Council of Fire

by Eric Flint

  “That’s why there are white men who own black men. Because they decided that we were ‘just’ something to own. But deep down . . . ” Absalom let go of him, but continued, quietly, “deep down, they are afraid of us and what we might do if we ever realized it was wrong and evil. Comet comes and changes the world and makes them afraid. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

  In a boardinghouse near the ropewalk on Bowery Lane, Absalom and Gustavus climbed a set of narrow stairs to an outside door. Absalom knocked on the door; there was no answer. He looked back at Gustavus, then reached his hand to knock again. But before he could do so, the door opened and a young girl smiled up at the visitors.

  Gustavus took a breath: she was strikingly beautiful, and he must have been staring—Absalom nudged him, not entirely gently.

  “Welcome,” she said. “Absalom. And . . . ” she looked at Gustavus. “A newcomer.”

  “Gustavus.”

  “My name is Coffey. Please,” the girl said, gesturing. “Minerva will be glad to see you.”

  The rooms were sunlit and remarkably comfortable despite the warmth of the day. Gustavus smelled flowers and fresh-baked bread, and there was a gentle breeze within. Coffey gestured them to a well-worn settle near the fireplace, which had its fire banked low.

  “She’s not for you,” Absalom said quietly. “She’s given her heart to a young buck named York. He works with Jupiter, and he’d personally beat the tar out of you if he thought you’d looked at Coffey sidewise. And if that wasn’t enough, Jupiter might join in the fun.”

  An older woman emerged through the opposite door. She was modestly dressed, with a carefully tied chignon according to the Caribbean style; her smile seemed to light up the whole room.

  “Thank you, Coffey,” she said to the girl. “Absalom. A delight.” Her voice had a Caribbean lilt to it, matching her kerchief. “And who is this?”

  “My name is Gustavus.”

  “Surely not. Gustavus is the name some white man gave you.” She took his chin in her hand; he felt warmth rise from it—then she let go and stood up straight.

  “My mother named me Oladuah, Mistress.”

  “Oh, la, never! Not Mistress, Oladuah. Never that. I am . . . Minerva. A white man’s name, but I was born a free black woman here in New York, and that’s what is done.” She gestured to the settle and took her seat in an armchair opposite. She placed her hand on her breast. “Minerva Mercer. Mercy, they call me here. Absalom said you wanted to meet me.”

  “He spoke well of you, Mis—Minerva,” Gustavus said. “He said that you taught him kindness.”

  Absalom looked sideways at Gustavus, but Minerva just smiled. “He doesn’t like being seen through, that one. But young Oladuah, that is not truly why you are here. What do you want of me?”

  “What can you offer?”

  “Mind your tongue, boy,” Absalom said.

  “No, it’s all right, Absalom. He is very protective of Mercy, he is. Do you know, many people come to me, and they don’t know why. But they all come to me for one reason: they have pain and they want to be healed.”

  “I’m not in pain.”

  “Oh, la, yes you are,” Minerva said. “New York is not your home; and that British ship is not your home either. You are far from where you came from.”

  “I will never see it again,” Gustavus said, and his heart sank as he thought of it. The land of the Igbo, his home until he was eleven; like so many, he found himself taken away into captivity.

  “Pain,” Minerva said. “We are all in pain. I can take that away.”

  “How?”

  “I cannot say,” Minerva said. “It may come from within, or from above; but since the coming of the comet it has come more easily.” She stood and reached her hand out again, touching Gustavus on the forehead. Once more he felt warmth come forth.

  He was with his sister again, in the family compound. Mami and Papi and uncles and aunts were away, working in the fields and the forests, when the men came and took them away. He never saw his sister again . . . he came to Barbados, that hell-place where men’s lives were cheaper than a few pounds of sugar, but did not stay, thanks be to God: and then he was transported to Virginia. But Lieutenant Michael Pascal bought him and gave him the name of a great white king. He brought the newly made Gustavus to the true Faith and taught him his letters.

  Then the comet fell, and the world split apart.

  He felt the tears coursing down his face: for his sister, for the Igbo, for all that was lost.

  “What have you done? What are you doing?” He looked through tears and saw someone else standing over him: a radiant figure, glowing bright as the room darkened as if day had turned to night.

  “She told you,” he heard Absalom say as if from a distance. “Mercy takes away your pain.”

  Sometime later he came to himself again. He was lying full-length on the settle, a cushion under his head. The sun was low, streaming through the open window. He sat up in alarm and the room swam on him for a moment, then settled.

  “I am overdue,” he said. “They will think I have run away.”

  Minerva sat opposite, a cup in her hand. She extended it to him: fragrant tea, a scent from somewhere far away. He sipped it, cupping his hands around it, finding himself cold despite the heat of the late afternoon.

  “No, young Oladuah. Absalom has gone to your great ship to find the man who calls himself your master. We will go along to join him when you have found your feet again.”

  Gustavus thought a moment. Other than the worry that he had been gone a long time and had somehow fallen into sleep in a stranger’s house, he felt well. No, he felt fine: free of worry, free of fear.

  “What has happened?”

  Minerva took the cup back from him. “Mercy, my dear one. Mercy.”

  Chapter 40

  We have to learn to live together

  New York

  “Yes,” Boscawen said. “There are a number of people who are quite unhappy that I’m talking to you at all.”

  Minerva folded her hands in her lap and leaned back on the bench. It had become slightly cooler after sundown. The oppressive heat of a June day in New York had made everyone irritable. Boscawen had taken that into account all day, refraining from punishment of those who committed minor infractions. Now, in the gathering dark, they sat on Namur’s quarterdeck.

  “I am not surprised,” Minerva said. She looked at Absalom, and then back at Boscawen. “Many New Yorkers are afraid of Negroes.”

  “Why would they be afraid?”

  Gustavus put his hand up, glancing at Pascal, who nodded.

  “What is it, boy?”

  “Memories last a long time, Admiral, sir. Eighteen years ago there was a terrible event in New York. Lies, and fear, and hatred led to the killing of many Negroes. I felt people watching me wherever I went, sir.”

  “People are always suspicious of outsiders,” Boscawen said. “Is this any different?”

  “People are afraid of dark skin,” Absalom said. “Every time they see one of us, they see someone who might burn down their house or slit their throat while they sleep. I was a young man when they burned some people at the stake and hung others. We haven’t forgotten either.”

  “Do you think there will be some reprisal?”

  “Reprisal?”

  “Will they attack us for talking to you?”

  Absalom closed his eyes, and then opened them. “No. They might consider it, but they are more afraid of you than us.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” Boscawen said. “All right, Miss Minerva; tell me what you can do.”

  “I can take pain away,” she said. “Once it was only a small thing—the slight relief of a fever, or head pain, or a toothache. It was a knack; now it is a talent.” She looked from Boscawen to Absalom. “Many of us have talents.”

  Boscawen raised an eyebrow. “Do you have a talent, young man?”

  Absalom crossed his arms and frowned. “After a fashion.”

&n
bsp; “Tell me more.”

  “Do you have a coin, Admiral?”

  Boscawen reached into his waistcoat and withdrew a shilling. He extended his hand toward Absalom; but the other man did not reach for it.

  “Flip the coin,” he said. “Do not show it to me.”

  Boscawen flipped the coin in the air and caught it, covering it with his hand.

  “Heads,” Absalom said. Boscawen uncovered the coin to show the profile of King George II.

  “Again,” Boscawen said; he flipped the coin, and when he had it beneath his hand, Absalom correctly said, “Heads.”

  The experiment was conducted three more times, and each time Absalom correctly stated the outcome.

  “So,” Boscawen said, “you are able to accurately predict the flip of a coin. Impressive, but I fail to—”

  “A moment,” Absalom said. “Admiral, if you would, take your coin, choose a side, and place it under your hand.”

  Boscawen took the coin he was about to put away, and placed it tails-side-up. He covered it with his hand, showing it for a moment to Minerva. “Will you now tell me what side the coin is on?”

  Absalom closed his eyes and frowned. A single bead of sweat escaped his scalp and trickled slowly, unobstructed, down the right side of his face and into his closely trimmed beard.

  He opened his eyes and said, “Heads.”

  “You are sure,” Boscawen said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, young man, I think this charade is at an end, because—” he removed his hand, and resting on the flat of his other hand was a shilling, showing the profile face of the King of England.

  He looked at the coin in disbelief.

  “You were about to say, sir?” Absalom said, smiling.

  “I placed that coin on the other side.”

  “I know,” Absalom said. “I changed it.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I can see choices,” Absalom said. “When there are different choices for an event, I can see what they might be, and—nudge—the event toward the one I wish. You had two choices for the coin; I made it become heads.”

  “But I placed the coin on the other side.”

  “And it was equally likely you would have placed it on the other side, Admiral. I made you choose the other way.”

  “But I had already decided and shown your friend. I had already made the choice.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s easier when it hasn’t happened yet, but with small things, like the side of a coin, it can have just taken place. I make it happen how I choose.”

  “Few people in New York will gamble with Absalom,” Minerva said.

  “No,” Absalom answered. “But they love to go hunting with me.”

  Boscawen tucked away the shilling. “Imagine changing the path of a musket-ball. Making it strike its target—or miss.” He looked at Absalom. “How well does this talent work?”

  “You mean, does it always work? Since the comet, Admiral, yes it does. But I can only do it a few times without tiring out. And I don’t use it to gamble, Mercy. If God has given me this gift, I would not waste it that way.”

  “You are a freedman, are you, Absalom?”

  “I am, Admiral. And Minerva is a free woman.”

  “I could impress you into service even so. But I need whatever help I can manage. We are at war, not just with the French—indeed, perhaps no longer with the French—and also with the land itself, and its natives. What I have seen, and heard of, tell me that we must try to fight on their terms.”

  “You are looking for us to fight for you?” Minerva said.

  “Not as a soldier,” Boscawen said. “As . . . civilian assistants.”

  “What would we assist with?” Absalom said.

  “Well, Absalom here might use his talent at critical moments; and you might be able to assist with your healing talents.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Others? What others?”

  “Mercy—” Absalom said, his eyes flashing angrily.

  She held up her hand. “No, Absalom, there is no sense in keeping it secret. I sense that Admiral Boscawen is a good man; his cause is just, and he will remember us when the war is over.”

  “As Judge Horsmanden remembered us eighteen years ago, Mercy? When half of the Negroes in New York were put in prison, and innocent men and women—black and white!—were hung by the neck or burned to death, based on lies? He promised justice and he—”

  Absalom turned away, walking to the railing and looking out across the harbor.

  “Madam, I—” Boscawen spread his hands.

  “We have learned not to trust anyone,” Minerva said. “Our people cannot give testimony in royal court; a Negro can be fined, or imprisoned, or beaten for the smallest slight to a white man. But still we hope for a better day. Meanwhile, many of us have knacks and skills . . . we do not talk about them, because people would fear us.”

  “They should fear us,” Absalom said, without turning around. “There are some . . . who they should truly fear.”

  “It is no way to live,” Minerva said, without commenting on Absalom’s last remark. “We have to learn to live together. Admiral, I am prepared to help you—but on a condition. You are not a New Yorker; you were not here eighteen years ago when such terrible wrongs were done. I ask your promise that you will take up our cause.”

  “Meaning—”

  “We wish to be treated the same as anyone else—in society, in law. We will need your help in that.”

  “Every person is a child of God,” Boscawen said. “I believe that; but people have beliefs and biases that have existed for centuries. I cannot change everyone’s mind—not overnight, perhaps not ever. I cannot promise to do what cannot be done. If that is your condition, there is no way I can meet it.”

  “I ask only to change your mind, Admiral,” Minerva said. She smiled, and it seemed that, even in the dim illumination of lanterns hung over the quarterdeck, the whole scene was filled with light.

  Part V:

  Ascent

  July, 1759

  The universe is change;

  Our life is what our thoughts make it.

  —Marcus Aurelius

  Chapter 41

  We have a choice

  Albany

  Jeffrey Amherst was accustomed to waiting; it was part of the military experience. He was also accustomed to being uncomfortable. Full dress uniform in the sweltering heat of mid-morning in July qualified as the latter, as much for him as for the honor guard that stood at stiff attention—but it was not often that he, or they, were present to receive a member of the Royal Family.

  The only member of the Royal Family, he reminded himself. What existed of the House of Hanover was disembarking from a carriage bearing a hastily painted coat of arms, but lacking the customary gilt and ornamentation of one that might roll down a promenade in London.

  It will have to do.

  Prince Edward did not seem inconvenienced by the lack of decoration, or any other shocking breach of protocol that would have scandalized any equerry at Westminster. He was turned out in a dress uniform with little additional ornamentation, and only a collar of some sort to denote his rank. It had all the trappings of a badly-equipped stage play rather than the presentation of the commanding general of British forces to his—acting—sovereign.

  Well, he thought; that’s America for you.

  Edward, accompanied by General James Wolfe—his sharp nose pointed in the air, as always—advanced to where Amherst stood stiffly at attention. At a barked command, the honor guard saluted, and Amherst did as well and then made a leg.

  “Rise, General,” Edward said. “I think that’s about as much formality as we need.”

  Amherst stood straight. “It is a pleasure to see Your Highness safe and sound.”

  “It wasn’t a guaranteed thing; I’ll tell you that.” Edward glanced over his shoulder at Wolfe, who said nothing. “But we’ve seen some wondrous things.”

&nb
sp; “We all have, Highness. But I am eager to hear of your adventures.”

  “Have you arranged for proper quartering of your men?”

  “Yes. And the—civilians.”

  “Marquis de Montcalm will be arriving with his escort this afternoon. Will all be in order for him?”

  “I trust so, Highness.”

  If he had been told a year earlier that he would sit opposite Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, the Marquis de Veran, commonly referred to as the Marquis de Montcalm, Amherst would have laughed. Commanding an army with Montcalm on the other side of the battlefield, certainly; having him at a peace negotiation possibly, but it would be someone else representing His Majesty.

  For his entire life, with a few pauses for peace, his nation had been at war with France. It was the great enemy, the global rival, that stood for everything that Great Britain opposed. Yet here he was, and here was Montcalm. Beside him was a young adjutant and another officer; beside Amherst was General James Wolfe and Prince Edward Augustus, the purest-blooded royal on the North American continent. He wanted to feel as if he was in a dominant position in the conversation; but instead he merely felt uncomfortable.

  “Monsieur Marquis—”

  Montcalm held up his hand. “Monsieur General Amherst. Perhaps we can merely address each other as ‘General,’ rather than twisting ourselves around to observe verbal protocol.” Montcalm’s English was excellent, though his accent was definitively French. “Of course, proper deference should be paid to His Highness the Prince.”

  Edward might have allowed some informality, but instead he simply nodded.

  “Agreed,” said Amherst. “General Montcalm, I confess that I am not sure how to approach this conversation. It seems clear that my forces are no longer in a confrontational pose toward yours. It is more than a truce, less than some sort of treaty—which I do not feel that I am in any position to negotiate.”