Call of the Raven

by Smith, Wilbur

  But even under his ownership it could not last, of course. As they grew older, Camilla learned the immutable truths of her existence: black and white, slave and master. A tutor came and wrestled Mungo into the schoolroom, while Camilla was put to work in the laundry. They did not go to the observatory any more. But whenever Mungo saw her, he still gave her the same smile he always had.

  One day, Mungo’s mother Abigail had sent Camilla to take a note to the neighbouring estate. She went alone, which was not uncommon. The St Johns often let their slaves leave Windemere without escort. Oliver said it was because he trusted them to always come home. He seemed to forget the underlying truth – that they came back because any fugitive would have easily been recaptured.

  Camilla was eleven years old and filled with the importance of her errand. She clutched the note close, wrapping it in the skirt of her dress so it would not get dirty from the road. She was so intent on her errand, she did not notice the other children waiting until she almost ran into them.

  There were five of them, all white children from the surrounding plantations and all bigger than her. Their leader was Lucius Horniman, a surly boy whom she had never seen without a piece of candy in his mouth. He was sucking on one now.

  ‘What you got there?’ he asked.

  She curtsied and showed him the letter. He did not move out of her way. Instead, he snatched the paper out of her hands and held it up out of reach, laughing as she jumped for it.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Mrs Abigail said I was to deliver it safe.’

  ‘Then you’ll be in trouble, won’t you?’

  Lucius held the letter out to her. Then, as she reached forward for it, he shoved it into her chest so hard she stumbled backwards. One of the other boys had come around behind her. He stuck out his leg, tripping her so that she sprawled flat on her back.

  The boys were on her in a second. Some held her down, while others kicked and hit her. They were big enough to make their punches hurt, but Camilla did not move to defend herself. Whatever they did, she must not retaliate; she had to endure it. As much as Oliver St John liked to boast how well he treated his slaves, she was old enough to understand that there were lines that could not be crossed. A black girl striking a white child was unforgivable. It would mean brutal punishment.

  At last the children got bored of hurting her.

  ‘We’ve had our fun,’ said one. ‘Let’s go fishing.’

  Lucius shook his head. ‘I’m not done.’

  ‘What else is there to do?’

  Lucius thought for a moment. A new and unpleasant look came over his face.

  ‘You know that crazy preacher who came down from Boston, saying blacks and whites was all the same underneath? The one my daddy gave a thrashing to? Well, let’s see if he was right.’ He looked down at Camilla. ‘Get up. Show us what you got under that dress.’

  Camilla struggled to her feet. With trembling fingers, she unlaced her dress and pulled the sleeves down her arms. It dropped in the dust at her feet.

  She was too young to wear stays. She stood there perfectly naked, her red-toned skin shining in the sunlight. The boys gathered around, gawking wide-eyed. One reached out and pinched her nipple.

  ‘Ain’t even got proper titties yet,’ he complained.

  Lucius picked up a fallen branch and poked it between her legs. It hurt, but Camilla squeezed her eyes shut to hold in the tears. She would not give them that satisfaction.

  She crouched down to pick up her dress, but Lucius rapped her hand with the branch.

  ‘I ain’t finished with you yet.’

  ‘Get your hands off her,’ said a voice from the top of the embankment at the roadside.

  Camilla looked up. Mungo stood there, the sun radiant behind him and his white clothes gleaming. Since he’d been breeched, his mother had always dressed him in white – perfect miniature suits of white cotton and silk. ‘My little angel,’ Abigail called him, but there was nothing angelic about the snarl now on his face.

  ‘We was just having some fun,’ said Lucius. ‘Didn’t mean nothing.’

  Mungo jumped down the bank onto the road.

  ‘She’s mine.’

  ‘Sure. But you got plenty more niggers at Windemere. You—’

  Lucius stopped talking. He doubled over, clutching his face as blood flowed through his fingers from the nose Mungo had just broken with his fist. The other children stared. One – Lucius’s brother – picked up a stick and came swinging it at Mungo. Mungo grabbed it in mid-air, wrestled it out of his opponent’s hands, and swung it so hard it broke over the boy’s head. The boy turned and fled, followed by the others.

  As soon as they were gone, Camilla collapsed into Mungo’s arms. It was against all the iron-clad laws that ruled her life, but Mungo did not reject her. He held her close, stroking her hair gently.

  At last she remembered who she was. She pulled away and put on her dress, ashamed of herself.

  ‘Your suit,’ she said. ‘It’s got blood on it. I’ll be all week in the wash-house getting those stains out.’

  Mungo seemed not to hear her. He reached out, lost in thought, and retied the laces of her dress.

  ‘If anyone ever hurts you again, tell me and I will kill them.’

  And though he was smiling, and it was an absurd thing for a white man to say to a slave, the fierce look in his smoky yellow eyes made her believe him utterly.

  At the end of that summer he had sailed for England and Eton. He was gone five years. At first Camilla was heartbroken, then resigned. As the years went by, she grew into a young woman; there was more than enough at Windemere to occupy her thoughts. But she never forgot Mungo. Sometimes she wrote to him, little notes laboriously copied out by candlelight late at night, when the other slaves were asleep. She knew Abigail would not approve of a slave corresponding with her son – even to read and write was a crime for a slave – so she slipped them into Abigail’s letters when she took them to the post office. Of course Mungo could never write back to Camilla, but sometimes Abigail would read aloud a passage from one of his letters – ‘Camilla would look very fine in the dresses that Lady Cavendish’s maid wears’ or ‘I went swimming in the Thames; it is much colder than when I used to paddle in the James with Camilla’ – and Camilla would know in her heart he meant it for her.

  Mungo’s life in England sounded so different, she wondered if she would recognise him when he returned. Certainly, when the carriage pulled up outside the house one warm May evening, she hardly did. He had grown tall, his gangly adolescent frame had filled out with muscle, and powerful shoulders tapered to a slim waist. His hair was long, and his skin shone with a new lustre. But the eyes were the same, smoky yellow and flecked with gold.

  All the house slaves had assembled to welcome him back, but he picked her out of the crowd at once. He held her gaze for a moment, a smile curling his lips, before he stepped down from the coach and embraced his mother.

  That night, Camilla left her quarters and stole out to the old observatory. She had received no message – she simply knew. Mungo was waiting for her. He had swept out the old building and filled it with dogwood flowers and beeswax candles. He had oiled the old machinery to open the sliding roof, so that the stars shone in and filled the room with light.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and stared at her in the starlight.

  ‘You’ve grown,’ he said, and kissed her.

  That night, they discovered exactly how they had changed in the intervening years. They explored each other’s newly swelling bodies, revelling in the novelty, unlocking delights Camilla had never imagined. When dawn came, she almost wept to be parted from him. But the next afternoon, she had found a dogwood flower left outside her cottage, and when she went to the island that night, Mungo was there again.

  Mungo had rubbed the flower on her skin, then breathed in the scent.

  ‘This will be our signal,’ he said. ‘The nights that I can come, I will leave a flower on your doorstep.’

&nb
sp; All that long, hot summer they met in the observatory as often as they could. Sixteen years old, she lived her days in a dream and her nights in a daze, thrilling every time she came home and saw a dogwood flower waiting for her.

  Of course she knew it could not last. Even so, she was surprised how suddenly it ended. One morning, she went into Abigail’s room to bring her breakfast, and found her mistress motionless in her bed. The doctor said she had suffered a heart attack. That day, the light went out of Mungo’s soul and a black mood came down. No more dogwood flowers appeared on Camilla’s doorstep. Mungo spent his time sitting in the parlour with flocks of black-clad relatives, or arguing with his father. And then, as soon as the funeral was over, it was time for him to take ship for Cambridge.

  The night before he left, she went to the observatory one last time. She waited until her limbs went stiff and the moon began to sink, and just as she had convinced herself he would not come she heard the rustle of branches, and his familiar voice calling her name in the darkness. When she embraced him, he felt as solid as one of the great trees soaring around them.

  ‘I will come back for you,’ he whispered. ‘We were meant to be together – always.’

  She blushed. ‘That is silly,’ she said. ‘You know it can never be.’

  ‘Anything is possible,’ Mungo insisted. ‘When I was in London once, I saw a sea admiral walking with a woman on his arm. The admiral was an old man, but so dignified – tall and straight, covered in gold braid and medals and orders of nobility. You could tell he was a great hero. And the woman on his arm was blacker than you are.’ He gripped her arm. ‘She was not his mistress or his servant. She was his wife.’

  Camilla could not comprehend it. All she could think to say was, ‘That is another country.’

  She did not romanticise what they might have had. She could not forget what she was, for the truth lived in every pore of her skin. She saw the evidence every time she caught her reflection in one of Windemere’s grand mirrors. He was white, and she was black; he a master, she a slave. What future could they ever have had together?

  Yet however many times she told that to herself, something in her soul had always refused to surrender to the remorseless logic. She had known, when she sent the letter to Cambridge, when she rubbed the dogwood petals on the paper, that Mungo would come. And she knew he would have come back for her again, if Chester had not snatched her away to Louisiana. But how would he ever find her here?

  And the baby? She told herself that Mungo would love the child, because it was hers. But in the darkest places of her soul, where she feared to look, she wondered if he would dash its brains out.

  Methuselah’s words, made vivid by her dream, disturbed her. What was in Mungo’s heart? She knew there was good in him – she had seen him do the noblest and kindest deeds for no reason at all. But she had also seen him be utterly callous. He was like the sun, set in its course: the same face bright and warming one moment, harsh and scorching another. Even though she loved him, she could not deny he frightened her.

  Yet he was her only hope.

  She placed her bare feet on the wooden floor and stood up. Through the window, she heard the calls of the night birds and the screech of cicadas in the grove of oaks that surrounded Bannerfield mansion. The bedroom was kept locked, but the lock was old and the spring was weak. Camilla had found some time ago that the blade of a kitchen knife, carefully inserted, could spring it quite easily.

  She opened the door without a sound and slipped out.

  As she descended the stairs, she saw a crack of light spilling under the door of Chester’s study. The door was ajar. She almost lost her nerve and fled back, but desperation drove her on. Not even daring to breathe, she kneeled at the door and peered through the keyhole.

  The room was empty. Chester had been working late – she could smell his cigar smoke still fresh – but he was gone now. He must have forgotten to douse the lamp. She hurried inside and crossed to the desk. She did not have a plan; she was driven by hope and instinct.

  She found pen and paper and wrote as quickly as she could.

  Chester Marion has taken me to a place called Bannerfield. It is in Louisiana north of Baton Rouge. Please come and rescue me he is a brute.

  She blew on the ink to dry it. But what now? She could not send it to Windemere, not after its new owners had conspired to take it from Mungo. Where could the letter reach him?

  She did not have much time. Chester might come back at any moment. Or one of the house slaves might find her. She knew they saw her as an interloper and a shirker – they would have no qualms turning her in to Chester.

  She looked around the room in mounting panic. A pile of letters was stacked on the desk, ready to be taken away next morning. If she only knew what address to write, she could put her note in among them. Where was Mungo?

  She was about to give up when the name on the topmost letter caught her eye. Mr Amos Rutherford, Richmond, Virginia. She knew the name: Mungo’s maternal grandfather. He had often visited Windemere when Abigail St John was alive.

  Camilla could not imagine why Chester would write to Amos, but that did not matter. Amos had always been fond of Mungo; he would know how to find his grandson. She cracked open the wax that sealed Chester’s letter and slid her own slip of paper inside it. She pressed her thumb against the broken wax to warm it, trying to knead the fragments back together just as she had with Abigail’s letters so many years ago.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  The door swung open with a bang so loud it must have woken the whole house. Chester stood there, wrapped in a dressing gown.

  The moment he saw her at his desk he flew across the room. He tore the letter out of her hand before she could hide it in the pile, and threw her against the wall.

  ‘Did you read this?’

  She shook her head, praying he would not open it. If he did not find the note she had put in, if it went back in the post, there was still a chance it might reach Mungo. That would be worth any punishment.

  His eyes raked her with suspicion, but all he saw was a slave, and a letter that seemed to be sealed. He had not noticed the crack in the wax she had hastily smeared together.

  ‘In any event, I suppose you cannot read.’

  He tossed it back onto the desk. Camilla dared to breathe again. Her secret was safe.

  But he had thrown it too carelessly. The letter overbalanced the pile of correspondence; it toppled over, slid off the desk and dropped onto the floor.

  The wax broke apart again. The letter flopped open, and as it did, her slip of paper fell out onto the floor.

  ‘What is this?’

  Chester picked it up and read quickly. His face went murderously dark.

  ‘You treacherous little whore,’ he hissed. ‘I underestimated you. You not only read and write – you lie, too. Didn’t I warn you what I would do if you ever spoke the name of Mungo St John again? And now you try to bring him here?’

  He grabbed her by both arms and threw her across the room. She fell, bruising her arm and cutting her head on a table. She scrambled to her feet and looked to the doorway, but there was no escape there. Granville had appeared, flanked by two plantation overseers.

  Chester took a cigar from the box on his desk and jammed it in his mouth. He scrolled up Camilla’s note, held it into the flame of the lamp until it caught fire, then touched it to the end of the cigar. The paper burned and crumbled to ash. He puffed on the cigar until its end glowed hot as an ember.

  He walked slowly towards her. There was rage in his face, but not uncontrollable temper. It was the cold, deliberate fury of a man who knew exactly what he was doing. He stared at her pitilessly, as he might at a column of numbers that stubbornly refused to add up.

  ‘This is for Mungo St John.’

  He took the cigar from his mouth and, very slowly, pressed it against her right arm. She screamed in agony as he ground it into her flesh. The smell of charred skin filled the room.

&nbs
p; ‘And this is for betraying me.’

  He sucked on the cigar until it glowed hotter than ever, then touched it to her left arm. She screamed again. Every slave in the house must have heard her, but no one came. They knew better than that.

  Chester spat in her face.

  ‘I have had my fill of this bitch,’ he told Granville. ‘Take her outside and do what you want with her. Then hang her as a warning to the others.’

  Granville moved in quickly, slavering like a dog in reach of a particularly succulent bone. He took a Bowie knife from his belt and thumbed the blade with cruel delight.

  ‘We’ll have some fun before we put the bitch down.’

  ‘Wait!’ Camilla cried. The pain from the cigar burns was almost too much for her to speak, but she forced the words out through choking sobs. ‘If you kill me, you kill your own child.’

  Chester went still. Automatically, his eyes turned down to her belly. Ignoring the agony in her arms, she flattened her nightdress, pulling it tight across her hips so he could see the bump. It was still small, but on her slim frame it swelled out unmistakably.

  His grey eyes, usually so fixed and remorseless, were suddenly filled with turmoil.

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Who else’s?’

  He stared at her so long, the burning tip of the cigar began to dull. Even Granville became restless.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Chester breathed faster, thinking hard. The cigar began to glow once more. Camilla wondered if he meant to punish her yet again, if he would rather see his child die than let her live.

  Chester tipped back his head and blew out a long plume of smoke that circled and eddied in the lamplight.

  ‘Leave her be,’ he ordered. ‘We will put her to work in the fields. Maybe that will teach her obedience.’

  From Prince’s Island, the Blackhawk sailed south along the fever coast, making eight knots of headway on a fresh northerly breeze. Their destination was Ambriz, a trading post midway between the Congo River estuary and the Portuguese settlement of St Paul de Loanda. From the descriptions Mungo had heard from Tippoo, he knew that Ambriz was a ‘free port’, not subject to the Portuguese governor at St Paul de Loanda, and only occasionally patrolled by the British, who claimed trading rights further north. Ambriz’s independence made it a hub of commerce and a magnet for unsavoury characters from Europe and America – criminals, political exiles, mercenaries, even some gypsies – seeking sanctuary from polite society and a chance to make their fortune. There was a word for them in Portuguese: ‘degrados’, which meant ‘outcasts’, or ‘the degraded’.