He ate, drank, drank some more, and swayed to his feet, wanting to capitalise on this warm sensation by falling into oblivion on his pallet. Someone shoved at him, and reflexively Charlie shoved back, a fist caught him on the shoulder, and Charlie swung, burying his fist in a face he recognised as being like his – white.
With a muttered curse, he staggered away, and there was another stone bottle of sweet, strong liquor. Warmth flew down his throat to land in his gut, and it was a wonderful feeling. He drained the bottle, sitting by himself in a corner. He sang, a long and convoluted song in Dutch that made him laugh in his loneliness, wishing Peter was here to drink and sing with him.
He sang some more, but now he wept, because this wasn’t Holland, and Peter was nowhere near – no, Peter had for almost a year hung in bits and pieces, feeding the crows. A fellow slave tried to wrest the bottle from him, and Charlie roared in drunken rage, kicking until he was left alone with this ticket to total stupor still in his arms. He gulped the remaining liquor and closed his eyes.
He woke to the snuffling of a pig, an inquisitive snout inspecting his face, and initially had no notion of where he was or why. Carefully, he sat up, and his skull had shrunk overnight, banding his protesting brain with horrible pain. He had no recollection of the previous evening, but his gut was tender, and the normally so solid cookhouse seemed to tilt and turn before his eyes. All around lay sleeping, snoring shapes, and he could smell the heavy, sweet cane liquor. It woke a burning thirst in him – and an urge to piss.
Up on one knee, on the other, and Charlie hauled himself up to stand, weaving in the direction of the water barrel. A day of rest, he concluded fuzzily as he took in the silence, the inertia all around. Only the pig seemed its normal scavenging self, busy consuming anything edible it could find. He dipped his head into the barrel, drank, and it dawned on him that he was the only one awake.
Charlie raised his dripping head, squinting at the evil sun. He could…yes, he could, and if he got far enough away, mayhap he could find a stone to break the fetters open. Still no movement in the yard, no sounds but those of snoring men, and so he took a casual step out into the sun, he took another, and another. There was the main lane, a beckoning line of bare red dirt through green fields of tobacco, bordered by trees and huge yellow flowers. He slid his foot across an invisible dividing line, and a heavy blow felled him to the ground.
*
The overseer decided to be lenient – the man was obviously drunk, and a good worker to boot. So he ordered Charlie to be tied to the whipping post and left to consider his sins for some time, and sauntered over to where one of his assistants was already uncurling the flogging whip.
“Thirty, I think,” the overseer said.
“Mmm,” the assistant grunted.
“And we brand him,” the overseer added with a yawn.
“Mmm,” the assistant repeated and with a weary exhalation stood to do as he was told.
*
Charlie’s body jerked in pain long after his brain had escaped into unconsciousness, and when his hands were untied, he slid heavily down the post to land in a graceless heap. Someone emptied a bucket of water over him, and he spluttered and coughed. There were hands holding him, lifting him up to stand, and he was glad for their help. Then his chest exploded in pain, and he screamed like a gutted pig when first an S and then a B were burnt into his skin. He fell to his knees, but the overseer told him to stand and he did, of course he did, his teeth chattering in fear that he would be hurt some more if he should totter and fall.
“See?” the overseer said to the silent slaves. “Marked like a beast, will die like a beast.” He flicked his riding crop at Charlie. “You won’t attempt to run away again, will you?”
Charlie shook his head, tears and snot running down his face.
“Good.” The overseer beckoned for George to come over and help Charlie inside.
There was nothing to be done about the burns. The agony when George tried to salve them was such that Charlie folded together, arms cradling himself as well as he could. So instead, George washed the open gashes on his back with salt water, and Charlie wept and sobbed, repeating over and over that he wanted to die, please let him die.
The next day, he was told to stand. His back was inspected and pronounced to be healing well, and the overseer decided he would be allowed one more day of rest. Charlie could barely get to his feet the day after, burning with fever as he was, but obediently he lumbered after his masters and spent the following week working in the blissful cool of the stables. The letters on his chest bubbled and blistered, the lash marks scabbed, and he was back on the fields, back to being yelled at and kicked if he wasn’t quick enough.
He and his three remaining companions were put to dig new privies, and then they were told to empty the old ones, standing well up to their naked thighs in human waste. Flies hovered like a veil around him. They settled on his sweating body, in his eyes and his mouth. It was a nightmare, a slow torture of smells and heavy wasting work as the pits were transferred over to barrows, the barrows were rolled out into the harvested field, and the shit was shovelled out and spread before going back for more, and more and more.
They were covered in bites and in festering sores, their backs howled with pain after days of shifting the damp waste, and after each day they stood for what seemed like hours in the creek to wash the stink and filth off themselves. By the time they got to the cookhouse, most of the food was gone, and they’d fight like wild animals for the few remaining things to eat. Charlie usually won, snarling like a rabid wolf at the other three before retreating to eat in the relative safety of a corner.
Occasionally, there were things that reminded Charlie of what it was like to be a man. Like when Mr Brown stepped from his house with a book in his hands, and Charlie recalled that he had once read for pleasure, or when the overseer sat smoking a pipe and drinking beer, and Charlie was transported back to evenings in a Dutch inn, with his friends and his hero, the now dead Duke. And then a sharp word would be thrown at him, and he would remember: he was a slave, a branded man, and his life was no longer his own nor would it ever be again. In such moments, he vehemently wished he could die, that the sky would open and fling a bolt of lightning to obliterate his sorry existence. But every morning he woke to yet another day of drudgery, and his heart was far too strong, his body far too young, to allow him to give up on living.
Chapter 24
Alex had never been to a slave market before. At a distance, she’d seen the holding pens in Providence, too far away to make out more than a mass of humanity, but now she was scant yards away from where silent, apathetic human beings stood waiting their turn as sales lots.
A six-foot wall surrounded the space, killing any hopes of a breeze to relieve the oppressing heat. The stench was overpowering: a heavy carpet of human waste, sweat, vomit and blood, all of it overlaid by the incongruous smell of roasting yams and pork.
In a corner just to the right of the entrance, a food stall was doing fantastic business, three coloured girls scurrying back and forth with heaped plates and brimming wooden cups. A sense of festivity hung over the crowd standing around the open fire while they waited for their food. White men under wide-brimmed hats laughed and talked loudly to one another, here and there with a woman by their side. A gaggle of white children rushed around, dogs barked, umbrellas twirled, and all that was truly missing for this to be the scene of a family picnic were tables with linen tablecloths and quilts thrown onto the ground in the shade of the gigantic breadfruit tree. Until one turned to face the other way.
“Oh Lord,” Alex said. Matthew just nodded. One very large group of slaves was being herded forward, and suddenly one of the young women screamed, her arms clutching a child no more than two to her chest.
“No!” she wept. “Please, massa, no.” But the child was torn from her, and Matthew’s fingers closed tightly around Alex’s.
“A healthy maid child,” the slave trader said. “The mother pr
oven fertile, with two live births so far, and already breeding again.”
Two? Alex looked at the woman again. She couldn’t be more than eighteen.
“Look,” the trader continued, setting the child down on a table. “Well proportioned, and with a very nice tone to the skin.” The little girl swivelled her head, looking for her mother, but the slave trader forced her to face forward.
Matthew made a sound of absolute disgust. “I don’t want to watch this,” he muttered.
Alex couldn’t agree more, but they were hemmed in by prospective buyers, loud men that pushed them closer and closer to the wooden platform. They watched in stunned silence while the large lot was sold off, one by one, children torn from their mothers, men from their women.
“They do it on purpose,” Alex said, crying after seeing a terrified six-year-old being carried off from her family. “At least they could keep the children with their mothers.”
“You mustn’t allow yourself to become so upset, Mrs Graham,” Mr Lynch said in her ear. “They’re but slaves.”
“They’re human beings, and don’t tell me you don’t think they love each other!” She indicated a man who was hugging a woman desperately, and then he was dragged away in one direction and she in the other.
“The buck will forget her quickly enough,” Mr Lynch said, “once he is put among other women. And she’ll be breeding again before the end of the year. Good fertile stock.” He eyed the woman appraisingly, and Alex was tempted to kick him in the balls, or yank his wig from his head and stomp it into the dirty ground. Instead, she stood mute, clasping her husband’s warm, comforting hand.
*
It took Matthew some time to understand the basic layout, but once he did, he towed Alex over to the furthest corner where a hand-painted sign proudly proclaimed WYTES. Sitting on a chair, a tasselled parasol held over his head, the trader looked half asleep, legs extended before him. In the pen behind him were a group of men, all of them in irons, every movement resulting in dull metallic sounds.
“Restive,” the trader said. “Still have preconceived notions about themselves.” He laughed and got to his feet. “It irks some of them, to find themselves reduced to this station in life.”
“Imagine that,” Alex murmured, causing the wee trader to draw himself up as tall as he could – which was not saying much – and glower at her.
“These are rebels, ma’am, punished criminals. It was either this or being hanged – not that it makes much difference, as they’ll end up dead anyway.” He uncurled his whip and flicked it at the man closest, causing him to yelp and get unsteadily to his feet. “See? Weak and undernourished. Sold cheap and worked until they drop – which is not much longer than a half year or so.”
“Wouldn’t it help to feed them properly? That way they’d be of more use.” Matthew eyed the captives with compassion. In rags, most of them, and after a day or so in the sun, their pale skin was turning the colour of boiled lobster. Several of them had festering sores around their ankles, two coughed constantly, and none of them had red hair or green eyes. He relaxed, at the same time deeply disappointed.
“Men such as these you keep on cut rations. You don’t want them regaining too much strength.” The trader flicked his whip again, forcing the man who had crouched down back onto his feet. “On cut rations and in irons, until they die,” the trader concluded and yawned.
Matthew threw yet another pitying look at the wretches in the pen. If they lasted the year, it would be a miracle, although he suspected these men were ready to die, the light in their eyes permanently dimmed. With a muttered prayer that Charlie still be alive, he led his wife out of the slave market, relieved to leave this melting pot of human despair behind.
“You said Lieutenant Governor,” Matthew said as they rode with Mr Lynch back to town. “Do I take it then that the Governor is not in residence?”
“The Governor is not,” Mr Lynch said, “nor will he ever be, I think.” He produced a huge handkerchief, mopped his brow, and replaced his hat. “It’s a harsh climate, and quite a few of our fellow countrymen find it difficult to live here.” He eyed Matthew with slight condescension. “It would seem you yourself, Mr Graham, suffer somewhat from the heat.”
“Aye, I don’t like it much.” Nor did he enjoy riding in a closed carriage on a day as infernally hot as this one, and even less the fact that the interior was so crowded that every bump on the road launched Mr Lynch to squash into Alex.
“And you?” Alex inquired. “Have you lived here long?”
Mr Lynch beamed and nodded. “Since childhood, one could say. And not once have I wished myself back in that accursed rainy corner of the world I should call home. My cousin was among the first to settle here once we wrested this island off the Spanish, back in the fifties, and I myself arrived when Morgan was governor.”
“Morgan? The pirate?” Matthew did some discreet dabbing to his face with the loose end of his cravat.
“No,” Lynch replied, “his uncle and father-in-law, Edward Morgan.” A slight shadow crossed over his face. “We don’t go well together, the Morgans and the Lynches,” he said, and then changed the subject to a long and enthusiastic description of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.
The carriage bumped its way up High Street and came to a stop just outside King’s House. Mr Lynch pointed them in the direction of the door and made his farewells.
“Aren’t you coming inside with us?” Matthew asked.
“Best not,” Mr Lynch said. “The Lieutenant Governor and I…well…there’s a matter of a small debt I owe him, and…” He cleared his throat. “I wish you luck in your quest – but as a good and loyal subject of the King, I must hope you find your nephew dead – traitor that he is.” He smiled at Alex. “A body to bury is better than nothing, is it not?”
“Bastard,” Alex muttered as they made their way up to the door.
Matthew sighed. “He’s right. Charlie is a traitor – condemned as one. And I fear the likelihood of finding him alive diminishes with each day.”
They were received in the hall of the King’s House by a nondescript man that Matthew at first glance took to be a secretary. He led them to the back of the house and a veranda that gave directly onto the protected bay. The view was spectacular: turquoise waters dotted with ships morphed into hazy greens in the background, lifting slowly towards a misty highland. Thankfully, the area was in the shade of the building, and in one corner was a large wicker cage containing several colourful parrots that seemed delighted at having visitors, squawking loudly in a bid for attention.
“I hear you want to see the Governor,” the little man said, throwing a handful of seeds to the birds, “but you’ll have a long wait for Christopher Monck.”
“Christopher Monck? The second Duke of Albemarle?” Matthew sniffed at the content of the glass set before him. Some sort of fruit drink, a pleasant bright orange that had Alex making a series of enthusiastic sounds.
“You know the man?” A bowl of water had appeared, and their host fastidiously washed his hands.
“I knew of his father,” Matthew replied. “Georg Monck was a great leader of men.” And more or less single-handedly responsible for the bloodless restoration of Charles the Second, for which Matthew still had problems forgiving him. Monck had been Cromwell’s man in Scotland, a confirmed Parliamentarian, and yet it was he that had forged the deal that allowed the king in exile to return safely to his realm.
“Well, unfortunately the son lacks his father’s stellar qualities,” the man said, “and, although he is the appointed governor, he has as yet to set foot here in Jamaica.”
“So who does the actual governing?” Alex asked.
“I do,” the wee man said. “I’ve been doing it for the last few governors, for all that they think it is them that do it.”
Matthew laughed, liking this simply dressed man with his ink-stained fingers.
“Hender Molesworth,” the man said, bowing to Matthew, “recently acting Governor, presently Lie
utenant Governor, and hopefully soon acting Governor again.”
Matthew explained their errand, and Mr Molesworth grew more sombre by the minute, every now and then shaking his head.
“…so if you would be kind enough to allow us to peruse your records, then mayhap we could find the lad,” Matthew concluded.
Mr Molesworth gnawed his lip. “In principle, I should not aid you in this matter. The young man has been convicted of treason.”
“He’s twenty,” Alex said. “What foolishness didn’t you do at that age?”
“As far as I recall, I never raised my sword against the rightful king – or Protector, as was the case when I was that age.” His lips pursed together as if he had bitten into something very sour. “There was very little mercy shown in the rulings made by Jeffreys,” he stated neutrally after a lengthy silence.
“Aye, as he had old ladies burnt to death for harbouring fugitives, I would agree with you,” Matthew said with an edge.
“The King mercifully commuted her sentence to beheading,” Mr Molesworth reminded him.
Alex made a disparaging sound. “How big of him, but what about all the others? The innocent bystanders who lost their lives just at the whim of a bloodthirsty little bureaucrat?”
“Bloodthirsty? I think not. Out to set an example of the cost that lies in defying the King? Definitely.” Mr Molesworth nodded gravely, rubbing at one of the larger splotches of ink that decorated his right hand.
“The king for now,” Alex said, and Mr Molesworth eyed her with caution.
“For now?” he echoed.
Matthew sighed, rolling his eyes at his wife. Too outspoken, too opinionated, too headstrong, too…too much. He smiled fondly at her, shaking his head.
“What do you think will happen should his wife give birth to a male heir?” Alex asked. “A boy born not only Prince of Wales but Catholic to boot?”
“The people would rejoice.”
Alex laughed out loud. “Come off it. You don’t truly believe that, do you?”
Mr Molesworth regarded her for some time, his brow deeply furrowed. “The country would likely go up in flames,” he muttered. “Your wife has a fine grasp of politics,” he said, directing himself to Matthew, “and pray, sir, what is your opinion?”
Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 21
