A Distant Magic

by Mary Jo Putney

  He closed his eyes a moment. "To the right." Opening his eyes, he swung into the cart beside her. "Luckily, the odds are even no matter what I say."

  She smiled as she stowed her bag under the seat, then signaled the pony to start moving. It stopped grazing with reluctance and began ambling along the road in the direction she ordered. "Let us hope that our mission reveals itself."

  They drove along the road peaceably, seeing a few grazing cows but no humans. After about ten minutes, they crested a long hill and started down the other side. Halfway down, they saw a man sitting on the left under a tree, his horse's reins in his fist as he frowned into the distance.

  "Do you think he might be our mission?" Nikolai asked quietly. "Jonathan Strong was the first person we saw after our last jump."

  Jean caught her breath as she saw the young man's red hair and lanky height. Remembering Adia's notes, she said, "I think this might be Thomas Clarkson! Adia said that he is perhaps the single most important abolitionist. He won a contest at Cambridge for a Latin essay on the subject of the morality of slavery. It's a huge honor—for the rest of his life, people will say that he won the Cambridge Latin essay contest.

  "But after winning the prize, he couldn't stop thinking about the subject. It is said that on his ride from Cambridge to London, he committed himself to working for the abolition of slavery. Perhaps he is pondering what to do now. If so, we're in"—she thought for a moment—"1785, I think."

  "Twenty years further into the future? We're getting close to the time where the movement will start to grow," Nikolai said thoughtfully. "Perhaps the magic brought us here because he needs some persuasion. Stop the cart beside him."

  As Jean pulled the cart to a halt, Nikolai called to the young man, "Sir, has your horse lamed? If you need assistance..."

  The young man looked up, startled. "No, though I thank you for your kindness, sir. My horse is well. 'Tis I who am troubled."

  Nikolai swung from the cart. "Would the ears of strangers help? I've found that sometimes discussing a problem can help me find the solution."

  Jean added, "Food can help, also. We were looking for a place to rest the pony while we dine. There is plenty to share, if you don't mind our joining you."

  The fellow scrambled to his feet and bowed to Jean, a smile brightening his long face. Jean had learned early that all young males were hungry all the time, so food would be welcome.

  "Why, thank you, ma'am, you're very kind." Clarkson sketched a bow. He was impressively tall, and he wore the black garments of a cleric. "My name is Thomas Clarkson. Late of Cambridge University and now on my way to London."

  "I am Nicholas Gregory and this is my wife, Jean." Nikolai pulled the heavy basket from the cart and set it under the tree. He whistled softly when he lifted the lid. "My dear, you have outdone yourself. We and Mr. Clarkson shall dine well." He pulled out a lap robe and spread it on the ground to protect them from grass stains.

  Jean opened her eyes wide as she swung down from the cart. "Are you the young Deacon Clarkson who won the Latin essay prize at Cambridge?"

  "Indeed, I am," the young man said, blushing with embarrassed pride. "I have been most honored."

  "'Tis honor earned, sir," she said firmly. "Will you tell us of your most recent essay? I heard that it was about whether slavery was lawful and moral."

  Clarkson lost some of his animation. "That is the source of my disquiet. I did much study on the subject of slavery. Though I began merely hoping to win literary honor, my studies filled me with horror. The more I learned, the less I could sleep."

  "Did you speak to those who have seen slavery firsthand?" Nikolai asked.

  Clarkson nodded, expression deeply troubled. "My own brother is a naval officer who has served in the Indies, and he sent me letters describing unspeakable acts. Now my essay has been acclaimed and I am on my way to London to seek a post in the church. Yet...yet what I have learned troubles my sleep. I feel that someone should do something about these horrors, but who?"

  "Why not you, Mr. Clarkson?" Jean asked, her expression earnest and admiring.

  "I should not know where to begin," he said frankly. "What can one plain ordinary man do alone in the face of such vast evil?"

  "You are not alone," Nikolai said. "There are others who share your concerns, and if you look, surely you will find them."

  Jean nodded agreement and called on more of Adia's notes. "The Quakers have been doing their best to make the evils of slavery known for some years, but they are considered eccentric and not listened to. They could use a man like you, who has youth and intelligence and passion—and is ordained in the Church of England."

  "Men will listen to you, where they might dismiss a Quaker," Nikolai observed.

  "That is true," Clarkson said slowly. "Being a man of the cloth would grant me a hearing in some circles."

  "You should translate your essay into English and get it published," Jean said. "There are many people who would like to read it but haven't the Latin."

  "That's a splendid idea! I could also add material from my studies to show the current state of slavery." He hesitated, in need of reassurance. "Do you really think anyone would want to publish it?"

  "There is a Quaker printer and publisher in London who has produced other works that speak against slavery," Jean said. "I believe his name is James Phillips. I should think he would be very interested in your essay."

  Clarkson fell silent as he attacked another sandwich of ham and cheese, but the energy around him flared yellow, the sign of intense mental activity. After swallowing the last of his sandwich, he said, "You are both well informed about slavery. Have you lived in the Indies and seen it firsthand?"

  Nikolai's mouth twisted. "I have indeed seen slavery, but not in the Indies. I was captured by corsair pirates as a boy and I spent years as a slave. I was beaten in the galleys, whipped on caravans crossing deadly deserts, and gained my freedom by leading a slave revolt on a galley."

  Clarkson stared at him. "You have experienced this great evil yourself?"

  "Do you doubt me?" Smoldering with emotion, Nikolai rose and peeled off his coat and waistcoat, then turned and yanked his shirt free of his breeches to reveal an ugly, crisscrossed mass of gnarled scars on his back. "The proof is written on my body."

  Jean and Clarkson gasped. Wanting to weep, she leaned forward and traced the deepest of the scars. Nothing Nikolai had said about his slavery was as wrenching as the sight of these scars. Now she better understood why he had been so determined to revenge himself on the Macraes.

  He jerked away from her touch, and she guessed that the scars spoke to him of humiliation and helplessness. He restored his garments and sat down, controlled again. "If you work against this great evil, Mr. Clarkson, I guarantee that there are many like me who will join you. I am foreign-born and could never lead such a crusade, but I believe that you might become such a leader."

  "Do you truly think so?" Clarkson asked quietly.

  "I know so." Jean caught his gaze, mustering all her sincerity. He must be persuaded by truth, not by magic. "I'm a Scot, and I have a touch of the Sight. I believe that you can truly make a difference in fighting the slave trade. Perhaps it is divine will that led my husband and me along this road today." Divine will, or the ancestors. She wasn't sure there was a difference.

  "Perhaps…perhaps I shall do as you suggest." Clarkson's energy flared again, this time with resolve. "I shall pray on it."

  As Jean remembered what Adia had written about Clarkson, she knew that today they had done another good day's work.

  After their picnic had ended and Jean had sent Clarkson off to London with another sandwich wrapped in cheesecloth so that he wouldn't starve along the way, Nikolai packed the basket into the pony cart. "I suppose we should return the cart to the livery in Ware. Then London, I think?"

  Jean nodded. "Twenty years have passed since our last visit. We need to see what people are thinking, not to mention get newer clothing."

  "I'd like
to drive the cart. I need the practice."

  "Feel free," Jean said as she swung up on the passenger side. "This placid old pony is a good choice for a sailor."

  He was glad to drive, and not only because he had so little experience. Learning to use the reins properly was a convenient distraction. For years he had concealed his scarred body, hating the idea that anyone would see how he'd been used. Now that Clarkson was gone, he expected Jean to say something about the scars, but mercifully, she said nothing. A man could fall in love with a woman who knew when to stay silent.

  Fall in love? Where had that thought come from? Yet when he studied Jean's delicate profile from the corner of his eye, he admitted to himself that he was at least half in love with her. Their partnership and mutual dedication to this mission was bringing them closer together than many wedded couples.

  He was tempted to pull the cart over, pull the lap robe from the basket, and take her to some private place where they could become closer yet. Just thinking about that made his pulse quicken. But his damnable intuition insisted that it was not yet the right time. They were both still developing as mages, and he suspected that they would need their full abilities before their quest was completed.

  He must hope that he didn't expire of frustration first.

  London was twenty years busier, noisier, and smellier. Perhaps it was a coincidence of the route, but Jean saw more blacks than on any past visit. Many were obviously poor, looking to gain a few coins by holding horses or sweeping the streets clean for more prosperous citizens. She wondered if she was seeing refugees from American slavery who had fled after the war, like Adia and her family. Adia had said that London had thousands of black residents in her time.

  She and Nikolai found a clean, modest inn not far from where they had stayed before. They deliberately chose a different inn this time since it was not impossible that they might be recognized even twenty years later. But they chose to go to the same coffeehouse and bookseller as before, since the establishments were convenient and the likelihood of being recognized almost nonexistent.

  Smythe's, the bookshop, was quiet when Jean entered. She looked around with pleasure, enjoying the scents of paper and fresh ink and the brimming bookshelves. On tables at the front, new titles were stacked enticingly.

  A middle-aged man approached her. She vaguely remembered him as a Smythe, the son of the old proprietor. Probably he now ran the business. "Good day, madam," he said. "Are you looking for a particular title, or do you prefer to browse?"

  Jean asked the same question she'd asked twenty years before. "Do you have books about slavery and abolition? Perhaps accounts by former slaves?"

  Smythe beamed. "We have as fine a selection of such titles as any bookseller in London. In fact, I've set up a display." He led her to one of the front tables, where several dozen books were stacked. "Ignatius Sancho's Letters are extremely popular. The author was born on a slave ship in the mid-Atlantic as his parents were being transported to the Americas. Later he came to England. His story is most compelling."

  He placed a copy in Jean's hands. "If you haven't a copy already, you might also enjoy Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. The book has been out for a dozen years, but it remains very popular. She is an American slave who showed such quickness that her mistress had her educated. She has even visited London and was much acclaimed for her intelligence and sensibility."

  Jean looked at the poems, then added the book to Sancho's Letters. "I was looking for exactly such books. What else do you have?"

  "I have tracts by the American Anthony Benezet as well as the work of our own Granville Sharp and the Reverends John Wesley and James Ramsay." He spoke like a man who had read the books in question, and agreed with the contents.

  Jean looked at each book Smythe produced, then added it to her pile, trying to conceal her excitement. Twenty years earlier, there had been almost no publications about slavery or abolition. There had been an explosion of interest in the subject since then.

  As Jean was paying for her purchases, Mr. Smythe said, "Do check back with us soon, madam. Any day now, we will be receiving a new book written by a female former slave. The printer said that it's very powerful. He has received more advance subscriptions for the title than for anything else he has ever published."

  A half-grown girl emerged from the back carrying a basket of books. "Papa, you said to bring these up as soon as they arrived."

  "Just in time!" Smythe exclaimed. "Here is the volume I was speaking of, madam. My Journey to Faith and Freedom by An African Princess." He opened one of the copies and began reading it himself.

  Jean opened the book and saw that it had been published by James Phillips, the Quaker printer whom she'd learned about from Adia's notes. She flipped to the first page and stiffened with shock. "I'll take this one, too."

  Because of the number of books she'd bought, Mr. Smythe himself carried her purchases in a basket to her inn. She thanked him, then raced upstairs. She couldn't wait to tell Nikolai what she'd discovered.

  Nikolai found the coffeehouse talk exceptionally interesting, so it was late afternoon when he returned to the inn. He went straight to Jean's adjoining room. When he entered, he found her reading by the window.

  As she glanced up, he said exuberantly, "Jean, the world has changed greatly in twenty years. Men were discussing the slave trade when I came in, and almost everyone present was against it. There was a slave ship officer who tried to say that the trade was kindly and essential, and whenever he spoke, he was heckled down. The subject is now one that average men feel passionately about."

  "I found the same thing at the bookseller's." Jean gestured to the stacked volumes on the table beside her. "There were a number of books and pamphlets written against the slave trade, and several accounts written by former slaves. Including this one written by An African Princess." She handed him the volume she was reading. "Look."

  He glanced at the engraving of a handsome African woman in the front. "Good God, it's Adia! Why didn't she mention that she'd written a book?" A thought struck him. "Could she have lied and told us another woman's story? She might have read this book and used the information to deceive us. But why?"

  "I think Adia did write this, but not in her early years in London before she left her own time and came to us," Jean said slowly. "She must have written the book on Santola after we left. But if so, why was it only published now?"

  "Perhaps it took her thirty years to write. Or it took that long to find a publisher." Nikolai frowned. "Or perhaps she held it back so it could be published now, when public support for abolition is growing."

  "So she is living in London right now but probably she doesn't know about her book because in her personal time, she hasn't written it yet. I'm sure she would have told us if she had written it before she came back in time." Jean made a face. "Whenever I think about traveling through time, I feel a headache coming on."

  "Better not to think of it," he advised as he paged through the book.

  "From what the bookseller said, her story will sell very well. I'm sure her family will welcome the money." Jean sighed. "No doubt Adia made arrangements for them to benefit even if she herself can never return to them."

  Nikolai gave her a quick glance, hearing her own wistful hopes. "Perhaps the ancestors will help her to return, for she is serving them well." He glanced down at the book. "I see that she has changed some of the names, but the events are very detailed and convincing."

  "And some are horrific," Jean said softly.

  He reached the description of Adia's rape when she was little more than a child. There were few details, but emotion raged under the words. "Someday slavery will end," He closed the book, his expression grim. "And you and I and Adia will have done our share in ending it."

  Chapter

  THIRTY

  Kofi had scarcely changed at all in twenty years, apart from a few white hairs mixed with the black. He accepted the appearance of Nikolai and Jean
calmly. "I had wondered if I would see you again. I see the time magic still works."

  "Yes, and we still need help," Nikolai said ruefully. "We have accomplished our mission, and it's time to unleash the next spell. Can you aid us again?"

  The older man nodded. "My daughter has grown into a powerful priestess. Together, we should be enough when joined with your power. Are you ready now?"

  They had brought their small packs of possessions and wore their nondescript traveling clothes just in case. It took only a few minutes to arrange for the ritual. Kofi's daughter Mary was a slim girl with skin the color of caramel. Like her father, she glowed with power. She already knew their mission, so explanations were unneeded.

  The circle was sealed, Nikolai and Jean held the bead between their palms, the energy was called—and once more they were pulled through time.

  Perhaps the process was a little easier. But not much.

  They landed in a gray-skied gale. Nikolai gasped as a blast of wind tore at his hat. He captured it with one hand while maintaining his grip on Jean with the other.

  "Now, this is jolly," she said breathlessly. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

  He glanced up at wet warehouses. "I smell the sea, so this can't be London." He stretched out his perception to learn more about the location. "There is a poisonous feel to this place—as if the devil and his demons are holding a party. Do you feel it?"

  Jean's expression went blank as she turned to inner sight. "This place was built on blood and suffering."

  "It was." He took her arm and they began to walk toward the water. "My guess is that we're in one of the west-coast slave ports—Bristol or Liverpool. Probably Liverpool, since it seems more northerly."

  Their street ended at the waterfront. A fresh blast of wind might have knocked Jean over if Nikolai hadn't been holding her. She clutched at her cloak with her free arm. "More than any other city, Liverpool's wealth is built on the slave trade."