The Maidenhead

by Parris Afton Bonds

  The fashionably dressed man in the forefront doffed his Copotain hat with its high conical crown to reveal short, sparse flaxen hair. "Captain De Ruyter, madam.” The middle-aged man bestowed a half bow and a full grin. His lips were as naturally red as his cheeks. He wore a wide-sleeved, short cloak with a falling collar and wide breeches gathered at the knees. "You are—?”

  "Master Jones’s wife."

  A flicker of surprise passed over his apple- dumpling face. "My first mate, Schouten," he said, indicating the taciturn man behind him. She had seen plenty like him and the Röter Lowe’s crew on the Thames waterfront. They had prowled the ports of the world and would as soon rob you of your life as your purse.

  “Is the master at home?” De Ruyter’s English had a distinctly Flemish accent which she could identify from her working for a Flemish calligrapher, and his gestures were distinctly effeminate.

  "Aye. He should be here shortly." Of that, she had no doubt. "Won’t yew come on inside and—’’

  The captain had transferred his gaze beyond her, and she turned to see Mad Dog, his musket cradled in his arm, striding toward them. “Ho, Mad Dog!”

  "Henrick. I had begun to doubt you made the trip this year.”

  “And miss out on your quality hides? Not on your life."

  “My bondservant is in the tanning shed now, finishing with their bundling."

  De Ruyter winked. “I'll furnish a detail of my hands to load the hides, if you will furnish us a glass or two of your brandy.”

  Mad Dog raised a brow. “Brandy this early in the morning tells me your constitution is made of iron."

  De Ruyter grimaced. “I drink it to wash down the foul taste of your English duties.”

  “Then brandy it is. And bread and cheese to ease its passage."

  “I see you have taken yourself a—wife."

  Mad Dog wrapped an affectionate arm around Modesty’s waist. His smile was more cynical than fond. “Ahhh, yes, my charming helpmeet."

  "Me beloved husband.” Modesty ground her heel into his soft moccasin and was pleased to see him wince.

  Once inside, she found Juana already preparing a repast of cornbread and hard cheese. Putting her alehouse experience to use, Modesty poured drinks for the three men who straddled the board table’s benches and discussed Bristol, which was the destination of Mad Dog’s hides, and the price they were expected to bring.

  “The price my employers receive does not make it worth my while,” De Ruyter complained. “Not when I have to forfeit your colony’s custom duties out of my own return from the Dutch East India Company."

  Mad Dog's hands gripped his tumbler. “So you fattened Yeardley's purse again, eh?"

  Juana, her leathery face set in disapproving lines, supplied the men with a wooden trencher of cheese and day-old cornbread. Schouten snapped up a hunk of both.

  De Ruyter wiped the ale from his upper lip. "Let the other foreign vessels put in at the port of customs and pay the duties. Not this Dutchman. Tell them, Schouten."

  “Ya, this is our last time to put into the English colony." He popped the cheese in his mouth, revealing yellowed, crooked teeth.

  De Ruyter leaned forward. "You see, I plan to buy guns and ammunition manufactured in Liege, Belgium, take the cargo to Africa’s Niger delta, and barter with an African king there for his captives. Then I will take the captives and sell them into slavery at the Santo Domingo sugar fields for five times the cost of the gun cargo."

  The year before, a Dutch ship had brought twenty-odd Negro slaves, the first in the colony. Mad Dog had said that Yeardley and Radcliff had bought most of them.

  “After that,” De Ruyter continued, "I load the Röter Lowe with sugar and return to Liege to buy more guns. And Santo Domingo," he finished slyly, “does not charge such high custom duties.”

  “What will your employers say about this?” Mad Dog asked.

  "The Dutch East India Company be damned." De Ruyter swallowed the last of his brandy, then said with a conspiratorial smile, "They can count the Röter Lowe lost at sea.”

  Modesty set a basket of dried oysters before the men with a thud. They were busy talking and did not take note of her sour expression. While she openly acknowledged herself as mildly unscrupulous, hoodwinking from the well-to-do, men like De Ruyter and Radcliff who had no qualms about trading in human flesh disgusted her.

  Nevertheless, her mind was racing. How to get De Ruyter to drop her off at Jamestown?

  Granted, she had nothing to barter for passage, not even her body. Not when flesh came so cheaply for men in the captain’s business. Unless. . . . Why hadn’t she thought of it before!

  She smiled and poured the men another round of brandy—and yet another.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Through narrowed eyes, Mad Dog watched his wife liberally fill the guests’ tankards. That wide smile of hers—she was up to something.

  But then so was he. Apparently their plans shared the same modus operandi.

  He drank little after that first tankard but encouraged the two men to drink heartily. He hefted his tankard more than once in a toast.

  “To sugar, slaves, and Santo Domingo."

  And again. “To the success of your new trade."

  “Here, here," Schouten said. His sullen expression had been replaced by a sloshy grin.

  When Modesty disappeared out the door, Mad Dog generously poured the contents of his tankard into De Ruyter's and excused himself.

  “Whither goest thou?" the befuddled captain asked.

  Mad Dog stood at the doorway and watched Modesty. "To check on the loading.”

  She did not head down the path to the dock but set off in the direction of the outbuildings. He doubted that she was seeking the privy.

  With a cordial expression, he turned back to his guests. “Raise another bumper. I shall return shortly.”

  He caught Juana’s attention and in Spanish told her to summon Arahathee at once. The old woman nodded stolidly, spit into the fireplace, and trotted past him out the door.

  Next he found Holloway in the tanning shed, beyond the paddle vat where a few pallets of hides still awaited loading aboard the ship. Modesty was not with the bondservant.

  Curious, the relief he felt. He doubted the woman’s fidelity. She made it quite clear how barbaric she considered him. He had never thought about taking a wife again, and certainly not one as coarse as Modesty.

  Yet she was his wife now. And he could not deny that sometimes he hungered for the warm touch of another. After all, he was human, although his wife expressed considerable doubt about that.

  At first, after the killings, he had wanted only to retreat from life, retreat from his conscience. Then he realized there was nowhere to hide. He had thought that if he could stay alive in the charnel house that was the Virginia Colony, he could put an ocean’s distance between himself and civilized society’s heavy hand of authority.

  But colonial life had little to offer him. And the pleasures and comforts of normal human relationships, the things that gold could not buy, were not to be had at all, doomed by his guilt. Still, like a fool, he yearned.

  Holloway left off securing a pallet with rope and straightened. Despite the mild weather, sweat beaded his suntanned face. "Aye, master?"

  "I want to stage a party.”

  The bondservant’s fair brows met over the bridge of his nose. "You what?”

  "Take all the remaining kegs of peach brandy in the springhouse and give them to the seamen. I want them to drink heartily. Do you understand?”

  With a grin, Holloway wiped the sweat from his brow with his arm. "I do not understand your reasoning for all of this, but I think it a most splendid idea. I shall set myself about this delightful task.”

  "Something else. I desire you to remain sober. Quite sober."

  The man looked crestfallen.

  "Stay with them. Entertain them.” In truth, the bondsman had the makings of an actor. Shakespeare would have appreciated his talent. “I will explain
later.”

  There was still his wife to deed with. Pride prevented him from asking his bondservant if he had seen the wench. She could not have gotten far.

  He bypassed the privy and entered the barn. At his footsteps, a piglet ran squealing. In the far stall, the bay mare welcomed him with a whinny and a steaming stream of piss. Betsy placidly ignored him. In one comer, the hiding place of harvested pumpkins was exposed by the dusty sunlight filtering through the door. He stopped, listened, and thought he heard movement in the loft.

  Moldy hay cushioned his footsteps as he crossed to the ladder. Scaling its wooden rungs, he cautiously stuck his head through the loft’s trapdoor. He should have known.

  Her back three-quarters to him, Modesty was plowing through Holloway’s trunk. She tossed a woolen cap over her shoulder. Next a pair of knitted stockings went flying. Then an "Aha!" issued from beneath her breath. He watched her hold up something to the slivers of sunlight between the clapboards.

  “I do not think you could wear Lady Clarissa’s brooch with quite the same aplomb."

  She twisted around, losing her balance on her knees. One arm flung out to brace herself, and she ended up in an awkward half-reclining position. “Yew are becoming clever at spying!"

  "A spy and a thief. We make a pair, do we not?"

  "I did not steal the brooch!"

  He climbed into the loft and, ducking his head under the low beams, crossed the straw- strewn floor to hunker down before her. He held out his palm. "Give it to me."

  She made a fist. "I was going to see that it was returned to Clarissa.”

  He pried loose her fingers. They were nimble, her nails short and ragged, her hand hard. "By way of Captain De Ruyter?"

  Her mouth made a petulant moue. “All right. All right. I was going to buy me passage back to England. Look, yew don't want me any more than I want yew. I burn the bread, I spoil the butter, I knot the yarn. Juana can do the chores much better."

  He studied the brooch, so brilliant in the loft’s dim light, then studied his wife. So tarnished. “But I don’t fancy Juana in bed with me,” he said quietly, calmly.

  Her face crimsoned. In another woman he might have called it a virginal blush. Or was she merely warm because of the stuffy, hot barn? "How many men have you known?"

  "Thousands.”

  So she wished to play with him. He drew his thumb across the heel of her hand. She swallowed. His thumb continued on across the pad of her hand and then dipped into the center of her palm. He felt the tremor ripple down through her arm and into her hand. “To whom did you first give yourself?"

  "A—a baron."

  He lowered his head and kissed her palm. He heard her telltale rasp. It amused him. “Was it everything you expected?"

  “And more." Her voice had a hard edge to it.

  His head dipped, and with his tongue he licked the spot where his thumb had been. Her breathing sounded like the far-off rasping of a sash saw. The sound told him he was succeeding with his own game.

  He raised his head. Her lips were parted, her breathing shallow, her pupils dilated. "And what did he pay you for your maidenhead?"

  If those pupils had been torches, he would be in flames. "The gent paid me with his gabardine."

  “His overcloak?"

  "It was the blizzard of ’07.” Her eyes stared back in time. “I was twelve and homeless and freezing.”

  This was followed by a careless shrug, but he knew enough about reading people to believe her. He felt somehow less for having begun this game.

  Admittedly, the woman intrigued him. One never guessed where her words would land. She was as haughty as a marquise with the ingenuousness of a child and the cunning of a Medici. "A maidenhead for warmth,” he muttered, staring down at her roughened hand. "The equity of the exchange is somewhat unbal—”

  “Me maidenhead for me life.”

  He looked up. Her jaw was set in stony lines. Everything about her was hard. "I’ll see to it that the brooch is returned to Lady Clarissa.”

  "I am sure yew will.” She yanked away her hand.

  His shoulders shook in silent mirth. He stood up. "Our visitors will be drinking heavily. The rest of the day, stay here in the loft, out of their way. And out of mine.”

  She peered up at him with calculated innocence. "Does that go for tonight, too?"

  He felt a profound sadness for her destroyed innocence, then the feeling vanished with lightning speed. "If you are not in my bed when I am ready for you, I shall come and get you. Wherever you are. I will never again lose what is mine."

  "Yew are the Devil’s dung!” she screeched as he descended the ladder.

  He knew that already. That was something he had to live with the rest of his mortal life.

  He left the barn, noting that Holloway was following his orders and rolling a heavy oaken keg down the oystershell path toward the dock, where severed slovenly seamen were already prying off the lids of two other kegs. The Jamestown cooper had charged Mad Dog enough shillings to make those kegs with their pliable willow-branch hoops.

  At the cabin, De Ruyter and Schouten were feeling no pain. They were singing, in fact.

  Their forearms braced on the board table, they leaned toward each other, grinning, their voices lifted in off-key lewdness.

  “In the spring of the year, when the gism is too thick, there is nothing so dear, as the sassafras stick.”

  Juana would not return with Arahathee and his braves for several hours, enough time for Mad Dog to fashion the shape his vengeance was to take. It was no wonder he appreciated nothing in life. Because until he took his revenge, he would be consumed with a tormenting, bottled rage. The sight of Radcliff, still alive, had uncorked it. Vengeance, blind and sterile and contemptible.

  "Mad Dog!" De Ruyter called. "You are neglecting your company. Come join us."

  Mad Dog filled their noggins to the brim, drew a small measure for himself, and settled down next to Schouten. The first mate’s lids were at half mast. “Your wife? Where ish she?"

  He sipped the potent brew. “In the privy. With the runs.” That should blot the man's lust.

  Schouten’s lids dropped, and he nodded. “It hashppens."

  "Hickory dickory dock," the jolly captain launched into another ditty. "His mouth slid up my cock." He tittered and laid a stubby finger across his lips. "Sssh. The mistress mustn’t overhear.”

  Mad Dog settled in to watch them and wait. As a young man, he had been left an enormous fortune of 120,000 livres a year by his maternal uncle. A wastrel those early years, he had drunk with the best but kept his head, more of an onlooker than a participant as life leaked away and night after night repeated itself.

  His disgust gave way to a calm thoughtfulness. What he had in mind bordered on sheer stupidity. Yet with perfect timing and a little luck it was just possible . . . .

  The afternoon’s late shadows subsided across the puncheon floor. Merrymaking could be heard coming from the ship. De Ruyter had passed out, his head lolling in the spilt brandy. Schouten was staring witlessly at nothing, when Arahathee appeared in the doorway. Schouten eyed the Indian dubiously, shook his head as if to clear it, and resumed drinking.

  Arahathee, dressed in buckskin breechcloth and tunic, cradled a new musket in his arms. The hilt of a knife protruded from the high top of one moccasin. He stood tall, bronzed and majestic, as befitting a werowance.

  “Wingapoh," Mad Dog said, calling him by the Algonquin term for good friend. He rose and indicated to Arahathee to follow him outside. The braves, numbering fifteen, fell back for their leader and Mad Dog.

  On the landing below, the sailors appeared not to have taken notice of the visitors. The seamen were staging their own party, laughing, singing, shouting. Two were so drunk they were dancing like a couple and toppled from the old sea-bucket’s deck into the river.

  Mad Dog led Arahathee and his warriors around to the back of the cabin and squatted beneath one of the peach trees. Its leaves had changed to a dull yellow, oth
ers littered the ground. Arahathee dropped down opposite him. His thin lips quirked and he nodded toward the ship. "Plenty of firewater."

  Mad Dog grinned. “The musket you carry. Where did it come from?”

  “A dozing Powhattan."

  "That is not good news, my friend.” The day the Sparrow had put in at Jamestown, Mad Dog had staggered down its gangplank and set out walking with his knapsack along the James, vowing to continue on until he had outdistanced the sound and smell and sight of a sickened society and himself.

  Arahathee, at that time yet to be a chief, had found Mad Dog nearly six weeks later. Wading through a swamp and wandering in a daze, he had been eaten up by mosquitoes and had a rash that oozed and itched miserably. His features had been hardly recognizable. He had learned that the red rash came from the oil of a poisonous ivy, unknown in England.

  The Indian’s amusement had infuriated him. Perhaps his weakened attempts at driving a punch to Arahathee’s midsection had aroused the man’s admiration; certainly not his pity, for the Monacans, all the Indians, were incapable of that feeling. Pity could destroy a soul.

  Arahathee had taken him back to the Monacan village and instructed a wife to coat Mad Dog's rash-blemished body with a paste. In time, he healed and was permitted to come and go among the Monacans, from whom he learned their methods of planting, the faces of the moon, and many other particulars that enabled him to survive in the wilderness.

  In turn, he had taught Arahathee how to read a compass, a device the chief still considered magic, and shown him the workings of a lock and key. The latter had absolutely delighted Arahathee.

  Mad Dog had learned that the Indians were not simple-minded but quick of apprehension, subtle in their dealings, exquisite in their inventions, and industrious in their labor. Far more than he could say for his countrymen at Jamestown.

  Now he shared his plans with Arahathee in the Algonquin tongue. "I am taking over the ship in the river."

  Arahathee inclined his head and said nothing.

  “The ship’s chief and his subchief buy and sell people as slaves. I am giving to you the chief and his subchief to sell or keep captive, as you wish.”

  Humor at the irony of the situation glinted in Arahathee’s jet black eyes.