by Smith, Skye
His chuckle turned into a snicker, "So Jon is now a master craftsman, then, for it is only for masters that the bidding will be a year, or perhaps a year and a half. Young Jon is lucky there is a legal maximum of seven years."
Her eyes opened wide, as did her mouth, and for a moment she did not speak. "Seven years. Are you saying we must work for someone for seven years to pay for this passage?"
"Not just seven years of work, lass, but seven years hard at it for long hours, for what else are you good for?" He moved in closer behind her to press himself against her. "Providence doesn't get many ships direct from England, so you may be lucky, but don't get your hopes up. The bond owners like to keep the years long, at least three years per passage."
"But even three years is too much. We are supposed to search for our mother," her voice dropped to a whisper. "She is being transported to Boston."
They were alone in the tiny cabin. The purser had ordered everyone else out when he invited her in. "Well anyway, you can clean up and change in privacy in here, rather than sharing the canvas screen topside with the Irish sluts. You must look your best when you land. It could save you years of indenture."
"You have been so very kind, Clive," she said, "first to arrange for our passage with the Company, and then giving us warmer clothes and loaning us blankets and making sure we had food. You are a good man. When we find my mother we will tell her of your goodness."
She stopped talking. He had moved closer behind her and now his body was pressing her towards the wall. She felt his right hand on her waist and then felt it move slowly up her body. She tried to press backwards but that just caused him to rub against her and both his hands were now where they shouldn't be. "No," she pleaded, "please don't, don't spoil it. Please let go."
"Ah, my dear," he whispered into her ear as he pressed himself harder against her bum. "Surely you were expecting this. I told you all along that you must pay for the passage when you reached New England. We are here. Now you must repay me for all my kindnesses."
"No, I am saving myself for my husband."
He laughed cruelly. "You're a redemptioner, soon to be a bond slave. And you talk of saving your flower for a husband. Then he had better be waiting on the dock girl, because the first thing your new bond master will demand of you is your flower. Wouldn't you rather give it to me to repay me for all my kindness."
"Then you must marry me," she said in a hoarse voice trying to hold back her tears.
He snickered. "But of course I will marry you. Now let me pull your skirt up so we can seal our vows in the traditional way." She had been allowing his hands to explore her breasts because she had been holding her skirt down. Now she let go of the skirt and sighed. He dropped his hands and grabbed the fabric and pulled up her skirt. He got it high enough to slip a hand under it. She struggled again but there was no escaping him.
Just as the layers of skirts were hiked up to her waist, there was a loud rap at the door and then boom of the bosun's voice calling, "Clive, the skipper wants you on deck. The dock master is approaching in a jolly boat." Clive was trying to ignore the voice while he moved his hand up the inside of her leg and felt the warmth where her legs joined. The rap was repeated, heavier this time. He sighed.
"All right, I'm coming," he yelled over his shoulder and then he dropped his hands and her skirt and backed away from her. Grabbing his cargo register and holding it purposefully in front of his crotch, he leaned forward and stole a kiss from her. Before he turned towards the door he said quietly to her. "Wait for me here. Clean yourself up and make yourself look pretty. I'll not be the only man you must please today."
Of course she did not wait for him. As soon as she could no longer hear his boots, she opened the door and slipped away to find her brother Jon.
"Britta," said Jon when she came to him, "you look all flushed. Have you been running. The Irish women are all over there behind that sail cloth cleaning themselves up. We must look presentable on the docks."
"Ya find your sister then, lad?" said the bosun with a knowing wink to her as he passed behind them. He stopped close enough to whisper into her ear, "Someday that Clive will accidentally fall overboard and I won't be saving him."
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA’S AURA - the Redemptioner by Skye Smith
Chapter 3 - May 1772 in Providence, Rhode Island
Britta took her first step onto the New World and looked around fearfully. She, Jon, and the Irish had sailed under a deferred payment agreement with the Company. The payment for passage came due on this dock. They walked slowly along the dock, led by the captain, the bosun, and the purser, and then they were lined up facing the afternoon sunshine. They all looked a bit ragged and they had little but the clothes they stood in, but at least none of them were prisoners in chains.
Jon and Britta's best clothes were not so ragged as those of the Irish women, but not by much. Even so, they looked respectable enough compared to the others. Everyone off the ship were swaying slightly, unused to solid land after six weeks at sea. It had been a very fast passage.
A small group of men was approaching along the dock, and they were waving to catch the captain's attention. Britta felt sick with worry for her future. There were only five men come to inspect the redemptioners. Her dreams of starting a new life in the new world were disappearing under the dark thoughts of seven years of hard labor. She counted the years on her fingers. That would take until she was four and twenty. Middle aged. She caught the eye of the bosun and grimaced.
The bosun read the worry on the face of the fair child. "Never fear lass. They are all lawyers and other agents representing the many rich families of Rhode Island. They are as eager to earn their pay as you were to get off that ship. Ships direct from England to Providence are rare."
The bosun was right. The men were introduced and they were all agents working for others. The first agent to speak yelled out a call to the Irish women. He had a list of Irish men who were expecting their wives to join them and he called out the names in hopes of matching woman to spouse. None, not one match.
Afterwards he yelled out that he was offering bed, food, and work at a plantation inland from the coast. Those that wished to sign with him would work only ten hours a day, six days a week, for five years. At the end of the five years, they could sign on for wages, or they could walk away in new clothes and with ten shillings in their purses. No other agents bid against him or even spoke.
"I thought there was supposed to be bidding," asked Jon.
"I am the agent for most of the plantations here abouts," the man called back, "this is the normal offer."
There was much grumbling amongst the Irish women, and no one yelled out in agreement.
Another agent stepped forward and read another list of O-this and O-that kinds of names. There was a cheer of relief from a woman with two children. She dragged her children behind her to stand beside the agent. He also was offering five years, but five years working in a cloth mill.
Britta looked at the bosun, and saw the bosun catch her eye and give the slightest of shakes of his head. He walked slowly behind her and warned "Stand away and separate from the Irish women and do not accept the same offer as they do. The worst offers are always first. You don't want to end up way out in the forests filled with bears and savage Red Indians."
The mill's agent had no takers so he stepped back to bide his time. Now the other agents came forward to speak to the redemptioners. This time there was no calling out of offers. The conversations were hushed and secretive. These men worked for families or merchants and were looking for specific skills.
Two of them now stood in front of Britta. "My dear," said the first, a lawyer by his look. "are you expecting to be met by anyone?" It was a good question. Many passages were redeemed by relatives who were already in the Americas.
"No, sir," Britta replied and remembered to smile, "I seek work in return for redeeming the cost of my passage."
"I am an agent for
a family that lives on an estate between here and Boston. They seek a maid, an upstairs maid, including child care. It would be a three year bond. You would be allowed to marry if you met a fitting man."
"And my brother," Britta replied pushing Jon forward, "We cannot be separated. We are all each other has."
"Another of my clients in the same village requires a stable hand. That would be for five years."
"Don't listen to him, love," said the other man who had decided not to wait his turn to talk. "You don't want to be off in the farming villages. The future is in the towns. The money is in the towns. The rich husbands are in the towns. I run that tavern over there. I can offer work to you both and it will only cost you only two years apiece."
Jon tried to ask a question, but neither man would even acknowledge his existence as they both pressed closer to Britta.
"My dear, Providence is an evil town filled with seamen and other devils. The village I speak of is Puritan and quiet and safe. A family place. Do you think you can work in a tavern without tarnishing your good name. If that happens you will never find a husband. You will end your days as a tavern whore."
These words incensed the tavern keeper who took them as a personal insult. "I run a clean tavern with the misses. There are no whores. It caters to businessmen and gentlemen, not to seamen. Her brother can see to her safety. And besides," he turned and stared directly into Britta's eyes, "you will not be offered just two years by anyone else on this dock."
"Pah, if she were old and ugly you wouldn't want her," the lawyer turned to her, "Child, your reputation is worth more than an extra year under bond. He will put you on display with ankles and cleavage showing to attract customers." The tavern keeper pushed him bodily to shut him up.
"Settle down," said the burly bosun as he stepped between them. "If she chooses one of you and is unhappy with the position, will the other offer still be open. Will it. Can she change her mind?"
Both said "yes" immediately. A promise cost them nothing.
Britta whispered into Jon's ear. "Do you mind me working in a tavern. Two years rather than three. A year is a long time."
Jon whispered back. "Two rather than three for you. It is two years rather than five for me. Look. We can see the keeper in front of us, and we can see the tavern, and we can see this town. We know nothing about the other agent's family off in some village somewhere that we know nothing about. Do you trust the tavern keeper? Take a good look at him and use your healer senses. Do you trust him not to, to, you know, take advantage of you?"
Britta looked at the tavern keeper. Though not old, he already had the red bulbous face of a man who drinks too much or worries too much. His eyes were calm, however, and he had been quick to defend his tavern. One last test. Both she and her mother were healers and had a gift for sensing if a man was possessed by evil. She reached out and shook his hand and waited to see if a dark feeling crept up her arm from his touch. Nothing, no darkness, no odor of the fires of hell.
"Tell me more of the work at your tavern?" she asked.
The tavern keeper smiled in relief. "The hours are long, but the work is not heavy. The worst part is that you always smell of ale and tobacco, and it is noisy work, especially later in the evening. You can keep any gifts the men give you but I cannot allow immoral behavior. The town council would close me down if you became a loose woman.
You would be serving at the tables, obviously, and you must smile a lot. Your brother would be cleaning and fetching. You will both sleep in the back room of the tavern. Upstairs my wife runs a boarding house for travelers and gentlemen. I have a night watchman at the building who helps to close up at night, and who watches for mischief after we close.
The rooms above the tavern are often full, so my wife is very busy. She never enters the tavern, but you will work beside her in the shared kitchen in the shed behind the tavern. You will like my wife. She is a good woman with a big heart."
The tavern keeper smiled at Britta, nervously, as if he were trying to remember not to leer. "Now if you are agreed I will pay the Purser. You will have a few minutes to say your goodbyes before we must go and reopen the tavern."
The other agent shrugged and backed away. He knew he had lost and was now glancing around at the Irish women. "Damnation, are the rest of them all Papists. That will never do. Not in a Puritan village." He decided to have one more try for Britta. "Ask him about his last tavern wench. She became a whore."
"That was none of my doing," explained the tavern keeper quickly. "I did not know that she was visiting my boarders in their rooms. I strictly forbid that. The town council almost closed me down over it. I sent her packing." He looked at Britta earnestly, "She was not a redemptioner. She was a local girl who worked for my wages, or at least, so I thought."
"I, we, accept your offer," said Britta and then turned towards the other agent and forced a smile. "Thank you for thinking of us and trying to protect us. Will I see you at the tavern?"
"Almost every day," said the agent. "It is a place where men meet to discuss business, as it is handy to the docks."
Jon turned and shook the bosun's hand and said "If you need to speak the old tongue, you know where to find me."
The tavern owner signaled the Purser, who had been keeping his distance from Britta and especially from the hefty bosun, and the Purser wrote something in a ledger book.
"My name is James Sabin," the tavern keeper introduced himself with a wide smile as he held out his hand out to Jon. "I welcome you to Providence."
"I am Jon Fisher, this is my sister Britta. We are very happy to be here and off that ship."
"Come," said James, "we must open the tavern again before this lot completes their business. They will all be thirsty."
Britta held back and looked at the Irish women still huddled trying to decide on which future to take. "What will become of them?"
James flicked a look over his shoulder. "They have until the ship leaves port for someone to claim them on behalf of their husbands, perhaps two days, but after that they must choose a bond master."
"And then?"
"Aye, well, Papists such as them, and Irish to boot, are not welcome in polite company. If those women do not find their husbands, then they will likely be bonded to one of the plantations. Most likely they will end up as chattel slaves."
"But the Irish women were redemptioners like us," Britta said. "Won't they become bondswomen like me."
"Do you even know the difference between a bond slave and a chattel slave? No. Well you are a bond slave. Your body still belongs to you, but your labor is bonded to me for a term. If you were a chattel slave, then both your body and your labor would belong to me. Any child born to a chattel woman is born a chattel."
"But they will be under bond," repeated Britta.
"Aye, but out on the plantations no one cares. Their husbands will have been chattel slaves taken in one of the Irish wars. Irish men do not survive long working in the sun of the plantations. They are too fair of complexion. For that reason, Irish chattels have a low value, very low compared to an African chattel."
"African. You mean like from Whales?"
"No, Africans are dark skinned men from hot countries. They work well in the heat." James replied.
"Oh I know. The Darkies, there were some in Bristol," Jon put in.
"Aye, well they are the chattels of choice for plantation work. Remember that first agent that spoke, the one from the plantations," said James. "Last month he spent a lot of his client's money to buy a chattel slave in Newport. A big strong African man. Now he has come to buy cheap women to mate him with."
Britta stopped walking and stared at James in horror. "But that would mean...."
"Yes, their babies will be dark skinned. That is what the plantation masters want. Cheap labor that can work long hours in the heat."
Britta pulled away from James and started to march back towards the dock to warn the Irish women. James grabbed her by the elbow and swung her around. "Leave it be, gi
rl. It is none of our business. You will just anger the slave masters, and they are all rich and dangerous men. You are new here. Don't make enemies on your first day."
Britta shook his hand from her elbow to continue her march back to the women, but now Jon stood blocking her way. "He is right Britta. Besides those women are bond women. You heard what James just told us of the difference between bond and chattel. Their bodies and their children will still belong to them, not to the masters."
"Is he really that naive?" James asked Britta as he locked his arm into hers and turned her towards his tavern.
"Yes," replied Britta, sorrowfully looking back over her shoulder at the Irish women that she had just lived in close quarters with for six weeks. That was why Clive had told her to stay away from them. He knew. The bastard knew what their future would be. Captive wombs pumping out brown slave babies.
They walked together towards a very large three story house built into the side of the hill just past the staging area for the docks. The tavern took up the entire ground floor. James unlocked the tavern door and walked in ahead of them and once they were inside he said, "Jon, you clear off the tables and wash the pots and jugs. Britta, I have more suitable clothes for you to wear. Follow me and I will show you to your room."
He led her through the rear of the tavern passed large barrels of immature ale that were still bubbling and frothing. "I make the best ale in Providence. I will teach Jon my method so that he can make the ale. It's a good trade. It will put a roof over his head for the rest of his life."
He unlocked a door and led her into the back room. It was part store room, part bedroom. There were two beds. He walked around the first bed and pulled the curtain closed that hung between the beds. "Come and look. With the curtain closed, the back bed has all around privacy. That is your dress on the hook. I have another, a better one, but my wife washed it and it still isn't dry." They looked at each other in silence. When she didn't move towards the dress, he got the message and moved to the other side of the curtain to allow her privacy. "Hurry and change. Our thirsty public will be arriving soon."
