Something called, a chittering cry. A bird or a squirrel, he wasn’t sure, but it was loud in that cathedral silence, startling enough for him to reach down and half draw his sword. When the echo of the cry faded he let the blade slide back. There was nothing to do but move on. Ride to the sound of the guns.
The next cry was closer, much closer and though he was sure it was meant to sound again like a bird or an animal it had a human feel to it. Now his sword did come out and it was bending to draw it that saved him for he felt something pass over his back, heard it strike the tree beside him and looked up to see a tomahawk sprouting from a trunk. Wheeling, he sought where it had come from, saw two figures – naked, painted demons from a nightmare – sprinting toward him, each with hair in a single twist bouncing on their necks. They were yelling as they came, yelling something that was close to, yet nothing like the Mohocks’ cry.
Yelping, he turned the horse, drove at what looked like thinner growth. It seemed almost like a path and his horse, as panicked as he, picked up speed along it. He felt, rather than saw, something reach for the horse’s tail; he slashed back with his sword, heard a shriek of pain, someone falling. He was free, moving faster. He could get away now. He could.
The suddenness of the blow surprised him, hitting him slap over his heart, lifting him from his saddle, his feet clearing the stirrups, throwing him back so fast that he missed the horse’s arse entirely and landed flat on his back on the forest floor. That little air that had stayed in his lungs left now, though surprisingly he didn’t pass out immediately. His head was partially propped up, on a root perhaps, thus enabling him to examine the war club that was resting on his chest. It seemed stuck to him, which was odd; yet he had no time to work out why, as a man ran at him, raising something on high. It may have been then that the lack of air finally told, because he didn’t note a blow. Just darkness.
– FOUR –
Até
The dark that had taken him held him still; had done for three days, more or less; hard to tell as day and night had only been indicated by a slight shift from black to grey and back, seen through a blindfold. Denied sight, his other senses had grown acute; the touch of birch bark to cheek as, with Jack lying face down, the canoe was driven up the river; the sound of water against the bow; later, the scent of the forest where brief halts were made; the wet leaves and muddy earth he was thrown upon; the taste of the gristly, dried meat that was held for him to chew; the brackish water that washed it down. Under all the heightened feelings was the constant one of pain: at his head where he’d been struck and which was roughly washed and rebandaged above his blindfold; at his thumbs which were tightly bound together with a leather cord; up and down his legs and buttocks where he’d received the kicking when he’d tried to escape his blind by rubbing it along the ground of the camp. He’d desisted since, let himself sink into the oblivion thrust upon him. The fear was constant, an undernote to all other sensations, but panic had receded slightly when he’d accepted that there was absolutely nothing he could do.
Until now. This landing had been different. He’d been thrust ahead of his captors up a steep path, made to duck at an entrance of some kind. Warmth sucked him in, almost made him shiver more violently after his days of exposure on the water, for they’d left him only with his shirt and breeches, his redcoat, waistcoat, boots and stockings stripped away. This place also brought a raft of new smells to his sensitized nose, most of them unpleasant: wet dog fur; wood and tobacco smoke; humans who had been too close for too long. And beneath all these, a new-old scent – rum. The structure was awash with it.
The men who’d kidnapped him had barely talked, never to him, rarely to each other. Here, they and others gabbled, alternate voices rising and falling in passion. Both men and women were present and it was one of the latter who became the clearest, for after a long discourse from one of the men she began to wail, a low note at first, rising steadily to a keen of sorrow and pain.
Jack had been dumped on some sort of platform, his legs spilling over it to the earthen floor he could feel under his bare toes. His blindfold had been left on but someone had ripped off the leather cord that had held his thumbs together. Tentatively, he started to move his hands up the sides of his body. When no one shouted, or ran at him flailing, he carefully pushed up an edge of the blindfold.
He was at one end of a long, high-roofed dwelling. He was indeed on a platform that ran along the outer wall and was raised a few feet above the packed earth floor. At intervals down the length of the house were firepits, smoke rising from each of them to holes in the ceiling, though these vented only a portion, such was the haze that hung over everything. Some people sat or lay, singly or in groups, along the platform. Most, though, were gathered before the central and largest fireplace, around a body laid out there. Even through the haze and with sight accustoming itself again to use, Jack could tell that the warrior – he had the single top-knot of hair on his otherwise bald head – was dead. His body seemed frozen while a deep gash of congealed red at his throat proclaimed it as much as the blue tinge of his skin.
The woman who wailed struck herself repeatedly on the chest, pointing down to the corpse. Other women who tried to stop her blows were shrugged off. Another warrior was talking to her, telling some story that involved the dead man before him, violent gestures accompanying words that were almost sung. His volume increased, a bass note counterpointing the keening, as if they were caught in some hideous duet. Then, suddenly and together, they stopped. The woman fell, caught and held up by women to her side. The man had thrown his arm out, his finger pointing. At Jack. And everyone in the hut now turned and looked at him.
The warrior strode forward then, grabbed him, dragged him off the platform. Jack didn’t try to resist. The man was twice his size and there were others there equally large and fearsome. There was nothing to do but let himself be dragged along the earth floor, to be thrown down before the fire.
The wailing woman instantly threw off her restrainers and struck him, her fists bunched, her moccasined feet jabbing. Jack rolled into a ball, knees up to stomach, hands over his face. The blows fell for a while, as the mob around her yelled encouragement and landed some hits themselves. When the assault finally stopped, the warrior bent to him, pulled his hands away from his face, began to jabber, waving from the corpse to Jack.
‘I don’t understand …’ he said.
The man leaned in, thrust his face – heavily tattooed with blue lines running across it – and spoke even more rapidly, doubling his volume.
‘No … understand … no … speak …’ Jack gestured helplessly to his own mouth.
The man muttered something that could only be a curse then turned and spoke to a youth beside him – one who, Jack had noticed, had slid in a few, especially painful kicks of his own when the woman had attacked. He nodded, left the circle and silence came, Jack still lying there half-curled up, the woman weeping quietly, the warrior glaring. In a moment, the dispatched youth returned, dragging someone with him.
The newcomer was a Native of about Jack’s own age, taller, thinner. His hair was even blacker and more unkempt than Jack’s. What looked like the remains of a warrior’s top-knot was at the crown, standing up from a sea of greasy curls. One eye was discoloured by an old, yellowing bruise. There were crusted scratches down one cheek. Unlike the bare-chested warriors, he wore a shirt of sorts, though how it still clung to the body Jack could not tell, so shredded and torn was it. Through the rents, he could see that the skin was mottled, filthy and reddened.
The fetcher threw the youth down with a vicious twist of the ear. Immediately, the warrior who had confronted Jack began to shout at the newcomer, who gazed forward and showed no real sign that he was hearing. Then, when the latest tirade stopped, the youth, without lifting his head, said, ‘You kill this man.’
Already unused to hearing English, Jack wasn’t sure if he had heard the words or made them up himself. ‘What?’ he said, startled.
In the
same monotone, the words were repeated, accompanied by the faintest of nods toward the corpse.
‘But … I didn’t … I …’
The youth now spoke, in the same low-voiced way. The warrior let forth a burst of vowels, reached back behind him … and suddenly Jack’s sword was being waved in the air above them.
‘You kill him, with this. On horse.’
In the vagueness of memory, a little flicker came, of a sword swept backwards, a cry, just before the darkness had taken him. ‘Ah,’ he said.
The woman, who had been following the words, now leaned into Jack and screamed again. The boy translated. ‘She is dead man’s mother.’
‘I am … very sorry.’
‘Sorry, not enough. She wants … wants …’
Jack swallowed. ‘Revenge?’
‘Payment. You pay.’
Jack was relieved and puzzled at the same time. ‘They have stolen all I possessed.’ He reached up, touched the skin where Clothilde’s half-shilling had rested. He’d known it was missing immediately, had felt its absence like a wound ever since.
His words were translated, producing another burst from the warrior.
‘He say: You pay or you slave.’
Jack was sure he’d misheard. ‘I’ll do … what?’
‘Slave.’ The downcast eyes flicked up, only for a moment. ‘Like me.’
‘Slave!’ Suddenly the meaning was all too clear and the outrage it brought overpowered the terror that had held him since he’d entered the hut. ‘Now look here,’ he said, rising up on his knees to stare straight at the warrior, ‘I am a free-born Englishman and, by God, no savage can turn me into a slave. Tell them that if they take me to Quebec, to the British Army, I will see that they are not punished for what they have done. May even be able to get them some rum and … bead thingies.’ He turned to the man beside him. ‘Tell ’em.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Tell ’em, damn your eyes!’
The other man pushed his neck to one side as if stretching it then began to speak. He had only got a few words out before there was a roar from the warrior, a screech from the woman, and both immediately began striking Jack, knocking him back down to the floor where several kicks were delivered. Then they pulled away and began to jabber at each other.
‘What did you tell them?’ gasped Jack.
‘Only what you say. How you were not a savage’s slave.’
‘Next time, ignore me,’ groaned Jack, holding his bruised ribs. As the volume and the gestures over him increased, he continued, ‘How is it you speak English?’
‘How does a savage speak?’ There was a little gleam in the dullness of the eyes. ‘Because I was not always slave to these Abenaki … dogs,’ he whispered. ‘I am Iroquois. Mohawk.’
‘Mohock?’ said Jack. It was a word from a better world, a civilized one; brought a memory of pleasure beyond the pain. ‘That’s strange. For so am I.’
The gleam grew. ‘What you mean?’
‘Friends and I. Back home, in England. A little … society.’
‘So … soci …’
‘Uh, gang. Of warriors, you know. Drinking, eating. Uh, whatchamacallit … whooping.’
‘You … say you are warrior of my people? You …’ The gleam was now a flame. ‘You no Mohawk. You steal a name. You know nothing of honour—’
‘Now look here, fellow—’
‘Argh!’ yelled the Iroquois, throwing himself on Jack, knocking him backwards. He was underneath, fending off the blows that fell for the short while before the others dragged them apart, only to beat each in a simultaneous assault in which everyone joined in. When it was over, both of them were thrown onto a platform, while the crowd went back to their debate.
Jack was now feeling pain in the few places where he had not felt it before. He lay curled up, finally daring to open his eyes again. He found himself staring into the eyes of his recent opponent. There was no dullness in them now as he whispered, ‘I am warrior, not you. I am Mohawk, not you. I am Até of the Wolf Clan. Keep out of my way, White Face. Or you die … pretty damn quick!’
Slavery is a bloody slow way of passing the time, Jack thought, as he began his twentieth trip down the river path that day. He held the yoke away from his raw-rubbed skin, the birch-bark buckets jiggling before and behind him as he walked. On the return he’d have to lower the yoke onto his pain, it was the only way to get the full buckets back and only full buckets could be poured into the longhouse’s trough. Anything less and he would get more kicks, less food at the end of the day. He’d tried folding the tattered remains of his lawn shirt between the wood and the flesh but it had barely helped and the blue, cotton shirt they’d given him was proof against neither cold nor chafing. The meat fat he’d rubbed on, taken from his ration – pemmican, they called the foul conglomeration – had eased the hurt a little. Then someone had seen him doing it and he had been cursed, and struck, for wasting food. So now he just suffered, less on the way to the water, more on the way back.
Pain blurred the hours, toil the days. How long had he been there? He had tried to keep a rough calendar, gouged into the slats where he slept in the longhouse. But, exhausted, he’d forget to scratch the marks at day’s end and was anyway unsure how long that darkened journey had taken to bring him here. If it was about two weeks since the battle, it was the end of September, beginning of October perhaps. The weather gave little clue except that it was colder than any autumn he’d ever known. There’d been some snow three days before.
If time eluded him, he had learnt other things, to be mused on as he dragged himself down the path. Some of the tribe – they were called the Abenaki – spoke French, albeit with an accent that had him always groping for meaning. Jack had been given as slave to the family he’d robbed of a son and one old man, Bomoseen, who lived in their longhouse, spoke it better than most. He treated Jack a little more kindly than the others, speaking to him each day and tolerating the occasional question. From him Jack had learned that he was in the village of St Francis though he was given no indication where that was. That the Abenaki were old allies of the French in the fight against the ‘bastard Anglais’ and that many of the scalps, both men’s and women’s, that decorated the lodge pole were taken by Bomoseen himself. He also informed Jack that what the tribe fought for was not land, the owning of which was an absurd idea, nor any distant king. The Abenaki fought for scalps – which proved prowess and brought glory – and prisoners, like Jack, who could eventually be exchanged for gold or goods to enrich the village. It was that ‘eventually’ which concerned Jack the most, yet further questions gave no answers, time an irrelevance in the Abenaki world. It was either before or after. Before the winter? A shrug. After? Another shrug. Running away was a fantasy. He had no idea where he was and was certain he would not last long alone in the forest. It had also been made clear to him what would happen if he tried. Bits of him would be cut off. Bits he was fond of.
There were white captives in other longhouses, men and women; Jack had tried to talk to them but it had proved frustrating. They were all either Dutch or Palatine German and spoke no languages but their own, though their weary gestures indicated they had been there a worryingly long time. There was only one other person there who spoke English and he had made it clear, from the first, that he wanted nothing to do with Jack.
As he lowered the buckets onto the shingle shore, Jack rolled his shoulders and mused on that person. The old man had spat that all Iroquois were demons and the Mohawk tribe the worst of all, their very name meaning ‘cannibal’. This Até had been taken in war because the Mohawk usually sided with the British. But there was no profit to be had from such an uncivilized people. So the youth would live and, judging by his treatment, probably soon die, a slave.
That was something else Jack had learned about slavery. As in any society, there were gradations to it. There had been much of the same at Westminster where there was a form of slavery and boys lived in a hierarchy, the seniors catered to by d
escending ranks who each persecuted the one below them, down to the youngest boys who could only persecute each other. Jack had contrived to keep out of this Até’s way and would continue to do so. A man who had no lower to fall was dangerous and his innocent claiming of Mohock kinship had obviously rattled the fellow.
Shivering, Jack bent to his buckets, wading up to his bare knees in the chill water, filling the bark containers as rapidly as he could. When the second was half full, an unusual sound from the village made him pause – a bell, tolling. It was the summons to church and that gave Jack the day, Sunday, which he should have noticed before because only the slaves were working. Yet even slaves would stop now, for an hour or two at least. Even slaves had souls, the French had convinced their allies, and might be saved if only they came to Mass. Thus once a week most of the villagers packed into the slat-boarded, shingle-roofed church, united in their adoration of a silver Madonna on the high altar. The Abenaki were Catholics of the most rabid kind and Jack had always been a casual Atheist. But not on a Sunday in St Francis. He had made the mistake of demurring the week before and so he had been assigned a task – he’d had to slit the throat of a dog, skin, gut and ready it for the longhouse pot. He would not demur again. Indeed, he looked forward to the hymns and prayers, would sing and chant with the most devout and display his superior Latin. Anything if it meant he would not have to carry any more bastard buckets for an hour or two!
The service was quite different from any that Jack had attended before. It had the solemnity of a communion at St Peter’s Abbey in the procession, the hymns. It had the ecstasy of the Chapel in the Tottenham Court Road, the swooning, swaying, chanting congregation falling before certain sacred items, reverencing them, grabbing them from their robed bearers to shake at the crowd, staggering at their touch. The objects were different and went beyond what Jack would have expected even from Catholics. He knew they believed in the sacredness of relics, the living power resting in wood, metal and porcelain. The cross was worshipped from hand to hand, the small silver Madonna was carried forth to the beating of chests, to ‘Hallelujahs’ and ‘Hosannas’, but it was the other items that surprised Jack: hoes, flails and threshers; buckets and fishing hooks; tomahawks and muskets, flint and ball. Intricately carved masks with a variety of grotesque faces were also passed reverently down the nave, laid upon the altar around the Mother of God. But it was the last object that had Jack starting forward as it came through the doors.
The Blooding of Jack Absolute Page 23
