleep herself, she maneuvered her hands gently down his sides, caught him by the hips and shifted under him. His arms closed like a vise beneath her, and her kindly impulse to calm him gave way to something more selfish.

"Love me, Jack. I thought I’d lost you forever."

"I swore I would never leave you, mi vida."

She could feel him stirring, marshaling his strength, moving under her touch, coming to life. Her body arched high against his, warm and strong and heavy in her arms, as irresistible as a gale, but sweet, so sweet.

"Hold on to me, Rusty. Don’t let me go."

"Never, ever," she chanted back, "I swear it."

The slow, deep spasm of pleasure made her gasp. Part of her was ashamed for enjoying herself, enjoying Jack’s body, on such a night. But there was a kind of defiant triumph in it, too. This was the side she must always choose. Love. Survival. Life.

In another heartbeat, Jack shuddered to relief in her arms. She held on to him for a few more minutes until he sank into the exhausted sleep he needed, and for which there was so little time.



It was still dark when Alphonse came tapping at the wagon door. It seemed that only minutes had passed since they’d first crept into bed, but Tory rolled over groggily to see Jack already up and washing at the basin.

"Are you a child?" Alphonse demanded, when Jack let him in. "What did you mean, telling Victoria what you’d heard? Do you know what they do to those they suspect of having information?"

"You should have thought of that before you became involved," Jack retorted. "You, of all people! Why did you do it?"

Alphonse lowered his head and muttered something Tory could not hear. But the effect on Jack was electric. He stared down at Alphonse for a moment, then sank down to his haunches, as if the air had been let out of him, mouthing an oath. He put a hand on Alphonse’s shoulder, and mumbled something contrite.

"Because of me," Tory spoke softly from the bed. Both men turned to look at her, and she knew she had guessed right.

"I traded a pledge to find you, Victoria," Alphonse murmured. "It had to be redeemed. It was…a small price to pay." Jack’s bandaged hand slid off his shoulder, and Alphonse caught it and looked at it, and then up at Jack. "What happened yesterday was perhaps the most foolish thing you have ever done," he scolded Jack. "I owe you my life and many others far more valuable than mine. Do not think I am happy about it."

"It’s going to get worse," Jack sighed. "We’re going to England."

Tory rolled her eyes to the heavens, wondering why Jack had not thought to soften the news. Alphonse's gaze did not waver.

"We?" he echoed.

"All of us," Jack nodded. "You and me and Tory."

"To England? An entire nation of the English?"

"It’s only another island," said Jack. "An island without slaves."

Alphonse considered the proposition, folding his arms across his chest. "And I am expected to give up all my work here?"

"Your work here is finished," Jack declared, rising again. "You are too visible. The planters and their lawmakers may not know exactly what you’re up to, but they understand that you’re a threat to everything they believe in. Even if they can’t prove your involvement in Gingerland, they will never leave you alone after this."

"So I am to simply...run away."

"No. Continue your work in the only place where it might do some good," Jack urged, perching on the end of the bunk. "Escapes and risings won’t put an end to slavery, you know that. They will only create new martyrs. But the laws of England might, if enough voices agitate for it. It’s not a crime there to speak out for freedom."

Alphonse continued to gaze at him, saying nothing.

"There will be a reckoning in these islands in any event, and soon," Jack continued. "Would you not rather have a hand in the rebuilding? You have so much to teach these people, but you must stay alive. You can teach them nothing from the grave."

Alphonse considered. "And when must we go?"

"Soon. Before they can...persuade any conspirators into naming you."

Alphonse looked away. "Perhaps this is the best plan," he murmured. Then he turned again to look at them both. "But you need not come with me when your life is here."

Jack glanced at Tory. It had never occurred to them to separate from Alphonse, no more than they would have thought of parting from each other.

"Are we not partners?" said Jack.

"Even so, you must not uproot yourselves," Alphonse persisted, "leave all this behind..."

Jack glanced all round the wagon’s interior. Some creaking shelves, a few lopsided baskets of mismatched clothing, some plain sticks of hand-hewn furnishings. "It’s not so much," he grinned.

"But you would do this...for me?"

"Jack misses England," Tory explained to Alphonse. "He wants to go home."

Jack half-turned where he sat on the end of the bed, to look at her in mild surprise. She supposed the simple truth of it had never entered his mind.

"And what do you want, Victoria?" Alphonse asked her.

"I want you safe, both of you. And I want us to stay together. It doesn’t matter to me where we go."

Jack was still gazing at her. His hand crept across to where she sat and covered hers.

"It will be very different from the islands," he apologized.

"Colder, for one thing,” suggested Alphonse.

"Aye," Jack agreed. "And busier. And dirtier, at least in the towns."

"But we’ll be together," Tory said stoutly. "And we’ve been through worse."

"And what about the others?" Alphonse’s voice was very quiet, but his words echoed like cathedral bells all round the room.

"Why…we'll…take 'em with us," Jack faltered.

"Cybele will never leave the islands," said Tory. "This is her home."

"We cannot carry them off to a nation of the English without a penny to protect them," Alphonse agreed.

"Since when are you penniless?"

"Escapes are costly," muttered Alphonse. "Transport must be arranged, safe houses secured. Silences must be bought." He shook his head. "How soon can you be ready to leave?"

Jack looked at Tory, who nodded back. "Today. Now. But if there’s martial law—"

"Be ready in half an hour," Alphonse told them. "Sunup. Pack lightly. I know how to get off this island."



(Top: Homecoming, by Lisa Jensen © 2010)

Chapter 31: THE LORD OF MISRULE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of them was Alphonse.

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

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

Then he and his companion retreated deeper into the wood.

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

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

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

"Nothing," he lied.




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

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

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

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

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

"I have other matters that need looking into."

"But where will you go?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Bon chance, Alphonse," she whispered.

He stepped back and showed her something like a smile.

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




"Tell my fortune, Cybele."

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

"I do if it's happy."

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

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

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

"Tempt fate to do what?" murmured Cybele.

"To find us out. Have her revenge."

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

Tory nodded emphatically toward the cards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, what else?" Tory persisted.

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

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


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

Chapter 24: SOMETHING ON ACCOUNT

Mr. Theophilus Jepson, gentleman of business, sat back in his comfortable armchair in the private apartment above his warehouse overlooking the docks of Basseterre. He had offered to pour his visitor a glass of port from the crystal decanter that occupied the small end table between them, but his offer had been graciously declined. As ever, his old friend Belair was one for getting straight to the business at hand.

"I need not tell you how grateful I was to receive your message," said Alphonse. "I had begun to think our cause was lost."

"Never give way to despair," Jepson advised. "Anything may happen. Growing up in these islands ought to have taught you that."

Alphonse had thought himself beyond any more despair until these last few days. Jack grew more haggard and ashen with each false lead that came to naught, each informant who had nothing to barter, each day that Victoria’s trail grew colder. A gaunt and withered desolation was stealing into the the limbs that had been so agile, the face that had been so alert with pleasure when Jack was playing Harlequin. The role Alphonse had duped him into playing, at such cost.

"Even so, if you have any news at all, you must consider me forever in your debt," Alphonse replied.

"Oh, come, my friend, we are beyond such petty score-keeping after all this time," Jepson chuckled. When he smiled above his glass of port, in that open-faced way, round-cheeked and merry-eyed, his curly brown hair cut short above neat side-whiskers, he looked to Alphonse very like the enterprising Bristol merchant who had sired him. Brought up in the family business when his father’s legitimate heirs proved unfit for the labor, Jepson had a nose for profit and an aptitude for delicate negotiations that rivaled that of any full-blooded Englishman in the Indies. "It’s my pleasure to return a favor to a friend. Have we not always fought on the same side in all of our battles together?"

"Against all reason," Alphonse admitted. On the petition endorsing slavery by the free people of color in Basseterre, the signature of Theophilus Jepson had been notably absent. "But I must say I find your morality somewhat aberrant among free gentlemen of your class."

"Slavery is bad for business," Jepson replied crisply. "You and I both know it. A fellow needs to earn something on his own account to take an interest in the work. Raise your laborers to the lash, and you breed a work force of sullen rebels itching for revenge, a damned reckless situation and an unprofitable one. Factor in the expense of keeping 'em all fed and clothed, and tending their sick, and your profits dwindle even further. No, the institution cannot last, and any aid we can give toward its demise shall only improve everyone’s lot in the long run." He took another sip of port and set down his glass. "I employ only free persons who earn a wage. All of them, domestics, clerks, porters, warehousemen, even the sailors on my ships, have an interest in the business, a stake in our mutual success. It is amazing what a vast and loyal network they have become. Very little occurs in Basseterre that escapes their notice. Or cannot be found out."

Alphonse straightened in his armchair. This was what he had come to hear at this late hour, in this private place.

"My people have been making discreet inquiries for days to no avail," Jepson continued. "It seemed that your friend had disappeared from the very sight of Almighty God, himself. But this morning I spoke to one of my boatman. He has a lady friend whose cousin is a slave jobbed out in private service. He often walks abroad at night along the waterfront. This fellow has a story to tell that might interest you."

"It might, if it is true. I have heard a great many stories this week that were not."

"There is nothing to be gained from lying. I have offered no reward. From what my people have gleaned since he came to us, his tale seems very plausible, indeed."

"Is the person I seek alive?" Alphonse asked quietly.

"As far as anyone knows. There is no reason to suspect otherwise."

Alphonse allowed himself to breathe again, grateful not to have to imagine Jack’s face if the answer had been different.

"Is she—?"

"More than that I cannot reveal at this moment," Jepson interrupted calmly.

Alphonse cast him a sharp glance. He knew his old ally far too well, the canny trader. Too clever by half. "Because there is a price?"

Jepson inclined his head very slightly, as if to duck the implication of Alphonse’s word. "A condition only, and a very slight one."

"What sort of a fellow bargains when a woman’s life is at stake?" Alphonse demanded. "Has he no conscience?"

"He has. That is why he came to me," Jepson replied. "But I have a conscience as well. And so do you, my friend." When Alphonse did not respond, he went on. "It is a wrong and shameful thing that has been done to your friend. But wrong and shameful things are done to people every day in these islands. I can tell you where your friend has gone. But I will need something on account."

There was nothing but still, black night out beyond the shuttered windows. A warm, conspiratorial darkness surrounded them in their two armchairs, lit only by a single lamp upon the little table between them. A dark, secretive place for striking bargains. But the shadows were alive to Alphonse. He could see Victoria’s vibrant, laughing face as she tumbled about in her Columbine patches, then he imagined her broken, bowed, and enslaved. Because of him. He saw Jack’s desolate face of these last few days, without hope, his life in ruins. Because of him.

"What must I do, Theo?"

"It is a small thing only that we ask of you," Jepson assured him. "A pledge. There are persons on the island of Nevis who may be in need of your particular skills and knowledge in the future."

Alphonse knew it was not his skill and knowledge of the juggler’s art to which Jepson referred. And he had heard enough rumors on Nevis to understand the gravity of the situation there.

"Are you not engaged to play at the Bath Hotel next season?" Jepson went on. "Never mind how I know, that is the very point of having informants. You must understand that your position as a trusted employee of the Bath Hotel, coming and going as you please, could be very useful."

In the event of a rising, or some other foolhardy action, Alphonse supposed. He saw again the flames of Whitehall, and shook his head.

"The cause of freedom needs no more martyrs," he said.

"Yet every man and woman has a right to be free," Jepson countered. "You of all people would not dispute that principle. Who are we to judge who may gamble with Fortune and who must bide their time in chains?"

"What is it you ask of me?"

"Only what any friend may ask of another. That if someone comes to you in need of assistance on Nevis, you will place yourself at their service."

Alphonse tried to shut out the shots and the screams and the acrid stench of death from Whitehall. The tentacles of riot and ruin were reaching out to engulf him again. It took all of his will to turn away from Betsy’s innocent, youthful face, and focus instead on Victoria’s face. And Jack’s. His partners and friends. Wounded and despairing, but still alive. So far.

"You have my pledge," he murmured.



"A smugglers' auction?" Jack echoed, dismayed.

"It is not so legal as the public vendue, yet the participants—"

"I know what goes on. But how did Tory fall into their hands?"

"She was delivered there." Alphonse breathed a grim sigh. "By the chief constable, himself."

Jack stared back at him. "Old mole, canst thou work i’ the earth so fast?" he muttered, almost to himself. Then he added, with chilling calm, "I’ll murder that bastard."

"Business before sport," Alphonse advised. "The high bidder was a Dutchman, who left the place with Victoria late that night. But he turned up the next day claiming he’d been waylaid and his... purchase made off with. He was known to be drunk the night before, so no one paid him any mind, supposing that his new slave simply got away from him."

"Might that not be so?" ventured Jack.

Alphonse shook his head. "Our witness saw the Dutchman and the woman leave the tavern. Because he is accustomed to hailing a boat for the Dutchman when he is in his cups, he followed them to the beach. He saw Victoria carried off by the crewmen from another ship, perhaps a rival ship. They sailed that night."

"But...why?" Jack frowned. Stealing hands to serve in ships was as old a practice as sailing itself. His own seafaring career had begun when he was knocked on the head outside a Thameside grog shop and spirited off aboard a merchant craft of such ill repute, she could not obtain a crew by any other means. But it was men who were snatched up in this manner, not women, and there had apparently been no doubt on this night of Tory's gender. Who would steal a woman in the dead of night? A slave trader, like those that still plied the Gold Coast of Africa? A procurer recruiting boat girls for the sailors at English Harbour? "Was this...rival ship some sort of slaver?" he asked Alphonse.

"I do not know. The witness believes it is another smuggling vessel, disguised as a coaster. He is acquainted with many smugglers in this neighborhood, but he knew no one from this ship, although he has seen her before."

"Does he know where she went, this ship?"

"He does not. But Mr. Jepson employs many people in the seaports and waters of this island. The ship we seek was seen sailing into the waters off of Sandy Point Town last evening. It would appear her people still have business on this island."

Jack was not at all surprised. There were dozens of private planters’ docks nestled in the reeds and scrub and hidden inlets of this coast. He and Tory had explored many of them on their first journey around St. Kitts, when he was teaching her the juggling trade. Any ship laden with goods the planters desired, that did not care to pay a call at the Custom House in Basseterre, might be kept busy for weeks along the coast, trading on her own account. It was not impossible to imagine that such a vessel might traffic in slaves.

"What does this ship look like?" he asked.

"A sloop with a single mast. Gaff-rigged and shallow draught, I was told, if that means anything to you."

"Fast, like a cutter," Jack nodded. "A smuggler, all right."

"She sometimes sails into port under Dutch colors, but not always."

Jack frowned. "That describes half the vessels in the Indies. How will I know her?"

"She flies a small pennant with a particular device. A gold circle marked with a cross under a star on a blue field." Alphonse shrugged. "It is some mariner’s symbol, perhaps?"

"It might be a compass rose, a charm for navigation. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find her." Jack got to his feet and plucked his purse out of the small litter of his few belongings on the scarred little table of their hired room, withdrawing two coins. "Have one of your people hire me a post-horse, the fastest in Basseterre," he went on, handing the coins to Alphonse. "I want it here in a quarter of an hour. And see if your friend Jepson can lend me a spyglass."

Alphonse hopped down to the floor, his face furrowed in irritation. "You know I do not ride—"

"Nor do you swim, and you sail only under protest," Jack agreed, pulling his things together. "That is why I must go on alone."

"But—"

"You have done everything you can, Alphonse. I'm grateful beyond words, but there is nothing more you can do. A good horse will get me to Sandy Point Town in three hours, much faster than a carriage. Even another ship, assuming Jepson had one to spare, would have tides and wind to contend with, getting out of Basseterre road at this hour."

"But suppose the ship you seek has gone?"

"I’ll find her again," Jack declared. "There are smugglers’ coves all over this island and I know where most of 'em are."

"Victoria might not even be aboard—"

"But someone on that ship will know where she went," said Jack, sliding his knife into his waistband with cool, expert precision.

"This is foolishness!" Alphonse insisted. "You will need my help again."

"I need your help now," Jack urged him. "Please, Alphonse. Help me. We are wasting time."

"What am I to do after you are gone?" Alphonse grumbled.

"Go back to Cybele. I will feel much better knowing Marcus and the others are under your protection."

"What shall I tell them?"

"The truth. I’ve gone after Tory. But I must do this thing alone."

Alphonse nodded.

"And tell them..." Jack paused, and saw again Marcus’ small, dark, tear-stained face, awash with guilt that he had abandoned Tory and was sending Jack off to his doom. What could he possibly say to the boy? There was nothing more to be said, only work to be done. He turned abruptly back to his things. "Tell them I wish them well," he muttered.

"You may tell them yourself. When you bring Victoria back to us."


(Top: Urban Porters, Rio de Janeiro, 1819-1826. Image Reference vista06, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library)

Chapter 21: IN MEDUSA'S WEB

Boisterous laughter, fiddling, and singing erupted out of the waterfront tavern, drawing Tory along through the night shadows. She was near enough to see its fanciful wooden sign, swaying and creaking in the light breeze, a crudely carved figure of a mermaid with a head full of snakes, like the tangle of a spider's web. The Old Medusa Tavern, it was called, hard by the broad beach overlooking the bay. Sailors were notoriously loose talkers; if she was ever to find a ship to take her off this wretched island, it would be here.

It was typical of Tory’s recent fortune to find herself in Basseterre again, the last place on earth she ought to be. But the river had brought her to the southern coast, some little distance west of Basseterre, but considerably east of Old Road Town, and she didn’t think her scavenged food or her luck would last long enough for her to make her way to some friendlier town. Besides, Basseterre in crop time was the busiest port in the Leewards, and she knew the dockside area well, knew it was her best chance get back to the sea. How else would she ever find Jack again?

She had tried to close Jack out of her thoughts during her captivity; she would not conjure him up in that place to share her misery. But during the long nights on the run, and tense waiting days of her journey down the mountain, she had been able to think of nothing else. Not only the comfort of his warm, strong body, which she ached for every hour, but the solace of his companionship. And something much more—she hungered to be known, again, to be recognized for who she was. Not the prisoner, not the slave, not the runaway. So many people knew bits and pieces of her, by the patchwork motley she dressed herself in out of necessity in her erratic journey through life. But only Jack understood the whole of her. Only Jack could tether her to the truth about herself.

It was long dark by the time she'd ventured into the town and made her way through the back streets for the waterfront. She could see masts bobbing out in the open roadstead, their lights winking in the dark, but she dared not present herself to any honest captain, looking as she did, a mud-caked runaway in filthy rags with nothing of value to trade for her passage. But she might stow away aboard a vessel in secret; she’d done it before. Getting out of Basseterre was her first concern, she would worry about the rest later.

It was not impossible that she might work for her passage, female or no, once the ship’s master saw what she could do. A trader between the islands would be best, with stops in Nevis and Antigua, where she might hear news of the pantomime players. But any vessel would do, so long as it got her out of Basseterre and back on the open sea, where she could clear her wits and get a grip on herself. Then she could decide where to head next. Wherever Jack had gone.

She knew Chief Constable Raleigh patrolled the town in the daylight, but the nighttime belonged to the watch. What business would Raleigh have down by the docks in the dead of night? So she'd made her way through the shadows to the noisiest tavern, the Medusa, hoping to find out who was sailing where, and on what ships, and how soon. It should not take long to overhear what she needed to know. Anything worth hearing, she would hear there.

Tory turned down into the alleyway behind the buildings, keeping to the shadows. She felt in her dirty apron pocket for her last strip of salt fish. Remembering Alphonse’s advice about kindly kitchen women, she had gone begging last night to an old Negro woman tending a pot of cook-up at a cluster of slave cabins above the river. Tory said she was going to visit her mama in Basseterre without a ticket-of-leave, and the old cook took pity on her and gave her a small, precious ration of salt fish. It had been an easy lie to tell, and effective, for slaves often wandered off to visit their relations without their master's knowledge. Slaves accomplished a great deal, she was learning, without their masters' knowledge.

The abandoned little hut by the broken bush had grown close and sweltering in the heat of the day, but it kept Tory securely hidden until nightfall. On her second night following the river down the mountain, she found another shelter, a tiny lean-to hidden under a carpet of green moss and climbing jasmine. There were many such places hidden along the river route, if one had the wit to look: here an abandoned watchman’s hut inhabited only by spiders and lizards, there a hand-built shelter hidden behind the huge fan of a traveler’s palm, recently swept clean. She couldn't account for it. In the pirate trade, she would have called it Blesséd Providence.

She crept through the dark to the back of the tavern, where more modulated, businesslike voices hummed beneath the ongoing riot from the front. Some sort of meeting, she supposed, contrabandistas striking their bargains and getting ready to sail on the tide. She came out of the deepest shadows, crept up on the planked wooden porch to position herself closer to the jalousied windows next to the back door, where hushed voices and stripes of soft light filtered out between the slats. But the words were indistinct. She crept closer.

A sudden heavy tread shook the planks under her feet, and the door was flung open. Tory dodged backward into the dark as a cloaked figure stepped outside, but the shock of light behind him blinded her and she lost her footing. She tripped over a chicken in the dark who set up a fearful squawk, and stumbled backward into a cart in the shadows, with a thump and a rattling of traces. The man halted on the wooden porch, still framed in the light of the doorway.

"Who’s that?" he growled.

Tory wedged herself between the cart and the wall, but that damned chicken was still scrabbling about, clucking and complaining. Perhaps he would think that was all he’d heard. Any casual passer-by would let it go, the night was full of noises. But the man came out into the road, following the sound of the chicken, poking purposefully into the shadows. Some smuggler, no doubt, on the lookout for spies. Damnation. Could she possibly have any worse luck?

"You might as well come out of there," sneered a cold voice, and Tory knew her luck had turned worse. She could not run through walls or evaporate into the air. And as a hand closed on her arm and dragged her out into the pale light from the tavern door, she found herself staring into the scowling face of Chief Constable Raleigh.

"You!" gaped the constable, for an instant as shocked as she was. "What are you doing here?"

"I might ask the same of you," Tory snapped back, but the fight was already draining out of her, following the downward plunge of her heart. How could she have come this far, endured so much, only to have her last tiny scrap of hope so rudely ripped from her grasp? Which of the many gods had she so offended to deserve this punishment? But it scarcely mattered any more. Nothing mattered. Fortune had turned her wheel.

Raleigh had recovered from his surprise and was looking her up and down very keenly.

"Ye little bitch, you’ve run off, haven’t ye?" The most genuine smile Tory had ever seen him wear played across his face. "Why, there are very serious legal punishments for runaways, don’t ye know? It might be a hundred lashes. Or a branding. Or you might forfeit a foot, that would slow you down, eh? It’s all at the discretion of your owner," he leered.

Tory saw Rathbourne’s face in her mind’s eye, twisted with glee if he ever got his hands on her again, especially after he found his boots. Her legal owner, itching for his revenge. But she commanded her face to shut out all expression. She would not react.

"How I shall enjoy that particular entertainment when I take you back—" Then Raleigh paused.



Stephen Raleigh knew that damned Harlequin was still afoot, somewhere. And what of it? he argued with himself. The fellow had no legal means whatever of reclaiming his wench. But it was clear he had not found her, yet, for all his bold talk, judging from the state she was in. What could Raleigh himself do to ensure that he never did? Returning her to her owner was beginning to seem like a poor solution. These two were as slippery as shadows; that mountebank might yet help her to escape again and there would be all Raleigh’s effort wasted.

But suppose he could get rid of her for good and all tonight, even make a profit into the bargain? This harpy had humiliated him, ruined his finances, all but destroyed his career, she owed him that much. And suppose he could also guarantee that nigger-loving mountebank would never, ever see her again? Surely, that would break them both, the victory Raleigh craved above all others. That would cure their damned insolence, the pair of them. It was obscene, a white man making such a public display of his appetite for a colored wench, associating in public with Negroes, lowering himself to their level. And proud of it. The degraded fool didn’t seem to care who knew how deep he was in thrall to this...this...by God, just look at her! Covered in dried mud and tattered rags like something that had crawled out of a bog. What would make a man forfeit his dignity and betray his race to dally with such a filthy thing? He ought to give her back to him as she was, that would cure him of his affection. But a separation now, when the beggar thought he had almost recovered her again, that would teach him a lesson. His kind of behavior could not be tolerated in a decent society. Certainly not in any town run by Stephen Raleigh.

"But then, there are other punishments that might suit you better," he continued on, gazing at her again. "Not every slaveholder has a comfortable estate at his disposal. Some situations are far less...genteel. What would you say to a change of scenery? An ocean voyage, perhaps?"

The girl’s eyes rounded at him, filling with such tangible fear that Raleigh was startled—and delighted. So he had cracked her sullen mask at last, probed deeply enough to find her fatal weakness.

"Please sir, no," she gasped, her voice low and husky with terror. "Not the sea, oh please."

"'Sir,' is it? 'Oh please, sir,'" mocked the chief constable. "I’m afraid it’s a little late to be finding your manners."

Her face was growing wild with terror. The coating of mud made the effect all the more grotesque, a banshee, a gargoyle. Raleigh was hypnotized. Never, ever had he dared to hope for such complete despair.

"Send me back, whip me, chop off my foot, I don’t care!" she begged, in an utter frenzy. "But don’t put me on a ship! For the love of God, not the sea!"

His only answer was another grim smile.



Jack could not believe what the fellow had told him. He’d had a new colored wench, all right, calling herself Hecate; his book-keeper had bought her in Basseterre. But less than a month on the place, and she was gone. A damned runaway into the bargain, and he would have what she cost him out of the book-keeper’s wages, if not his hide.

That was the end of the conversation, and Jack turned away and walked back down the broad stone steps that led from the veranda to the road. He could feel the paper from Mr. Greaves inside his shirt, burning a hole in his heart. Here he had a legal document to claim Tory, or at least allow her to claim herself, and she was gone. She was a slave, a possession, how could she be gone? Why would she take such a dangerous step? Could she not have waited for him?

"You’re sure she’s not still about the place somewhere?" he asked Alphonse when they met again, further down the road, near the cook-house. Back beyond the great house, the mills were grumbling and the sugar works steaming away, turning the heavy air dank and sweet. In a little valley far below the road, there was activity in the slave cabins. It was midday, and the field hands were on their dinner hour, cooking and tending their kitchen gardens; a platoon of them had just marched off to their provision grounds. A middle-aged woman of color and a sullen girl came out of the cook-house carrying laundry baskets, to follow the wooden-sided aqueduct away from the road toward some hidden stream. Try as he might, Jack could not feel the spark of Tory’s presence anywhere in this place, yet everywhere he looked, he struggled to will her into existence. "They might be hiding her from me, if they’re so short of labor," he suggested.

"I spoke to several of the household," said Alphonse, shaking his head. "The last anyone saw of her, she had been summoned to the master’s chambers."

"The master?" echoed Jack, halting in his tracks. "That fellow Birney? If he’s lied to me—" and he spun around and took two angry steps back toward the great house.

"She never arrived," Alphonse interrupted, halting Jack again. "It was the young nephew that wanted her. The cook’s mulatto son is his valet. Tory never came to him. No one has seen her since." He shook his head again. "She’s gone, Jack. Gone these five days."

"But she can’t simply disappear," Jack protested. "Runaways... they rarely get very far, do they?" But he broke off the thought. He knew all about the dogs, the lashes, the brandings that were the fate of captured runaways; he could not seriously be hoping she were caught. But if she were not, how would he ever find her?

"Perhaps you should stay here," he told Alphonse, more briskly, trying to weave a scenario that would enclose Tory without harming her, keep her close until he could find her again. "I’ll return to town and stay near the Court House and the square. If she’s caught or taken into custody, perhaps I can intervene before she’s…" he paused, drew breath, "...hurt or punished. If she comes back here, you—"

"She may not come back," Alphonse interjected, with quiet finality. Jack blinked at him. "She may not be caught. There are... ways to get off this mountain. There are even ways to get off this island."

Jack stared at him. Alphonse returned his gaze, but there was something edgy and uncomfortable behind his black eyes.

"And go where?" Jack's voice was scarcely audible.

"Anywhere," murmured Alphonse, lowering his eyes at last, his expression grim. "She could be anywhere, by now."

Jack frowned. "How do you know this?"

Alphonse's eyes rose to his again. "Because I have helped her to escape."


(Top: The Old Medusa, by Lisa Jensen © 2010.)

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)