HF - 03 - The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

  'You are splendid,' Marguerite whispered. 'Splendid. I never knew how splendid until this moment, Kit.'

  'Tell me that after I have won. Now get downstairs with the children. And take your domestic girls, too.'

  'I have already sent them,' Marguerite said. 'But I will stay here. I have no wish to be incarcerated in that cellar. And I can handle a musket as well as any man here, saving yourself.'

  He stared into her face, his emotion sucking at her sparkling green eyes, her flared nostrils, her parted lips. Here was beauty, and more than beauty, because of the strength which supported it. Which supported him. Christ, that a man should ever have to choose between such demoniac magnificence and such perfect femininity.

  He kissed her on the forehead. 'Then stay close to me.'

  The shriek alerted him, and he looked at the charging Caribs, flooding down the hillside, waving their weapons, howling like a pack of dogs.

  Dogs. 'Loose the dogs,' he shouted at Webster the carpenter. 'Loose the dogs. Poor beasts,' he muttered. 'Yet will they slow them up.'

  The mastiffs issued from the kennels below the front steps, setting up a howl to match that of the Caribs, bounding across the compound as the first of the redmen came swarming through the gate. And even the dread cannibals were given pause by the dozen monsters hurling themselves forward.

  'Mr Allingham,' Kit bellowed. 'Twenty men. Here, with muskets and spares on the front verandah. Here will be the main attack.'

  The overseers and book-keepers came clattering on to the verandah, crouched there, muskets primed. At the gate the Caribs checked to receive the onslaught of the dogs, coming straight as bullets themselves, hurling themselves at the copper-brown throats before them. Several of the Caribs fell, then the others rallied, encouraged by the waving sword held by a tall man who now hurried to the front.

  'There,' Marguerite said, pointing. 'Bring him down. Kit, and the battle is won. Bring him down.'

  Kit strained his eyes; the tall man was too far away to see his face clearlv. 'He is bevond range.'

  'Then when he comes within range. He will lead them. Kit.

  He has all the courage of my family. I will say that for him. He will be in the front. So bring him down.' The words came from her lips like drops of vitriol. Kit stared at her, and then turned back to look at the big man.

  Indian Warner, he thought. The legend, come to life. To raid his own niece's plantation? Did his hatred run as deep, have a core as vicious, as hers?

  'They're coming.' Passmore's voice shook.

  The dogs were dead, scattered mounds of red flesh. And half a dozen of the Caribs also lay on the trampled earth of the compound, the earth where, he suddenly remembered, the Negroes had danced and cheered on his wedding night, ten years ago.

  'Sight your pieces,' he said. 'Easy now, lads. Sight your pieces. Make each shot tell.'

  But their hands shook, and their faces were ashen. They were overseers. They rode confidently enough behind a cart-whip, with pistols in their belts, when those opposed to them had nothing. But these swarming red men were armed, and as vicious as themselves. So their hands shook, and the sweat stood out on their foreheads.

  All except one. Marguerite was at the end of the line, her hands tiny wisps of white on the stock and barrel of her musket. She sweated, but her hands were steady. By Christ, he thought, to have no more than a dozen of Morgan's men beside me here. To have but one. To have Agrippa.

  The Caribs ran across the yard, whooping and waving their weapons.

  'Give fire,' Kit roared. 'Give fire.'

  The verandah shook, and the black smoke eddied about them, setting them coughing and spitting.

  'Replace your weapons,' Kit shouted. 'Replace your weapons.'

  The overseers scrabbled at the floor, found the fresh muskets. The smoke began to clear, and they looked at near a score of men, lying wounded and dead in their blood, some thirty feet from the steps. 'Aieee,' Kit shrieked, as he had not shrieked since the day he had charged the Spaniards at Panama. 'Well done, lads. Well done. Sight your pieces. Sight your pieces.'

  But there were so many red men. And if they were temporarily halted, they were once again being rallied by the tall man, and now those with the bows were drawing their strings, and the deadly wooden shafts clouded across the morning. Allingham gave a moan and fell forward, an arrow thrusting from his chest. Another man also screamed, although he had only been hit in the leg. There was a clatter, and Passmore had dropped his musket.

  Kit realized he would not hold his people here. 'Aye,' he said. 'Withdraw, lads, into the house. We'll fire from shelter. In you go, Marguerite, for God's sake.'

  She still stared at the Caribs, as if she would destroy them by the very venom of her hate. But now she moved for the door, and at the sight Indian Warner pointed his sword at the house, and yelled an order.

  The Caribs surged forward in a long peal of angry inhumanity. The overseers, getting to their feet to withdraw into the doorway, stared at their foes for a fraction of a second, and then uttered a howl of their own. But this one was of fear, and their muskets hit the floor in unison as they crowded through the doorway, wailing their terror. Desperately Kit ran behind them, thrusting men aside as he reached the door itself, finding it blocked by a body. But this was immediately dragged aside. Kit looked up, stared at George Frederick.

  'You should be in the cellar,' he said.

  'You give me a sword, Captin,' George Frederick said. ‘I’s fighting with you.'

  The door boomed shut as the first Carib reached the verandah, and bolts thudded into place. But still the morning was hideous with the whoops of the red men outside, with the terrified screams of the white men within. For they had continued on their way, to the pantry, and there had wrenched open the trap to the cellar, and were pouring down the stone steps with all the haste they could manage.

  'By Christ.' Kit drew his sword, and ran across the dining-room. 'You'll return,' he shouted. He straddled the stairway, elbowing Burn out of the way. 'I'll run through the last man up.'

  A musket butt slammed his skull, and he fell forward, on to his hands and knees. He crouched there, shaking his head, and was kicked in the ribs, to go rolling across the floor. Dimly he heard Marguerite's voice, shouting desperate commands, then she was behind him, raising his head. 'Kit,' she gasped. 'Kit?'

  'Go with them,' he muttered. 'For Christ's sake, go with them.'

  'And you,' she said. 'Come on, Kit. Up, for God's sake.'

  He struggled to his knees, and listened to the clang of the trap. He flung himself across the floor, battered on the inches-thick wood. 'Open up,' he yelled. 'Open up. Your mistress is out here.'

  She knelt beside him, panting, tearing at the wood with her fingers, striking it with her closed fists. 'The curs,' she moaned. 'The filthy curs.'

  Glass shattered behind them, and the whooping filled the entire house. Kit grasped his sword, turned round, and faced Indian Warner.

  Easy enough to recognize, certainly, for all his nakedness. Tall; far taller than his half-brother, and thin, with ribs showing against the smooth pale brown of his flesh, but heavily muscled too, at thigh and bicep and shoulder. But it was the face which was unmistakable, the features softly rounded, so unlike the sharpness of the more typical red men about him. But the roundness was tempered with the Warner steel, and the eyes, a pair of blue stars in the surrounding darkness, stared at Marguerite as though she were a scorpion. And directed the right hand, extended to full length, and ending in a pistol.

  'You'll drop your sword,' he said. 'Or shall I shoot her in the belly?'

  'She is your niece,' Kit said. 'Do you not know that?'

  Indian Warner smiled. His lips seemed to ripple away from the sharpened teeth. 'Oh, indeed, my niece,' he said. 'I know that, white man. I know that.'

  'Kill him,' Marguerite whispered. 'Kill him now. Let us die together. Kill him, Kit, as you love me.'

  But the moment's hesitation had been a moment too long. Already hands were s
crabbling at Kit's shoulders, other red bodies clouding between himself and the chieftain. And there were red hands on Marguerite's body as well. The sword fell to the floor.

  'She is right, white man,' Indian Warner said. 'You could have killed me then. And you would have suffered no more than you suffer now. But she must watch.' He gave an order in his own language, and Kit was half thrust, half carried across the dining-room and to the foot of the stairs. Here the banisters were almost as high as a man, and against these he was placed. Rawhide cords were produced, and his arms carried behind his back and the wrists secured. Another cord went round his neck, and was made fast to the banisters, and another round his waist, so that he was held upright, and was yet unable to move. He gasped for breath, and attempted to face his tormentors without flinching. But he knew now what they intended. He could remember Susan's stories clearly enough.

  The knives were already out, and he closed his eyes. But the time was not yet. They were merely stripping the clothes from his body, the very boots from his feet, all with exquisite care, to leave not a scratch on his flesh. For that privilege must lie with the cacique. Slowly he inhaled, and allowed the air to hiss through his nostrils, and wanted to weep. For suddenly he looked at Marguerite, held in front of him.

  'Oh, God,' she whispered. 'Oh, God.'

  Indian Warner stood at her shoulder, his fingers thrust into her hair, so that as he chose he could bend her head back to make her eyes stare into his. And now he chose. 'You love him, this man of yours?'

  'Oh, God,' she said. 'Your fight is with me. With mine. He is no part of it.'

  'Has he not shared your body, shared your love, shared your hate? Will you not partake of his body now?'

  Her mouth sagged open as she stared up at him, her head pulled so far back Kit could see the convulsions of her throat.

  'Then hate me,' he said. 'Let her go. Do the Warners make war upon women?'

  The blue eyes seemed to impale him, and the woman's hair was slowly released. 'Love,' Indian Warner said. 'A loving couple. There is a rare sight. You would die for each other.

  Then you shall, die for each other.' He smiled at Kit. 'For how may a white man die, how may a gentleman die, how may a planter die, white man, more cruelly than in watching his wife violated before his own eyes? Answer me that, white man.'

  'You'd rape your own niece?' Kit demanded.

  'Niece.' The hands were back at her hair, twisting her face this way and that. 'I'd not touch her body, save with a burning brand. That I shall do. But that you shall not see. Your vision, your last vision, white man, will be that of your woman enjoying the embraces of another. For you will enjoy it, sweet Marguerite.' Again the tug, and the flop of her mouth as she gasped for breath. Tom Warner smiled down at her. 'Fetch me that black fellow we found by the door.'

  Three of the Indians brought a struggling George Frederick across the room. 'I ain't done nothing, suh,' he said. 'I ain't done nothing. You know I ain't no planter, suh.'

  'I know that, black man,' Tom Warner said. 'I know that you are a slave. I was a slave once, black man. I have known the lash.' Again the savage tug. 'Her father gave me the lash, with his own hands. So now you will take your revenge.' The orders were given in Indian, and the fingers released Marguerite's hair.

  Those fingers, but there were too many others. For just an instant her head came forward, and she stared at Kit, and then she was on the floor at his feet, as Susan had once been, on the floor of her own house. But how kind, how gentle, how humane, were the Spaniards by comparison with these naked warriors? And in only seconds she was as naked as they, spread-eagled on the floor, a red man kneeling on each wrist and each ankle, her breasts inflating as she gasped for breath, her belly fluttering in its pelvic cage, the muscles of her thighs twisting as she stared at her uncle. Yet she had spoken not a word, uttered not a cry. Her eyes spoke for her.

  'Take her,' Indian Warner commanded. 'Take her, black man, until your loins can do no more.'

  'She?' George Frederick's voice went up an octave. 'Oh, no, suh, no, suh. Not the mistress, suh. I ain't going harm the mistress, suh. Oh, no, suh, I can't do that.'

  'Take her,' Tom Warner commanded. 'And you shall live.

  I give you my word on that. You shall return with us to Dominica, not as a slave, but as a member of my people. You shall have honours heaped upon your head. Refuse me this, and you shall die, but slowly, and your blood will yet drip upon that body you fear to touch. Choose.'

  George Frederick stared at the chieftain, and his eyes slowly dropped to the trembling body at his feet. For the moment he was ruled by fear, of the future no less than of the past, and was thus less than a man. But as Marguerite continued to fight her captors, and got one leg free, to kick in the air, and half roll on her side, to dominate even the horror of the morning with white buttock and brown hair, fear diminished beneath an irresistible lust.

  'You got for see, mistress,' he said. 'I can't just die so, mistress.'

  Marguerite's gaze had turned from her uncle to her slave, and George Frederick closed his eyes. Kit wished also to close his eyes, and yet he too was impaled upon the hate emanating from the slight white glory which was his dearest possession. And so he stared, while the Caribs whooped their amusement, and Tom Warner smiled. Kit stared, not at the black upon white, not at the eyes, not at the rigidly clamped mouth, but instead at the right hand, held immobile by the red foot on her wrist, but still clenched and clenched, and clenched, so that before George Frederick lay still there was a trickle of blood rolling across the hand to drip on to the floor, and her fingers were thrust so deeply into her palm that it was difficult to see how they could ever be released.

  Tom Warner smiled. 'Now, white man,' he said. 'Now, you are dead, in your mind. Or would you like to follow your slave, for the last time, before I take your manhood, and then your life?'

  'Truly must you have suffered, friend, to have so far forgotten your true stature,' Kit said.

  Tom Warner frowned at him. 'You are a man of some courage, white man. No doubt it takes courage, to bed with that she-viper. Your name?'

  'Christopher Hilton.'

  The frown deepened. 'Hilton?' A look of almost pain crossed his features. 'You are called Kit?'

  'By my friends.'

  The chieftain gazed at him for several seconds, and then spoke in Indian, without taking his eyes from Kit's face. One of the braves ran from the room. The others sliced through the rawhide ropes holding their prisoner.

  'Susan's grandson?'

  Kit rubbed his wrists. 'By Christ,' he said. 'You remember her?'

  'In my life,' Tom Warner said. 'But three white people showed me kindness. My brother Edward, his wife Aline, and Susan Hilton. Now all are dead. I do not ask your forgiveness, Kit.' He looked at the couple on the floor, for George Frederick still lay there, perhaps afraid to release her, now that his passion was spent and he understood the enormity of his crime. 'But I would have you understand. She is my niece. Aye. Her father is my brother. Yet did he send my mother and me to the slave compound, and have us in the fields, my mother, who had cared for him like a mother when Rebecca died. And when we faltered, he himself used the whip. Only a Warner may flog a Warner, were his words.'

  'You escaped,' Kit said.

  'Aye,' Tom Warner said. 'And waited. For twenty years I waited. To deal with him, and his brood. He has escaped me this time. But she ..." he turned as feet clumped on the verandah. 'I have found your friend, Jean.'

  Jean DuCasse hurried in, panting, sweat soaking his shirt. His head was bound in a bandanna, and he carried a cutlass. He had put on weight, and had allowed his moustache to grow and droop beside his mouth. 'Kit.' He frowned at his naked friend. 'Mon Dieu.'

  'I discovered in time,' Tom Warner said.

  'In time.' Kit seized George Frederick's shoulder, threw him away from Marguerite, dropped to his knees. She said not a word, and her fists were still clenched.

  'Kit,' Jean said. 'Ill met, after too long. I knew you were a p
lanter, but not the name of your estate. I should have guessed.'

  'Aye.' Kit smoothed the hair from her forehead; it was matted with sweat, and there was sweat on her face as well. But no tears in her eyes.

  A tablecloth fell on her shoulders. Hastily Kit wrapped it round her, and gazed across her at his friend.

  'You'll take my hand, Kit. I would not have had it so.'

  Kit hesitated, and then thrust out his hand. Jean squeezed it. 'And you, madam? Do you remember me?'

  Marguerite's head turned. 'I remember you, Monsieur DuCasse. I shall, remember you.'

  'I would not have had it so,' Jean said again. 'It is war, and a savage war. No doubt my time will come. But they shall not burn your house. This I swear. Nor will they take your blacks.'