‘Leaping Christ!’ he cried, and Bomoseen, who stood next to him and who’d used Jack’s arms to be helped into the church, yelled out, ‘Ave!’ delighted that Jack joined in.
Held on high by the warrior who’d captured Jack was a trophy that elicited as much awe as any other: a war club. It was different from the more common ones, which were carved from a single piece of wood, the heavy end shaped into a ball. Only a few had this variation – a metal spike projecting from the head’s centre, which in this case was only partially revealed … buried as it was in his mother’s gift of Hamlet, which Jack had kept for luck in the pocket of his redcoat.
‘Orenda,’ Bomoseen was nodding beside him. ‘Powerful spirit. It save life. Your life.’
Jack could only nod himself. It suddenly made sense of that last sight before oblivion took him in the forest at Quebec. A war club resting on his chest. The bruise that still discoloured his skin there, the indentation. The thrown club was meant to kill him, its spike to lodge. Instead he’d been saved by his mother, by the longwindedness of a Danish prince and the craft of Alexander Pope’s printer on the corner of Dirty Lane, Dublin!
At the end of the service, with the sacred objects – including Hamlet and war club – piled before the Madonna on the altar, the congregation stepped out into the weak autumn sunlight. Jack was helping Bomoseen but the old man went to talk with other elders of the tribe, leaving Jack at the church’s door observing another Sunday ritual, one seen in any village in England. His uncle, Duncan Absolute, had always done his duty as squire of Zennor in the parish church; then he would fulfil his other role as figurehead by getting utterly drunk in the village inn. Here the Abenaki had no less a love for liquor than their Cornish equivalents and drank it openly before their longhouses. In Zennor, the fuel would have been beer and cider, with the odd prized bottle of smuggled brandy. Here it was rum, of which there seemed to be a never-ending supply.
It wasn’t just Sundays; there would be drunkards whatever the day. But Sundays, God duly propitiated, gave licence to all and amounts were consumed that would have disgraced no gathering in Covent Garden. Jack had seen the result the Sunday before, the joy of the first bumpers moving through songs on the fifth to arguments and fighting by the tenth. One man had been beaten near to death for some slight. And much as Jack could have used a snifter to set against the cold and fortify his thin, borrowed garments, he was unwilling to risk its consequences. As with the rest of his slavery, safety came with keeping out of the way.
His route to the longhouse where he slept took him close to a group of youths, occupied as any Cornish lads would have been of a Sunday – seeking trouble. A stone jug of rum was being passed round their circle. As he made to slip by, he saw what it was that they were yelling about. They were crouched over a large pit, a dozen paces across and the height of a man deep, in the bottom of which there was movement. Despite himself, the snarling below and the excitement above drew him.
Two dogs were down there, held at their necks, their hair up and stiff along their spines. The Abenaki kept two kinds of hound – for hunting and for eating – and these were of the latter kind and thus dispensable for this sort of game. As they circled, the youths yelled, bets obviously being made, called back and forth in their harsh tongue, accepted with grunts. Jack had often attended the cockfights – Marks was as fond of them as he was of dice – and the scene before him could have been exchanged for one in the Mall.
One of the dog-holders was a youth from Jack’s own longhouse, the one who’d snuck so many kicks in when Jack first arrived and who had been his chief persecutor ever since, always ready with an extra task, an extra toe in the ribs. Segunki. Recognizing him made Jack duck down on the instant, begin to turn; but at that moment the dogs were released and the roar and snarling pulled him back.
It was over fast, one hound’s fangs fastened in the other’s throat. No attempt was made to save it, its scrabbling rear paws jerking ever more fitfully as it was shaken back and forth. Cries of triumph came from many around – but not from Segunki who responded to the final spurt of blood by stepping back into the pit and stomping on his dog repeatedly. The other dog was pulled off by its triumphant owner while the loser stood there and glowered all around.
Time to be gone, Jack thought, taking a step away. Too late.
‘As-ban!’ Segunki yelled the name he’d given him, that supposedly indicated both his status and his white man’s smell. ‘Racoon’ was what MacDonald had called it when they’d chased one away from his tent.
Jack wasn’t fast enough to elude the reaching hands of Segunki’s friends. He was pulled back to face his tormentor whose features were twisted by the disappointment of his loss. His large hands twitched at his side and Jack prayed that he would observe the restraint that had been urged upon him by the longhouse matriarch. Though Jack spoke no words of their language, he understood clearly enough the meaning behind the kindness: the white man is property. Don’t harm the livestock.
A rapid debate took place. Something was agreed and two of the group ran off towards the longhouses. Jack, meanwhile, was being pulled and poked towards the fields.
Segunki had a few words in French and was using them now to convey what he intended for Jack but perhaps because of the distracting prods that accompanied the words, he could understand none of them. Finally, when they stood at the edge of the rows of maize, whose ears had been stripped only the week before and lay now in huge piles that awaited carrying to the village, Jack at last caught a repeated word he understood.
‘You want me to … race?’ he asked in French.
‘Race! Race!’ Segunki shouted, moving to the ears of corn. Beside them were the birch-weave baskets that were used to carry the produce to the grindstones. These had been left by those who worked here, no doubt at the summons of the church bell, because several were half-full. Segunki threw a few more ears in, then hefted the bucket, miming a run towards the village.
‘You want me to run with this?’ His French was accompanied by gestures that the Abenaki nodded at. But when Jack sighed and reached to begin this latest of his chores, the basket was jerked beyond his reach.
‘You race!’
Jack just kept his tone within bounds – for only slaves could be yelled at in that society. ‘Who? Who do I race?’
‘Me.’ The voice came from the edge of the group. ‘You race me.’
The words were spoken in English and so, for a moment, Jack didn’t understand them. He turned to see Até, the one man he’d been avoiding, thrust forward into the circle. ‘You race me, we carry these,’ Até gestured at the birch-bark containers. ‘You carry more because they say you are stronger than me.’ The eyes finally met his. ‘They are wrong.’
Jack gasped, watching Segunki and the others haggling over the corn ears they were throwing into each of the baskets. ‘You mean, they are … are handicapping me. Like some racehorse?’
Até shrugged. ‘I don’t know this word. You carry more. That is all.’
Jack felt his face redden. He muttered. ‘I’m not a fucking horse. I damn well won’t be treated like one.’
‘Then they beat you.’
‘Better that perhaps.’
‘No. Not better. You win, you rest.’
‘And if I lose.’
The shrug again, no words.
‘So a beating either way,’ Jack said.
‘Unless you win.’
‘Well, I better do that then, hadn’t I?’ The baskets had been filled and Jack walked to the fuller one, pointed at it. Segunki nodded and Jack bent, hefted it onto his shoulders. He staggered back slightly, which made the youths jeer. When Até lifted his, he did it with hardly an effort; the load, less than Jack’s but not by much, seemed to trouble him less and Jack noted that though the Mohawk was thinner than him and had certainly suffered longer, his muscles were corded under his patched cotton shirt, his legs strong within his torn breeches.
One youth stood before Jack and Até, a hand in each
of their chests. ‘How far?’ said Jack.
‘To the church door,’ same the reply. Then, to a shout of ‘Aieeee!’ the horses were off.
The weight! As Jack took a step, he felt the load pull him backwards. Até had immediately gained a pace, so Jack was able to observe his opponent reach behind him, pull forward a strap, slip it over his forehead. Reaching behind too, he groped until his fingers found some loose leather. Lifting it over his head, he mimicked the man now five paces before him. The strap instantly took some of the strain from the shoulders and back, while putting more on the neck but, dropping his chin, he was able to counter that. His speed built and he began to try to make up the ground lost.
The land sloped down from the fields and for the first hundred yards the going wasn’t too bad. But then it began to climb, the path winding through a stand of spruce pine. Despite the slope, still Jack could not gain, the gap maintained. If anything, he dropped a little further behind, to the fury of Segunki and the joy of those who had bet against him. But it wasn’t for him that Jack, when the ground levelled, began to pound harder. Even if he had seen the way the Abenaki youth had treated a dog that had let him down, it wasn’t what drove him now. There was a rival ahead and rivals were there to be beaten. It was the Westminster way.
They had maybe two hundred yards to go when he saw the first flagging in the stride ahead. Not much, a misplaced foot, a slight stumble. But in any footrace there was a moment to be seized when a show of strength would add to an opponent’s weakness. This was that moment. With a grunt, Jack sprinted the yards to come up beside, then pass, Até. Segunki, his cronies, cheered; those who had bet on the Mohawk screamed at him. And he responded, not with a burst of speed, but by reaching up into his basket, grabbing a corn ear and hurling it between Jack’s legs. It was little, should have been nothing, but it caught just as his ankles were at their closest, lodged for only a second between them. Unencumbered, he’d have taken the stumble in stride, strode on. But here the pannier followed gravity forward, the top edge of it crashing into Jack’s neck, turning stumble to fall.
The ground was hard, the basket pressed him into it, corn ears clattering around his head. Spluttering, he tried to force himself up just with his arms, then sank until he could pull his legs up underneath him. Heaving, he rose again to his feet. His opponent was at least thirty yards ahead now but Jack needed none of the curses or kicks. Nothing more than his own anger to drive after him.
It was too far. Despite the yelling, the encouragement turning ever more to threat – Jack, speaking none of the language, could at least hear the change in tone – he wasn’t able to get any closer than ten yards. Até maintained that gap, speeding up to match Jack’s final effort, which caused him to fall again. He raised his head in time to see Até touch the church door.
Jack took his time to rise, drawing in the breaths he knew he’d need. The men with the winning bets had clustered around Até, his slave status momentarily forgotten in the euphoria of victory. The losers, Segunki prominent, were spread between Jack and the finish. Despite their glares, they too were breathing deep after their run up from the fields. So no one tried to do anything more than curse him as he dumped the birch pannier and walked up to Até.
‘You cheated,’ he said quietly.
‘Cheated?’ Até turned his head quizzically. ‘What mean?’
‘You cheated to win the race. You didn’t win fair.’
‘Fair? Everything fair.’ He hammered on the wooden door. ‘Only win matters.’
Jack’s voice dropped but something in it, though they did not understand the words, made even his disappointed sponsors, even Segunki, look closer. ‘Then what I said here that first day was right. Like all of them, you truly are a savage. And the Mohocks of London know more about honour than all the Mohawks in Canada.’
Até flushed, the red running from his still-heaving chest up his neck, into his eyes. As the colour reached them he went for Jack, as Jack suspected he might. Thus prepared, he stepped sideways, seizing the Indian’s reaching arm by the wrist, twisting his own body, bringing his other hand up into the armpit, using the force of the assault to throw Até past him. He fell hard but rolled up onto his knees on the instant, turning. Jack would have followed, pinned him to the ground, made him acknowledge his knavery, and he sensed that Até would have met him halfway, but others interposed, seizing each of them.
A hasty, fast conversation was had as they glared at each other. Then someone laughed and then all of them were running away from the church, dragging their prisoners with them. When they came to the dog pit, they were both lowered into it but still held. There was a slight wait, until one of the younger boys who’d disappeared, now returned with something Jack could not see. Segunki took what the boy brought, stepping up to the pit edge with the object behind his back. On a word, the two of them were taken to opposite sides of the rough circle, yet still pinioned there. Then Segunki threw what he’d been hiding … and two war clubs landed in the mud and the dog’s guts. He spoke something to someone beside him, one of those who had bet on Até, and it was the way he said it that made Jack understand it instantly, even though he spoke none of their tongue.
‘Double or quits,’ the Indian clearly stated and, at his nod, Jack and Até were released.
As he dived forward, in the moment between thought and instinct, Jack realized that for the second time in just a few months he was going to fight a duel and that if he didn’t hate this Até as much as he hated Craster Absolute, he hated him enough, hated him because he was one with all who’d made him suffer these last weeks. There was no fellowship amongst slaves. Reduced to an animal, he would fight, as the dogs had fought before him and on this same ground, for a higher place in the pack.
The slickness of the surface caused each to misjudge their leaps. Both slipped, slid, stuck together, one hand out to fend off, the other to grope for the weapon. Momentum made them spin in a half-circle, their conjoined bodies the axis. Jack grabbed a club first but he was holding it high up its shaft and couldn’t swing it. Instead, almost as if it were a sword, he jabbed it into the face that grimaced close to his. Até turned aside, the blow glancing off his jaw. Drawing his legs up to his chest, Jack kicked out, too close to damage, close enough for the force to send the other man sliding backwards across the mud. Yet as he went, Até’s hand trailed, grabbed the other club, taking it with him.
Both of them were now up, staggering back to the extremity of the pit. Jack shifted his grip on the weapon, swung it through the air. The weight was all at the top, in the heavy ball-head, these ones spikeless. He had never hefted one before and it felt awkward – as it obviously didn’t to his opponent. In that instant, Jack knew the weapon couldn’t be used as any sword he’d ever practised with, even the heavy cavalry sabre. But as Até moved away from the wall, circling left, and as he moved the opposite way, Jack grasped the shaft with two hands, raised it …
Well, kiss my arse, he marvelled, it’s a cricket bat!
Wonder vanished as Até came for him, swinging the club in a high arc from behind him, aiming straight down for his head. Jack stepped into him, club raised square across, taking the blow before it had reached its full velocity. And yet the crack! It rang like a musket shot, sent a shock down his arms and on into his body, causing him to stagger back. Até followed, the club coming hard into Jack’s left flank. He just blocked it in time but had to draw his feet awkwardly under him to do it. Spinning, the Mohawk took his weapon out, around, his whole body-weight behind it, and by the time it reached him its force was unstoppable; certainly the block Jack threw out barely slowed it. His club left his grip on impact. Only a leap back meant that his side was not shattered by the blow but what landed in the soft flesh just beneath his ribs was enough to knock the little breath he’d held from him. He fell into the wall, slipped to its base. On his back, the partisan cries from the pit’s edge, of triumph and fury, came to him as if through a blanket. Jack looked back, expecting the killing blow that would
at least end the terrible pain. But Até had paused to yell some Mohawk triumph to the sky.
It was a mistake.
When he came, Jack had taken a breath and it was enough to let him push himself from the wall, not off the ground, but along it, not away from his enemy but towards him, using the slickness of the surface for momentum. Até had stepped back to give himself room to run, to bring his final blow down and it was the blow he was focused on, not the target. He was half-turned away. He was running and Jack was sliding and the two met with Jack’s one leg raised at an angle off the ground. Até impaled himself on it.
His groan was echoed around the edge of the ring, each man there folding in slightly to his centre. Até staggered back, clutching at his groin, while Jack snatched up his weapon. Both ended with their backs against the pit’s walls, both sucking in rasping gulps of air.
Jack moved first. The pain in his side had a dullness he feared was only temporary. Before he succumbed to it, he had to end this. Grasping the club at shoulder height, he pushed himself off the wall, as if he were striding down a wicket to a short-flighted ball.
One stroke to win the match, he thought, grimacing at what the movement did to him.
The Blooding of Jack Absolute Page 24
