HF - 03 - The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

  'Leave me only that one.' Marguerite's voice was hardly more than a whisper, but George Frederick, crouching six feet away from her, jerked his head, and stared at them with wide eyes.

  'You cannot, suh,' he screamed. 'You cannot leave me, suh.'

  'Leave him,' Marguerite said. 'Or take my curse.'

  Jean sighed. 'Then must I accept both, madam. You will murder him, for a crime he was forced to? Then are both Kit and I deserving of a far worse fate.'

  'Leave him,' Marguerite said.

  'No,' Tom Warner said. 'I leave you your life. I had not intended that. Be grateful, bitch.'

  Kit stood up. 'Can there not be an end to hating, Mr Warner? You have done my wife a mortal injury. I understand, that her father ..." he hesitated, glancing at her. 'Her father did you and your mother nothing less. Can there not be satisfaction?'

  Tom Warner pointed at the slight figure on the floor. 'She lives,' he said, 'because she is your wife. I pity you, Kit Hilton. You know not where you rest your head of a night. As she is Philip's blood, so does she reek with his venom. Had my braves sliced the skin from your bones, you could scarce have suffered more than you will suffer, tied to that reptilian creature. I shall not see you again, Kit. Will you take my hand?'

  Kit looked down at the proffered fingers. Christ, to end emotion, to do what mattered. If one could tell, what mattered. 'Perhaps,' he said. 'When we meet again. If that should happen.'

  Indian Warner looked into his eyes, then nodded, and gave his orders. And left the room, his braves at his heels.

  Jean hesitated in the doorway. ' 'Tis your government you must blame for this, Kit,' he said. 'Benbow needs more ships in these waters. Then must DuCasse meet his end. Until then, why, DuCasse must injure the English wherever he can. But not Kit Hilton. Nor his wife.' He bowed to Marguerite. 'I am truly sorry, madam. Had I the power to accomplish one miracle, I would command time to turn back, for but a scant half hour. I would beg you to believe that.' He gazed at George Frederick. 'You'd best run behind me, fellow.'

  Marguerite crawled across the floor to the door, the tablecloth forgotten. 'Bring him back,' she whispered. 'Bring him back, Kit. Take who you need, what you need. Bring that bastard back.'

  'We are all bastards,' Kit said.

  Her head started to turn, and then checked. The house echoed to shouted questions from the cellar.

  'Our heroes,' she said. 'The Indians would have fired the house, Kit. Why do you not, and leave them to perish of suffocation?'

  'Your own children are down there.'

  She got to her feet. Slowly she inflated her lungs until her belly swelled and her breasts stood away from her chest, then she released it again, and her body sagged. 'Then no doubt you should release them,' she said, and climbed the stairs.

  Kit knelt by the trap. 'Open up. It is done,' he said. They stared at him in amazement; he had forgotten he was naked. 'They have gone,' he said, and followed Marguerite up the stairs, closed the bedroom door behind him.

  She lay on her belly across the bed. Perhaps now she wept. But he knew better than to expect that. 'I am in a unique position,' she said. How steady was her voice. 'For me. My situation is beyond my experience, or my comprehension. What does one do, Kit, with a woman, after she has been raped, by a slave?'

  'One loves her the more. For her courage.'

  'And could you bear to touch me?'

  He crawled on to the bed beside her, kissed the nape of her

  neck, parting the matted hair with his tongue. 'Should you wish it, I would enter you now.'

  She rolled away from him, sat up at the foot of the bed, legs dangling, back held to him. 'No. No, no, no, no, no, no.'

  'The stigma is in your mind.'

  'Of course.' She got up, walked to the window, gazed at the smouldering fields, inhaled the crisp smell of the burned cane.

  'It will rise again. Everything will rise again. Had they burned this house, it too would rise again,' Kit said. 'Had they slaughtered your slaves, they would have been replaced. Had they murdered your children, I would have given you others.'

  'And had they torn the flesh from your bones, before my eyes?'

  'Then would you have secured for yourself another, more able, more virile husband.'

  At last she turned. How beautiful she was, through all the marks on her body, through all the agony on her face. Or did the agony itself, and the knowledge of how it was gained, add to her beauty? To her desirability? For how perverse is the mind of man.

  'No, not more virile,' she whispered. 'Do you not fear that this may also have happened to Lilian?'

  'It has not,' he said. 'They had no means of storming St John's. But had it happened, Meg, I would pray she would have borne it with as much fortitude.'

  Marguerite crossed the room, looked out of the other window, at the slaves milling about in the village. 'Poor creatures,' she said. 'Had they but an ounce of vigour in their gut they would have used their temporary freedom to murder us all. And I have had one of their black tools inside my body. Christ, had I a knife.'

  He held her shoulders, brought her back against him. 'You'll not give way now, Meg.'

  She turned, in his arms. 'Then say you'll avenge me, Kit. Bring me back that slave. I want no more.' She smiled, and it was a terrible sight. 'No. I set my sights too low. Bring me back Tom Warner as well, Kit. Bring them back alive. With men at your back, that were not difficult, for Kit Hilton.'

  He stared down into her eyes, hardened facets of gleaming green. 'To perpetuate this hatred, which may well rise up again and overwhelm my own children? That makes little sense to me. Your uncle claims to have been savagely mistreated by your father. No doubt this raid satisfies his sense of revenge. Yet he is not a savage, Meg. He would not take my life, or yours.'

  '.My life?' she whispered. 'What is my life, when I have lain beneath a black man? How do I look at myself in the mirror, Kit Hilton? How do I touch myself, as I must, if I live? How do I accept your lust, if indeed you can ever feel such for me again? Tell me, Kit. Tell me.'

  'Would you be easier in your mind with George Frederick at your mercy?'

  'I would be easier in my mind,' she said. 'I would be easier, knowing that he will no longer dream, of that moment of glory, that he will no longer remember, how his belly pressed against mine, how his semen mingled with my own juice. By Christ, I would be easier.'

  'Aye,' Kit said. 'I have no answer, to such a memory. Save to overlay it with others. With sweeter thoughts. Have no fear of my love, my darling Meg. Command it, and it belongs to you alone. Be my wife. That is all I ask. Say the word, and I will never go near Lilian Christianssen again.'

  'And I almost believe you,' she said. 'Oh, God, to be alone with you, now and always, shipwrecked upon some lonely isle where we should have none but each other, and our love. I have sought only yours. I will ever seek, only yours. So perhaps you are right. Perhaps with your sweet aid I may overcome that memory. Then let it commence now. Quickly, I beg of you, Kit.'

  Her eyes were shut. He swept her from the floor and laid her on the bed, and knelt above her, and looked up as the door opened.

  'Papa,' Tony cried. 'We were so afraid, Papa, when you did not come.'

  He led his sister by the hand, and she still cried. 'But we are here now,' Kit said. 'Safe and well. Eh, sweetheart?'

  Marguerite also sat up, and smiled at her children. 'Come here,' she said.

  They crossed the room, slowly and timidly. They were unused to their mother, naked and dishevelled. They found her a stranger, and Tony, at the least, was old enough to link her appearance with the whispered gossip which already seeped through the house.

  Marguerite took a child in each arm, hugging them against her. 'We are all here now,' she said. 'Safe and well, as your father says.'

  'And did you beat them, Papa?' Tony cried.

  'No,' Kit said.

  'There were too many,' Marguerite said. 'Too many even for your father. But he fought as no other man could have fought, for ther
e is no other man of his stature. And when they finally overcame him, Tony, and would have killed him, they learned his name, and their anger turned to respect. Thus we live, and our plantation lives, and we will prosper.' They buried their heads in her shoulders, and she looked over them at her husband. Now at last, after so long, the tears came, rolling silently down her cheeks. The gates of hell had opened wide, and she had stumbled in, and then been dragged back to the light and air outside. So perhaps she would need to lie and cheat a little to remain above the ground, but she would do that. And surely, he thought, as he leaned forward to kiss her eyes, if I can but keep her this high for a short time, the gaping chasm which yawns before her mind will fill, and disappear.

  Marguerite Hilton.

  The crowd roared its anger. It stamped its feet, and dust eddied into the air. It whistled, and the noise pierced the very heavens. St John's was an ant-heap of outraged manhood. Their anger swelled up towards the dais on which their Governor, and his deputy, stood, and the redcoats grasped their firepieces tighter as they formed line before the steps, and stared at the people who were their brothers-in-law and fathers-in-law and drinking companions, in saner moments, and prayed that the explosion of hate would lead to no more than words.

  Sir William Stapleton regarded them without the slightest emotion other than a frosty smile. He had confronted hostile crowds before. Now he waved the paper again.

  'Peace,' he shouted. 'We must all be grateful for that, my friends. Certainly while the French are so superior in strength in these waters.' Once again he paused, and smiled at Philip Warner, standing beside him, mopping his red neck against the heat of the sun.

  The noise subsided. 'Grateful,' he bellowed, 'because it permits us to devote our attention to the real enemy. To the Caribs, my friends. What say you to that?'

  There was a moment of surprised silence, and then a roar of rapturous approval set the glasses tinkling in the windows bordering the street.

  'Aye,' Stapleton said, holding up his hands, confident that this time they would obey him. 'Did you think I had forgotten them? Did you think that your Governor would allow such an outrage to pass unavenged? No, no, my friends, my people, for every life they took, nay, for every stalk of sugar-cane they burned, we shall exact a full retribution.'

  The crowd cheered.

  'But I would have you know,' Stapleton shouted, 'that the path will not be easy. No sooner did I learn of the attack upon our fair island, than I wrote letters to our countrymen in Jamaica and in Barbados, requesting their assistance in settling this matter once and for all. The Governor of Jamaica has replied to say that his heart, and those of his people, march with us, but that owing to the devastation caused by the dreadful earthquake at Port Royal only a few years ago, he can assist us with no military force. We are grateful for their good wishes. But the Governor of Barbados has replied to say that we must fight our own war.' He paused to allow the boos and hisses to run their course. 'Further, he says that the more the Leeward Islands are reduced, the happier will the Barbadians be.'

  This time the howl of execration sent the gulls scattering from the harbour.

  'I cannot believe,' Stapleton shouted, 'that such a sentiment expresses the true feelings of the Barbadian people. But it is the point of view taken by their governor. So we must act on our own. Yet we are not so bereft, dear friends. Have we not many good men and true in these islands who will bear arms to avenge our recent catastrophe?' The crowd roared.

  'And have we not, living in our midst, nay, standing beside me, a man of vast experience in dealing with the Caribs? Gentlemen, I give you Colonel Philip Warner. His father and brother faced no less a challenge, and carried it to a successful conclusion. Shall we be lesser men than those heroes of the past? Colonel Warner.'

  The men and women stamped their feet and cheered and clapped their hands, and dust and sweat and passion filled the morning air. The horses shuffled restlessly, and Kit had to rein hard to keep still. The trap waited at the back of the crowd, and Marguerite's fingers were tight on his arm.

  'They will not lack for volunteers,' he said.

  'Nor should they.' She smiled, a tight-lipped smile. 'Although Papa here exists on reputation. He did not accompany my grandfather and my uncle on that famous expedition.' She glanced at him. 'But he will have you at his side.'

  Kit said nothing. He watched the Deputy Governor calling for silence.

  'Aye,' Philip Warner shouted. 'I know these brooding devils. I know them well. They are led by my own brother.'

  The crowd fell silent. They had not expected such frankness.

  'But does not the Bible itself command me,' Philip said. 'Should your right eye offend thee, cast it out? My brother will pay for this outrage, and I shall see that he does. I need men. Men of courage. Men of purpose. But more than that, I need men of anger. Are you such men?'

  The loudest of all the shouts came crashing through the still air.

  'So then,' Philip shouted. 'If you are such men, enter your names on the tables set out by the Ice House. Enter them, and assemble this time tomorrow, to be given arms, and to be told what we intend.'

  The crowd cheered, and the two governors turned and left the platform to enter the Ice House itself. Kit urged the horses forward, and the people parted before him.

  ' 'Tis Captain Hilton,' someone said.

  'You'll lead us, Captain,' shouted another man.

  'Aye, we'll march with you, Captain,' someone else bellowed. 'Or are you afraid to meet Monsieur DuCasse again?' a voice said.

  For everyone present knew that Green Grove had been spared the worst of the assault.

  Kit turned his head, and his eyes searched the crowd, but found no man looking sufficiently defiant. And now they were abreast of the warehouse, and he could see Agrippa and Abigail, and the Christianssens. And Lilian. He had sent a message into town, the moment the roads were safe, both to inform her of his own survival, and to learn of hers. But now ... the rumours were already spreading of what had happened to Marguerite. Lilian would not expect him to return.

  As the crowd knew.

  'You'll lead us, Captain,' said the man who had first spoken, grasping the bridle. 'You've a cause, same as us.'

  Marguerite stared at them as the carriage stopped, and she stepped down. 'Aye,' she said, not speaking loudly, but with an edge to her voice which cut across even that huge assembly. 'He has a cause. The Captain will lead you.'

  The crowd cheered, and hands reached up, both to assist Marguerite to the ground and to slap Kit on the back as he followed her up the steps. He sighed with relief when the doors closed behind them. But here was a new kind of ordeal. For every planter on the island was present, coming forward to greet the new arrivals.

  'Marguerite,' Philip said. 'Thank God you are safe. We had heard such rumours.'

  All of them true,' she said, and faced the men, and their women.

  'Oh, sweetheart,' screamed Mary Chester, throwing herself at her friend. 'Could you not reach St John's?'

  Marguerite embraced her. 'I chose to fight for my plantation,' she said, looking over the young woman's head at the rest of them. 'And we were defeated, thanks to the cowardice of our overseers. And so I was thrown on the ground and raped, by one of my own blacks. Is that not what you wished to hear, gentlemen? But I am still alive, and my husband still stands by my side, as he fought at my side, and lost at my side.'

  'Kit,' Philip Warner squeezed his hand. 'It seems a miracle.'

  'No miracle,' Kit said. 'Your brother spared my life when he discovered my relationship to Susan. And then DuCasse arrived, and called a truce. You'll recall that we sailed together as lads.'

  'A fortunate circumstance,' Edward Chester remarked.

  'But you will march with me, Kit,' Philip said hastily, before Kit could take offence. 'I have need of men with experience of the jungle.'

  'I would know your purpose,' Kit said.

  'Our purpose?' Stapleton demanded. 'Why, Captain Hilton, it is to avenge this catast
rophe.'

  'Scarce a Christian thought, Your Excellency.'

  'Christian? You speak to me of Christianity, in regard to these heathen monsters? You, who have seen your own wife ...'

  'And you are indelicate, sir,' Kit said. 'If my wife chooses to mention her own misfortune, that is her decision, but the next man to speak of it, uninvited, before her or before me, will face my pistol, be he governor or book-keeper.'

  'By God, sir,' said one of the St Kitts planters who had accompanied Stapleton. 'You cannot speak to the King's representative in that tone.'