Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

CHAPTER ONE

  No sooner had their carriage creaked to a halt at the edge of the crowd than a tumult of cheers sounded through the humid morning air. With a wry glance toward the man seated opposite, Katherine Bedford drew back the faded curtains at the window and craned to see over the cluster of planters at the water's edge, garbed in their usual ragged jerkins, gray cotton breeches, and wide, sweat-stained hats. Across the bay, edging into view just beyond the rocky cliff of Lookout Point, were the tattered, patched sails of the Zeelander, a Dutch trader well known to Barbados.

  "It's just rounding the Point now." Her voice was hard, with more than a trace of contempt. "From here you'd scarcely know what their cargo was. It looks the same as always."

  As she squinted into the light, a shaft of Caribbean sun candled her deep-blue eyes. Her long ringlet curls were drawn back and secured with a tiara of Spanish pearls, a halfhearted attempt at demureness spoiled by the nonchalant strands dangling across her forehead. The dark tan on her face betrayed her devotion to the sea and the sun; although twenty-three years of life had ripened her body, her high cheeks had none of the plump, ane­mic pallor so prized in English women.

  "Aye, but this time she's very different, Katy, make no mistake. Nothing in the Americas will ever be the same again. Not after today." Governor Dalby Bedford was across from her in the close, airless carriage, angrily gripping the silver knob of his cane. Finally he bent forward to look too, and for a moment their faces were framed side by side. The likeness could scarcely have been greater: not only did they share the same intense eyes, there was a similar high forehead and determined chin. "Damned to them. It's a shameful morning for us all."

  "Just the same, you've got to go down and be there." Though she despised the thought as much as he did, she realized he had no choice. The planters all knew Dalby Bedford had opposed the plan from the beginning, had argued with the Council for weeks before arrangements were finally made with the Dutch shippers. But the vote had gone against him, and now he had to honor it accordingly.

  While he sat watching the Zeelander make a starboard tack, coming about to enter the bay, Katherine leaned across the seat and pulled aside the opposite curtain. The hot wind that sud­denly stirred past was a sultry harbinger of the coastal breeze now sweeping up the hillside, where field after identical field was lined with rows of tall, leafy stalks, green and iridescent in the sun.

  The new Barbados is already here, she thought gloomily. The best thing now is to face it.

  Without a word she straightened her tight, sweaty bodice, gathered her wrinkled skirt, and opened the carriage door. She waved aside the straw parasol that James, their Irish servant and footman, tried to urge on her and stepped into the harsh midday sun. Dalby Bedford nodded at the crowd, then climbed down after.

  He was tall and, unlike his careless daughter, always groomed to perfection. Today he wore a tan waistcoat trimmed with wide brown lace and a white cravat that matched the heron-feather plume in his wide-brimmed hat. Over the years, the name of Dalby Bedford had become a byword for freedom in the Americas: under his hand Barbados had been made a democracy, and virtually independent of England. First he had convinced the king's proprietor to reduce rents on the island, then he had cre­ated an elected Assembly of small freeholders to counter the high-handed rule of the powerful Council. He had won every battle, until this one.

  Katherine moved through the crowd of black-hatted planters as it parted before them. Through the shimmering glare of the sand she could just make out the commanding form of Anthony Walrond farther down by the shore, together with his younger brother Jeremy. Like hundreds of other royalists, they had been deported to Barbados in the aftermath of England's Civil War. Now Anthony spotted their carriage and started up the incline toward them, and for an instant she found herself wishing she'd thought to wear a more fashionable bodice.

  "Your servant, sir." A gruff greeting, aimed toward Dalby Bedford, disrupted her thoughts. She looked back to see a heavyset planter riding his horse directly through the crowd, with the insistent air of a man who demands deference. Swing­ing down from his wheezing mount, he tossed the reins to the servant who had ridden with him and began to shove his way forward, fanning his open gray doublet against the heat.

  Close to fifty and owner of the largest plantation on the is­land, Benjamin Briggs was head of the Council, that governing body of original settlers appointed years before by the island's proprietor in London. His sagging, leathery face was formida­ble testimony to twenty years of hard work and even harder drink. The planters on the Council had presided over Barbados' transformation from a tropical rain forest to a patchwork of to­bacco and cotton plantations, and now to what they hoped would soon be a factory producing white gold.

  Briggs pushed back his dusty hat and turned to squint approvingly as the frigate began furling its mainsail in preparation to drop anchor. "God be praised, we're almost there. The years of starvation are soon to be over."

  Katherine noted that she had not been included in his greet­ing. She had once spoken her mind to Benjamin Briggs con­cerning his treatment of his indentures more frankly than he cared to hear. Even now, looking at him, she was still amazed that a man once a small Bristol importer had risen to so much power in the Americas. Part of that success, she knew, derived from his practice of lending money to hard-pressed freeholders at generous rates but short terms, then foreclosing on their lands the moment the sight bills came due.

  "It's an evil precedent for the English settlements, mark my word." Bedford gazed back toward the ship. He and Benjamin Briggs had been sworn enemies from the day he first proposed establishing the Assembly. "I tell you again it'll open the way for fear and divisiveness throughout the Americas."

  "It's our last chance for prosperity, sir. All else has failed," Briggs responded testily. "I know it and so do you."

  Before the governor could reply, Anthony Walrond was join­ing them.

  "Your servant, sir." He touched his plumed hat toward Dal­by Bedford, conspicuously ignoring Briggs as he merged into their circle, Jeremy at his heel.

  Anthony Walrond was thirty-five and the most accomplished, aristocratic man Katherine had ever met, besides her father. His lean, elegant face was punctuated by an eye-patch, worn with the pride of an epaulette, that came from a sword wound in the bloody royalist defeat at Marston Moor. After he had invested and lost a small fortune in support of the king's failed cause, he had been exiled to Barbados, his ancestral estate sequestrated by Parliament.

  She still found herself incredulous that he had, only four weeks earlier, offered marriage. Why, she puzzled, had he proposed the match? He was landed, worldly, and had distinguished himself during the war. She had none of his style and polish. . . .

  "Katherine, your most obedient." He bowed lightly, then stood back to examine her affectionately. She was a bit brash, it was true, and a trifle—well, more than a trifle—forward for her sex. But underneath her blunt, seemingly impulsive way he sensed a powerful will. She wasn't afraid to act on her convictions, and the world be damned. So let her ride her mare about the island daylong now if she chose; there was breeding about her that merely wanted some refinement.

  "Sir, your servant." Katherine curtsied lightly and repressed a smile. No one knew she had quietly invited Anthony Walrond riding just two weeks earlier. The destination she had picked was a deserted little islet just off the windward coast, where they could be alone. Propriety, she told herself, was all very well, but marrying a man for life was no slight matter. Anthony Wal­rond, it turned out, had promise of being all she could want.

  He reflected on the memory of that afternoon for a moment himself, delighted, then turned back to the governor with as solemn an air as he could manage. "I suppose this island'll soon be more in debt than ever to the Hollanders. I think it's time we started giving English shippers a chance, now that it's likely to be worth their bother."

  "Aye, doubtless you'd like that." Briggs flared. "I know you still own a piece of a
London trading company. You and that pack of English merchants would be pleased to charge us double the shipping rates the Hollanders do. Damn the lot of you. Those of us who've been here from the start know we should all be on our knees, thankin' heaven for the Dutchmen. The English settlements in the Americas would've starved years ago if it hadn't been for them." He paused to spit onto the sand, just beside Anthony's gleaming boots. "Let English bottoms compete with the Dutchmen, not wave the flag."

  "Your servant, Katherine." Jeremy Walrond had moved beside her, touching his plumed hat as he nodded. A cloud of perfume hovered about him, and his dark moustache was waxed to perfection. Though he had just turned twenty, his handsome face was still boyish, with scarcely a hint of sun.

  "Your most obedient." She nodded lightly in return, trying to appear formal. Over the past year she had come to adore Jeremy as though he were a younger brother, even though she knew he despised the wildness of Barbados as much as she gloried in it. He was used to pampering and yearned to be back in England. He also longed to be thought a man; longed, in truth, to be just like Anthony, save he didn't know quite how.

  They all stood awkwardly for a moment, each wondering what the ship would signify for their own future and that of the island. Katherine feared that for her it would mean the end of Barbados' few remaining forests, hidden groves upland where she could ride alone and think. Cultivated land was suddenly so valuable that all trees would soon vanish. It was the last anyone would see of an island part untamed and free.

  Depressed once more by the prospect, she turned and stared down the shore, toward the collection of clapboard taverns clustered around the narrow bridge at the river mouth. Adjacent to the taverns was a makeshift assemblage of tobacco sheds, open shops, and bawdy houses, which taken together had become known as Bridgetown. The largest "town" on Barbados, it was now all but empty. Everyone, even the tavern keepers and Irish whores, had come out to watch.

  Then, through the brilliant sunshine she spotted an unexpected pair, ambling slowly along the water's edge. The woman was well known to the island—Joan Fuller, the yellow-haired proprietor of its most successful brothel. But the man? Whatever else, he was certainly no freeholder. For one thing, no Puritan planter would be seen in public with Mistress Fuller.

  The stranger was gesturing at the ship and mumbling unhappily to her as they walked. Abruptly she reached up to pinch his cheek, as though to dispel his mood. He glanced down and fondly swiped at her tangled yellow hair, then bade her farewell, turned, and began moving toward them.

  "God's life, don't tell me he's come back." Briggs first no­ticed the stranger when he was already halfway through the crowd. He sucked in his breath and whirled to survey the line of Dutch merchantmen anchored in the shallows along the shore. Nothing. But farther down, near the careenage at the river mouth, a battered frigate rode at anchor. The ship bore no flag, but the word Defiance was crudely lettered across the stern.

  "Aye, word has it he put in this morning at first light."

  Edward Bayes, a black-hatted Council member with ruddy jowls, was squinting against the sun. "What're you thinking we'd best do?"

  Briggs seemed to ignore the question as he began pushing his way through the crowd. The newcomer was fully half a head taller than most of the planters, and unlike everyone else he wore no hat, leaving his rust-colored hair to blow in the wind. He was dressed in a worn leather jerkin, dark canvas breeches, and sea boots weathered from long use. He might have passed for an ordinary seaman had it not been for the two Spanish flintlock pistols, freshly polished and gleaming, that protruded from his wide belt.

  "Your servant, Captain." Briggs' greeting was correct and formal, but the man returned it with only a slight, distracted nod. "Back to see what the Hollanders've brought?"

  "I'm afraid I already know what they're shipping. I picked a hell of a day to come back." The stranger rubbed absently at a long scar across one cheek, then continued, as though to him­self, "Damn me, I should have guessed all along this would be the way.''

  The crowd had fallen silent to listen, and Katherine could make out that his accent was that of a gentleman, even if his dress clearly was not. His easy stride suggested he was little more than thirty, but the squint that framed his brown eyes made his face years older. By his looks and the uneasy shuffle of the Council members gathered around them, she suddenly began to suspect who he might be.

  "Katy, who the devil?" Jeremy had lowered his voice to a whisper.

  "I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say that's probably the smuggler you claim robbed you once." Scarce wonder Briggs is nervous, she thought. Every planter on the shore knows exactly why he's come back.

  "Hugh Winston? Is that him?" Jeremy glared at the newcomer, his eyes hardening. "You can't mean it. He'd not have the brass to show his face on English soil."

  "He's been here before. I've just never actually seen him. You always seem to keep forgetting, Jeremy, Barbados isn't part of England." She glanced back. "Surely you heard what he did. It happened just before you came out." She gestured to­ward the green hillsides. "He's the one we have to thank for all this. I fancy he's made Briggs and the rest of them rich, for all the good it'll ever do him."

  "What he's done, if you must know, is make a profession of stealing from honest men. Damned to their cane. He's scarcely better than a thief. Do you know exactly what he did?"

  "You mean that business about your frigate?"

  "The eighty-tonner of ours that grounded on the reefs up by Nevis Island. He's the one who set our men ashore—then announced he was taking the cargo in payment. Rolls of wool broadcloth worth almost three thousand pounds sterling. And several crates of new flintlock muskets. He smuggled the cloth into Virginia, sold it for nothing, and ruined the market for months. He'd be hanged if he tried walking the streets of Lon­don, I swear it. Doesn't anybody here know that?"

  She tried to recall what she did know. The story heard most often was that he'd begun his career at sea on a Dutch merchantman. Then, so word had it, he'd gone out on his own. According to tales that went around the Caribbees, he'd pulled together a band of some dozen runaway indentures and one night some­how managed to sail a small shallop into the harbor at Santo Domingo. He sailed out before dawn at the helm of a two- hundred-ton Spanish square-rigger. After some heavy refitting, it became the Defiance.

  "They probably know he robbed you, Jeremy, but I truly doubt whether they care all that much."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He's the one Benjamin Briggs and the others hired to take them down to Brazil and back."

  That voyage had later become a legend in the English Caribbees. Its objective was a plantation just outside the city of Pemambuco—capital of the new territory in Brazil the Dutch had just seized from the Portuguese. There the Barbados' Council had deciphered the closely guarded process Brazilian planta­tions used to refine sugar from cane sap. Thanks to the friendly Dutch, and Hugh Winston, Englishmen had finally cracked the centuries-old sugar monopoly of Portugal and Spain.

  "You mean he's the same one who helped them get that load of cane for planting, and the plans for Briggs' sugar mill?" Jer­emy examined the stranger again.

  "Exactly. He also brought back something else for Briggs." She smiled. "Can you guess?"

  Jeremy flushed and carefully smoothed his new moustache. "I suppose you're referring to that Portuguese mulatto wench he bought to be his bed warmer.''

  Yes, she thought, Hugh Winston's dangerous voyage, out­sailing several Spanish patrols, had been an all-round success. And everybody on the island knew the terms he had demanded. Sight bills from the Council, all co-signed at his insistence by Benjamin Briggs, in the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, payable in twenty-four months.

  "Well, sir"—Briggs smiled at Winston as he thumbed toward the approaching ship—"this is the cargo we'll be wanting now, if we're to finish converting this place to sugar. You could be of help to us again if you'd choose. This is where the future'll be, depend
on it."

  "I made one mistake, helping this island." Winston glanced at the ship and his eyes were momentarily pained. "I don't plan to make another." Then he turned and stared past the crowd, toward the green fields patch-worked against the hillsides inland. "But I see your cane prospered well enough. When do we talk?"

  "Why any time you will, sir. We've not forgotten our debts." Briggs forced another smile. "We'll have a tankard on it, right after the auction." He turned and motioned toward a red-faced Irishman standing behind him, wearing straw shoes and a long gray shirt. "Farrell, a moment of your valuable time."

  "Yor Worship." Timothy Farrell, one of Briggs' many indentured servants, bowed sullenly as he came forward, then doffed his straw hat, squinting against the sun. His voice still carried the musical lilt of his native Kinsale, where he had been offered the choice, not necessarily easy, between prison for debt and indentured labor in sweltering Barbados. He had finally elected Barbados when informed, falsely, that he would receive a grant of five acres of land after his term of servitude expired— a practice long since abandoned.

  Katherine watched as Briggs flipped him a small brass coin. "Fetch a flask of kill-devil from the tavern up by the bridge. And have it here when I get back."

  Kill-devil was bought from Dutch shippers, who procured it from Brazilian plantations, where it was brewed using wastes from their sugar-works. The Portuguese there employed it as a cheap tonic to rout the "devil" thought to possess African slaves at the end of a long day and render them sluggish. It retailed handily as a beverage in the English settlements of the Ameri­cas, however, sometimes being marketed under the more dig­nified name of "rumbullion," or "rum."

  Briggs watched as Farrell sauntered off down the shore. “That's what we'll soon hear the last of. A lazy Papist, like half the lot that's being sent out nowadays." He turned to study the weathered Dutch frigate as it eased into the sandy shallows and the anchor chain began to rattle down the side. "But we've got good workers at last. By Jesus, we've found the answer."

  Katherine watched the planters secure their hats against a sudden breeze and begin pushing toward the shore. Even Anthony and Jeremy went with them. The only man who held back was Hugh Winston, still standing there in his worn-out leather jerkin. He seemed reluctant to budge.

  Maybe, she thought, he doesn't want to confront it.

  As well he shouldn't. We've got him to thank for this.

  After a moment he glanced back and began to examine her with open curiosity, his eyes playing over her face, then her tight bodice. Finally he shifted one of the pistols in his belt, turned, and began strolling down the sloping sand toward the bay.

  Well, damn his cheek.

  All along she had planned to go down herself, to see firsthand what an auction would be like, but at that instant the shifting breeze brought a sudden stench from the direction of the ship. She hesitated, a rare moment of indecision, before turning back toward the carriage. This, she now realized, marked the start of something she wanted no part of.

  Moving slowly toward the shore, Winston found himself puzzling over the arch young woman who had been with Governor Bedford. Doubtless she was the daughter you heard so much about, though from her dress you'd scarcely guess it. But she had an open way about her you didn't see much in a woman. Plenty of spirit there . . . and doubtless a handful for the man who ever got her onto a mattress.

  Forget it, he told himself, you've enough to think about today. Starting with the Zeelander. And her cargo.

  The sight of that three-masted fluyt brought back so many places and times. Brazil, Rotterdam, Virginia, even Barbados. Her captain Johan Ruyters had changed his life, that day the Zeelander hailed his bullet-riddled longboat adrift in the Wind­ward Passage. Winston had lost track of the time a bit now, but not of the term Ruyters had made him serve in return for the rescue. Three years, three miserable years of short rations, dou­bled watches, and no pay.

  Back when he served on the Zeelander her cargo had been mostly brown muscavado sugar, ferried home to Rotterdam from Holland's newly captive plantations in Brazil. But there had been a change in the world since then. The Dutch had seized a string of Portuguese trading fortresses along the coast of West Africa. Now, at last, they had access to a commodity far more profitable than sugar.

  He reflected on Ruyters' first axiom of successful trade: sell what's in demand. And if there's no demand for what you've got, make it.

  New sugar plantations would provide the surest market of all for what the Dutch now had to sell. So in the spring of 1642 Ruyters had left a few bales of Brazilian sugarcane with Benja­min Briggs, then a struggling tobacco planter on Barbados, sug­gesting that he try growing it and refining sugar from the sap, explaining the Portuguese process as best he could.

  It had been a night over two years past, at Joan's place, when Briggs described what had happened after that.

  "The cane grew well enough, aye, and I managed to press out enough of the sap to try rendering it to sugar. But nothing else worked. I tried boiling it in pots and then letting it sit, but what I got was scarcely more than molasses and mud. It's not as simple as I thought." Then he had unfolded his new scheme. "But if you'll take some of us on the Council down to Brazil, sir, the Dutchmen claim they'll let us see how the Portugals do it. We'll soon know as much about sugar-making as any Papist. There'll be a fine fortune in it, I promise you, for all of us."

  But how, he'd asked Briggs, did they expect to manage all the work of cutting the cane?

  "These indentures, sir. We've got thousands of them."

  He'd finally agreed to accept the Council's proposition. And the Defiance was ideal for the run. Once an old Spanish cargo vessel, he'd disguised her by chopping away the high fo'c'sle, removing the pilot's cabin, and lowering the quarterdeck. Next he'd re-rigged her, opened more gunports in the hull, and in­stalled new cannon. Now she was a heavily armed fighting brig and swift.

  Good God, he thought, how could I have failed to see? It had to come to this; there was no other way.

  So maybe it's time I did something my own way for a change. Yes, by God, maybe there's an answer to all this.

  He thought again of the sight bills, now locked in the Great Cabin of the Defiance and payable in one week. Two thousand pounds. It would be a miracle if the Council could find the coin to settle the debt, but they did have something he needed.

  And either way, Master Briggs, I intend to have satisfaction, or I may just take your balls for a bell buoy.

  Now a white shallop was being lowered over the gunwales of the Zeelander, followed by oarsmen. Then after a measured pause a new figure, wearing the high collar and wide-brimmed hat of Holland's merchant class, appeared at the railing. His plump face was punctuated with a goatee, and his smile was visible all the way to the shore. He stood a long moment, dra­matically surveying the low-lying hills of Barbados, and then Captain Johan Ruyters began lowering himself down the sway­ing rope ladder.

  As the shallop nosed through the surf and eased into the sandy shallows, Dalby Bedford moved to the front of the receiving delegation, giving no hint how bitterly he had opposed the arrangement Briggs and the Council had made with the Dutch shippers.

  "Your servant, Captain."

  "Your most obedient servant, sir." Ruyters' English was heavily accented but otherwise flawless. Winston recalled he could speak five languages as smoothly as oil, and shortchange the fastest broker in twice that many currencies. "It is a fine day for Barbados."

  "How went the voyage?" Briggs asked, stepping forward and thrusting out his hand, which Ruyters took readily, though with a wary gathering of his eyebrows.

  "A fair wind, taken for all. Seventy-four days and only some fifteen percent wastage of the cargo. Not a bad figure for the passage, though still enough to make us friends of the sharks. But I've nearly three hundred left, all prime."

  "Are they strapping?" Briggs peered toward the ship, and his tone sharpened slighdy, signaling that social pleasantries were not to
be confused with commerce. "Remember we'll be wantin' them for the fields, not for the kitchen."

  "None stronger in the whole west of Africa. These are not from the Windward Coast, mark you, where I grant what you get is fit mostly for house duty. I took half this load from Cape Verde, on the Guinea coast, and then sailed on down to Benin, by the Niger River delta, for the rest. These Nigers make the strongest field workers. There is even a chief amongst them, a Yoruba warrior. I've seen a few of these Yoruba Nigers in Bra­zil, and I can tell you this one could have the wits to make you a first-class gang driver." Ruyters shaded his eyes against the sun and lowered his voice. "In truth, I made a special accom­modation with the agent selling him, which is how I got so many hardy ones. Usually I have to take a string of mixed quality, which I get with a few kegs of gunpowder for the chiefs and maybe some iron, together with a few beads and such for their wives. But I had to barter five chests of muskets and a hundred strings of their cowrie-shell money for this Yoruba. After that, though, I got the pick of his boys."

  Ruyters stopped and peered past the planters for a second, his face mirroring disbelief. Then he grinned broadly and shoved through the crowd, extending his hand toward Winston. "By the blood of Christ. I thought sure you’d be hanged by now. How long has it been? Six years? Seven?" He laughed and pumped Winston's hand vigorously, then his voice sobered. "Not here to spy on the trade I hope? I'd best beware or you're like to be eyeing my cargo next."

  "You can have it." Winston extracted his hand, reflecting with chagrin that he himself had been the instrument of what was about to occur.

  "What say, now?" Ruyters smiled to mask his relief. "Aye, but to be sure this is an easy business." He turned back to the planters as he continued. "It never fails to amaze me how ready their own people are to sell them. They spy your sail when you're several leagues at sea and build a smoke fire on the coast to let you know they've got cargo."

  He reached for Dalby Bedford's arm, to usher him toward the waiting boat. Anthony Walrond said something quietly to Jer­emy, then followed after the governor. Following on their heels was Benjamin Briggs, who tightened his belt as he waded through the shallows.

  Ruyters did not fail to notice when several of the oarsmen smiled and nodded toward Winston. He was still remembered as the best first mate the Zeelander had ever had—and the only seaman anyone had ever seen who could toss a florin into the air and drill it with a pistol ball better than half the time. Finally the Dutch captain turned back, beckoning.

  "It'd be an honor if you would join us, sir. As long as you don't try taking any of my lads with you."

  Winston hesitated a moment, then stepped into the boat as it began to draw away from the shore. Around them other small craft were being untied, and the planters jostled together as they waded through the light surf and began to climb over the gunwales. Soon a small, motley flotilla was making its way toward the ship.

  As Winston studied the Zeelander, he couldn't help recalling how welcome she had looked that sun-baked afternoon ten years past. In his thirsty delirium her billowing sails had seemed the wings of an angel of mercy. But she was not angelic today. She was dilapidated now, with runny patches of tar and oakum dot­ting her from bow to stern. By converting her into a slaver, he knew, Ruyters had discovered a prudent way to make the most of her last years.

  As they eased into the shadow of her leeward side, Winston realized something else had changed. The entire ship now smelled of human excrement. He waited till Ruyters led the planters, headed by Dalby Bedford and Benjamin Briggs, up the salt-stiff rope ladder, then followed after.

  The decks were dingy and warped, and there was a haggard look in the men's eyes he didn't recall from before. Profit comes at a price, he thought, even for quick Dutch traders.

  Ruyters barked an order to his quartermaster, and moments later the main hatch was opened. Immediately the stifling air around the frigate was filled with a chorus of low moans from the decks below.

  Winston felt Briggs seize his arm and heard a hoarse whisper. "Take a look and see how it's done. It's said the Dutchmen have learned the secret of how best to pack them."

  "I already know how a slaver's cargoed." He pulled back his arm and thought again of the Dutch slave ships that had been anchored in the harbor at Pernambuco. "A slave's chained on his back, on a shelf, for the whole of the voyage, if he lives that long." He pointed toward the hold. "Why not go on down and have a look for yourself?''

  Briggs frowned and turned to watch as the quartermaster yelled orders to several seamen, all shirtless and squinting in the sun, who cursed under their breath as they began reluctantly to make their way down the companionway to the lower deck. The air in the darkened hold was almost unbreathable.

  The clank of chains began, and Winston found himself drawn against his will to the open hatchway to watch. As the cargo was unchained from iron loops fastened to the side of the ship, their manacled hands were looped through a heavy line the sea­men passed along the length of the lower deck.

  Slowly, shakily, the first string of men began to emerge from the hold. Their feet and hands were still secured with individual chains, and all were naked. As each struggled up from the hold, he would stare into the blinding sun for a confused moment, as though to gain bearings, then turn in bewilderment to gaze at the green beyond, so like and yet so alien from the African coast. Finally, seeing the planters, he would stretch to cover his groin with manacled hands, the hesitation prompting a Dutch seaman to lash him forward.

  The Africans' black skin shone in the sun, the result of a forced diet of cod liver oil the last week of the voyage. Then too, there had been a quick splash with seawater on the decks below, followed by swabbing with palm oil, when the Zeelander's maintopman had sighted the low green peaks of Barbados rising out of the sea. They seemed stronger than might have been expected, the effect of a remedial diet of salt fish the last three days of the voyage.

  "Well, sir, what think you of the cargo?" Ruyters' face was aglow.

  Winston winced. "Better your vessel than mine."

  "But it's no great matter to ship these Africans. The truth is we don't really even have to keep them fettered once we pass sight of land, since they're too terrified to revolt. We feed them twice a day with meal boiled up into a mush, and every other day or so we give them some English horsebeans, which they seem to favor. Sometimes we even bring them up topside to feed, whilst we splash down the decks below." He smiled and swept the assembled bodies with his eyes. "That's why we have so little wastage. Not like the Spaniards or Portugals, who can easily lose a quarter or more to shark feed through overpacking and giving them seawater to drink. But I'll warrant the English'll try to squeeze all the profit they can one day, when your ships take up the trade, and then you'll doubtless see wastage high as the Papists have."

  "English merchants'll never take up the slave trade."

  Ruyters gave a chuckle. "Aye but that they will, as I'm a Christian, and soon enough too." He glanced in the direction of Anthony Walrond. "Your London shippers'll take up any­thing we do that shows a florin's profit. But we'll give you a run for it." He turned back to Briggs. "What say you, sir? Are they to your liking?"

  "I take it they're a mix? Like we ordered?"

  "Wouldn't load them any other way. There's a goodly batch of Yoruba, granted, but the rest are everything from Ibo and Ashanti to Mandingo. There's little chance they'll be plotting any revolts. Half of them are likely blood enemies of the other half."

  The first mate lashed the line forward with a cat-o'-nine-tails, positioning them along the scuppers. At the head was a tall man whose alert eyes were already studying the forested center of the island. Winston examined him for a moment, recalling the haughty Yoruba slaves he had seen in Brazil.

  "Is that the chief you spoke of?"

  Ruyters glanced at the man a moment. "They mostly look the same to me, but aye, I think that's the one. Prince Atiba, I believe they called him. A Niger and pure Yoruba."

  "
He'll never be made a slave."

  “Won't he now? You'll find the cat can work wonders.'' Ruyters turned and took the cat-o'-nine-tails from the mate. "He'll jump just like the rest." With a quick flick he lashed it against the African's back. The man stood unmoving, without even a blink. He drew back and struck him a second time, now harder. The Yoruba's jaw tightened visibly but he still did not flinch. As Ruyters drew back for a third blow, Winston reached to stay his arm.

  "Enough. Take care or he may prove a better man than you'd wish to show."

  Before Ruyters could respond, Briggs moved to begin the negotiations.

  "What terms are you offering, sir?"

  "Like we agreed." Ruyters turned back. "A quarter now, with sight bills for another quarter in six months and the balance on terms in a year."

  "Paid in bales of tobacco at standing rates? Or sugar, assuming we've got it then?"

  "I've yet to see two gold pieces keeping company together on the whole of the island." He snorted. "I suppose it'll have to be. What do you say to the usual exchange rate?"

  "I say we can begin. Let's start with the best, and not trouble with the bidding candle yet. I'll offer you a full twenty pounds for the first one there." Briggs pointed at the Yoruba.

  The Dutch captain examined him in disbelief. "This is not some indentured Irishman, sir. This is a robust field hand you'll own for life. And he has all the looks of a good breeder. My conscience wouldn't let me entertain a farthing under forty."

  "Would you take some of my acres too? Is there no profit to be had in him?"

  "These Africans'll pay themselves out for you in one good year, two at the most. Just like they do in Brazil." Ruyters smiled. "And this is the very one that cost me a fortune in muskets. It's only because I know you for a gentleman that I'd even think of offering him on such easy terms. He's plainly the pick of the string."

  Winston turned away and gazed toward the shore. The price would be thirty pounds. He knew Ruyters' bargaining practices all too well. The sight of the Zeelander's decks sickened him almost as much as the slaves. He wanted to get to sea again, to leave Barbados and its greedy Puritans far behind.

  But this time, he told himself, you're the one who needs them. Just a little longer and there'll be a reckoning.

  And after that, Barbados can be damned.

  "Thirty pounds then, and may God forgive me." Ruyters was slapping Briggs genially on the shoulder. "But you'll be needing a lot more for the acres you want to cut. Why not take the rest of this string at a flat twenty-five pounds the head, and make an end on it? It'll spare both of us time."

  "Twenty-five!"

  "Make it twenty then." Ruyters lowered his voice. "But not a shilling under, God is my witness."

  "By my life, you're a conniving Moor, passing himself as a Dutchman." Briggs mopped his brow. "It's time for the candle, sir. They're scarcely all of the same quality."

  "I'll grant you. Some should fetch well above twenty. I ventured the offer thinking a gentleman of your discernment might grasp a bargain when he saw it. But as you will." He turned and spoke quickly to his quartermaster, a short, surly seaman who had been with the Zeelander almost as long as Ruyters. The officer disappeared toward the Great Cabin and returned moments later with several long white candles, marked with rings at one-inch intervals. He fitted one into a holder and lit the wick.

  "We'll begin with the next one in the string." Ruyters pointed to a stout, gray-bearded man. "Gentlemen, what am I bid?"

  "Twelve pounds."

  "Fifteen."

  "Fifteen pounds ten."

  "Sixteen."

  As Winston watched the bidding, he found his gaze drifting more and more to the Yoruba Briggs had just purchased. The man was meeting his stare now, eye to eye, almost a challenge.

  There were three small scars lined down one cheek—the clan marks Yoruba warriors were said to wear to prevent inadver­tently killing another clan member in battle. He was naked and in chains, but he held himself like a born aristocrat.

  "Eighteen and ten." Briggs was eyeing the flickering candle as he yelled the bid. At that moment the first dark ring disap­peared.

  "The last bid on the candle was Mr. Benjamin Briggs." Ruyters turned to his quartermaster, who was holding an open account book, quill pen in hand. "At eighteen pounds ten shillings. Mark it and let's get on with the next one."

  Winston moved slowly back toward the main deck, studying the first Yoruba more carefully now—the glistening skin that seemed to stretch over ripples of muscle. And the quick eyes, seeing everything.

  What a fighting man he'd make. He'd snap your neck while you were still reaching for your pistol. It could've been a big mistake not to try and get him. But then what? How'd you make him understand anything? Unless . . .

  He remembered that some of the Yoruba in Brazil, still fresh off the slave ships, already spoke Portuguese. Learned from the traders who'd worked the African coast for . . . God only knows how long. The Portugals in Brazil always claimed you could never tell about a Yoruba. They were like Moors, sharp as tacks.

  His curiosity growing, he edged next to the man, still at­tempting to hold his eyes, then decided to try him.

  “Fala portugues?''

  Atiba started in surprise, shot a quick glance toward the crowd of whites, then turned away, as though he hadn't heard. Winston moved closer and lowered his voice.

  "Fala portugues, senhor?"

  After a long moment he turned back and examined Winston.

  “Sim. Suficiente.'' His whisper was almost buried in the din of bidding. He paused a moment, then continued, in barely audible Portuguese. "How many of my people will you try to buy, senhor?"

  "Only free men serve under my command.'

  "Then you have saved yourself the loss of many strings of money shells, senhor. The branco here may have escaped our sword for now. But they have placed themselves in our scab­bard." He looked back toward the shore. "Before the next rainy season comes, you will see us put on the skin of the leopard. I swear to you in the name of Ogun, god of war."