“Do you think it is possible to… perhaps not erase memories and pains, but to paint over them?” he asked.
I nodded. “I have been able to, on occasion. Alonso’s patience and persistence allowed me to… receive a man’s love again. I had been bestowing myself upon those who would have me for many years and…”
He flushed and looked away, but he did not release my hand.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I know…”
“Be patient,” he whispered. “Not that you are not already.”
I squeezed his hand.
“May I ask you something awful that you may not wish to speak of?” he asked.
“Do I get to ask a question in return?”
He thought on this, and nodded. “Oui.”
“And your question is?”
He clenched my hand almost painfully. “Did this cousin of yours, this Shane, did he…”
I knew what he would say; and I looked away, as I did not want to see him when he asked it or when I responded.
“Did he force himself upon you?”
I took a deep breath and watched a bird wheel over the distant trees. “Oui.”
“I had guessed as much,” he whispered.
I still could not look at him. “Several times.”
“Will, you need not…”
“Oui, I do. The first few, I told myself that I wanted it, even if he was so damn cruel and… and then the last time he bludgeoned me and I… bled for days, and I could not lie anymore.”
I let myself remember. I never let myself truly remember. I filled with the old pain and fear and rage and shame and his weight upon me and the vile things he said – and… I was sobbing and clawing at the horse, as I had once done my bedding. Unlike the sheets of old, it was tossing its head and sidestepping in terror. I dismounted and let it skitter away, and I stumbled into the cane and vomited bile.
Gaston joined me, and I shied from his touch on my shoulder. He resolutely handed me the water skin, and backed away to wait with arms crossed. I hugged the water, not sure that my shaking hands could bring it to my lips without spilling it.
When I achieved sufficient mastery over my racing thoughts once again, I regarded him.
“I am…”
“Do not apologize to me.” His tone was strong but his eyes were soft.
I nodded and managed to drink some water, though my hands were still unsteady. “I do not let myself remember it.”
“I know. You give me hope.”
“How so?”
“If you can… do anything with a man then there is a chance I can learn how not to… slip into madness at any reminder of it.”
“I will do whatever is in my power to assist you.”
He nodded. “Now it is your turn.”
“For?”
“Asking a question.”
I thought of my reaction. And then I thought that being reminded of the incident triggered his bouts. I was near loathe to ask anything at all. I settled upon a single thing.
“Who… did that to you?”
“My father,” he said simply.
I nodded, and thought of all the times he had frozen at mention of this sire.
“Well, then, I can see why you do not feel any need to correspond with him.”
He blinked and then smiled. He closed the distance between us and embraced me with a ferocity that would have done Pete proud.
I held him gratefully. I felt as exhausted as if I had sparred for hours. Thankfully, he said nothing; and after a peaceful eternity, we gathered our horses and rode on. In the aftermath, I did not wish to think. The cork crammed into my soul had been released, and I breathed far easier.
Sugarcane spread in patches on either side of us now, as we made our way north. Occasionally we glimpsed groups of men – some black, some white – toiling in the fields underneath the gaze of overseers sitting atop horses. These clusters appeared to me like men herding livestock, as the men working were stooped at the waist, performing whatever task they were at, and thus appeared as slowly bobbing backs of sheep or cattle in the growing cane. After noting this, I was disturbed by it, as I did not see them as men.
I was pleased I recognized Ithaca when we rode onto it. I had more trouble identifying the work done. The first cleared acreage we saw looked nothing like a farm field in England. There was no brush, to be sure, but there were stumps all about. I finally remembered that a plow would not be used here for just that reason.
We spied men working at the forest line, presumably enlarging the cleared area. We turned our horses toward them and worked our way across the clumpy dirt, threading through the stumps. I recognized Donoughy as I drew close: he was the only one not stooped and hacking at something. At least he was not on a horse. After a moment, I picked out the Jenkins brothers and Humboldt. They were all much browner now, and dressed similarly to myself in loose vests and breeches ,with kerchiefs on their heads. They were busy working with axes and cutlasses. They looked much like buccaneers clearing a deck. At least I did not see them as sheep.
As we approached, Donoughy wiped his forehead with a rag and stepped out to greet us. I realized he did not recognize me, and I thought I should not be surprised, as I had changed since last we met two months before.
Still I teased him, “Good day Mister Donoughy, have I changed that much?”
His jaw dropped; and then he laughed. I dismounted and we clasped hands.
“My Lord,” he said. “Look at you. Theodore said you had gone roving, but my… Lord.”
The other men were looking on with interest; and then one of them surmised my identity, and the whispers spread through the score or so of them. I was suddenly besieged by happy men who wanted to shake my hand.
After all made their greeting, Donoughy gave me an expectant look and flicked his eyes behind me.
I smiled. “That would be my matelot, Gaston.”
Donoughy’s eyes widened slightly, and I knew he understood the term. I looked back; Gaston waved, with a reserved grimace some might mistake for a smile.
“Are ya truly a buccaneer then, my Lord?” Humboldt asked. “Fletcher said you ’ad gone rovin’.” Thankfully, I heard no recrimination in his voice for abandoning them.
“Aye, and I will tell you all of my adventures tonight. Where is Fletcher?”
“He’s off with the others cutting lumber, my Lord,” Donoughy supplied. “We get some here while clearing, but good beams come from larger trees. We have sheds to sleep in and we’ll soon have the beginnings of the mills and boiling house. Theodore said a great house could wait.”
“Oh, aye, by all means see to the necessities of the plantation before worrying about something as extraneous as a manor house.”
He nodded with relief, only to tense again. “My Lord, there are some things we should discuss.” He sighed. “And we’ve lost some.”
“Ten men ’ave died of fever, my Lord,” Humboldt said from the front of the ring of men. “Five are ailin’. Two others wounded so they canna’ work.”
“And one ran off, my Lord,” Donoughy added. He looked as if he took it as a personal affront.
I shrugged.
“Theodore hasn’t had a chance to buy any Negroes yet,” he added.
So, not counting Fletcher or Donoughy, we were at thirty men alive and twenty-two men available to work. I had thought I viewed half our men in this field, not most. I was appalled.
“Good God,” I muttered.
“We’ve cleared a good eight acres, though, my Lord,” Humboldt added, with enthusiasm I could not fathom.
I looked back across the small field we had crossed, and thought of the acreage under plow around Rolland Hall. Then I looked at the weary men around me and the damn forest beyond them.
“That is spectacular,” I said with a smile. “I am proud of you, to do so much against so much adversity.”
This seemed to cheer them.
“We need to finish the day, my Lord,” Donoughy said.
�
��Aye, we will leave you to it, then.”
The men grumbled and turned back to the waiting forest. Gaston and I rode away.
“I did not expect so many to die,” I said quietly when we were well clear of the others. “I know what I was told, but…”
“Men do not grow old here, Will,” he said solemnly.
We soon reached the barracks, in another cleared area at the base of the hill. It was a long, open building with posts for hammocks and little else. We discovered a fellow named Pleasant had been made cook. He had one hand now. His left arm ended in a crude stump. I remembered he had been a farmer once, in Lancashire. Apparently he had an accident with an axe a mere month ago, and Donoughy and Fletcher had been forced to amputate what was left of his hand when it became putrid. They had made him the cook after that.
We saw to the horses, putting them in the paddock they had for a pair of mules. Gaston eyed the ailing men, and finally pulled his surgeon’s kit from his bag with a heavy sigh. It took both of us to convince the men he was actually trained as a physician. Three of them had the flux, far more severely than I had experienced it, and Gaston explained to Pleasant about providing them with a great deal of boiled water and broth. The other two ailing men had a fever of some sort. Gaston said he would need to get supplies in town to even attempt to treat them. Then he quietly told me in French that they would most likely die. As for the other wounded man, he had a nasty gash from a shovel and was missing two toes, including his big one. The boys had cauterized the wound, and though it was an ugly mass of scar, it did not appear to be putrefying. He would be able to walk, but not well.
We walked a little distance away and I turned to Gaston with despair.
“Is it always thus? Can something not be done?”
He shook his head sadly and rubbed my shoulder. “They are truly doing well for not having seasoned. None are thin. Your men have done what they can for those ailing and wounded. The men in the field did not appear beaten or whip-scarred.”
Fletcher and Grisholm arrived with two mules pulling a large log. Fletcher recognized me far more readily than Donoughy.
“My Lord, I thank God you’re alive,” he said as he embraced me heartily.
“Some intervention was involved in my returning.” I grinned. “How are things here, Mister Fletcher? So many have died, but I am told this is the way of it.”
He nodded and sighed. “We do what we can, my Lord. Donoughy is concerned…” He trailed off to regard Gaston, who was examining whatever was beneath a bandage on Grisholm’s arm. Our carpenter seemed willing to let him look at it.
“This is my matelot, Gaston,” I told them. “He is a physician.” I was not sure if that was completely accurate, but I noted that Gaston did not correct me on it.
“Somethin’ bit me, an’ I was laid up for a good week, sir,” Grisholm was saying.
I winced at the sight of a large circle of red and swollen flesh on his upper arm with a black spot in the middle of it.
“Spider,” Gaston said. “The flesh here is dead.” He pointed at the black spot. “It needs to be removed, and the hole stitched closed, and a poultice applied.”
Grisholm nodded with resignation and a little relief. “Pennington got bit by something too, sir, but his is not so bad.”
“I should look at all of them tonight,” Gaston said.
“Some of us have worms, sir,” Fletcher said diffidently.
“Including you?” Gaston asked.
Fletcher nodded glumly.
“What are you all eating?” I asked.
“The provisions we brought, my Lord, and what we can buy. That’s what Donoughy is concerned about. We’re feeding the men well, but it’s costing a pretty penny.”
Gaston paused in leading Grisholm to the cook fire. “Do they not have a provision plot?”
I looked to Fletcher and he shrugged. “My Lord, we can’t grow wheat here, or turnips or…apples.”
“Fletcher, all manner of things grow here.”
“Aye, but they’re strange, my Lord. We’re sick enough.”
Gaston snorted. “Fresh food grown here will provide for better health than rotting food brought all the way from England. And there are pigs and cattle running wild on this island, as there are on every island the Spanish lived.”
Fletcher sighed at this rebuke. “Donoughy says that’s not the way it’s done on Barbados and the other islands. Not when you grow cane, sir.”
I crossed my arms and regarded him sternly.
He held up a hand in supplication. “My Lord, I cannot debate as you can, and it is not my plantation.”
“I will see to it,” I sighed and relented to clap his shoulder. It was not his fault.
The men returned as the sun began to set. Gaston was finishing Grisholm’s arm. I announced that any who had ailments should see Gaston, as he was a physician. They queued up immediately, and not just because my matelot was near the cook fire and Pleasant was ladling bowls of stew. Gaston began to treat them, with more patience than I thought he possessed. I was very proud of him.
Meanwhile, I went aside with Fletcher and Donoughy.
“So you have a matelot, my Lord,” Donoughy said.
Fletcher frowned and then recalled the word.
“Oh,” he said thoughtfully, and frowned toward where Gaston worked. He looked to me, and then away uncomfortably.
I remembered his desire to escape my presence when I had first told him I favored men. His behavior now bothered me more than I cared to admit. Morgan had been condescending to a degree, but he had not dared question if he was to remain amongst the Brethren. Fletcher, on the other hand, obviously did not approve but did not wish to say it. I wanted to know what damn business he had disapproving. Then I remembered that this was the way of the world. I had stood in a number of drawing rooms and balls, and heard the snide comments or seen the condemning snorts. They would do nothing, and they might not even ridicule, but they would feel they had the right to decide that what I did was unacceptable, as if I were unfortunate in some way. I used to accept that. Not only accept, but not question. It was the reason Alonso and I had not been open about our relationship. It was the reason I had always been discreet about the men and flagrant about the women.
Here and now, the irony was that Gaston and I were not even engaging in the activity that Fletcher most probably found inappropriate. However, I did realize that I might be making unwarranted assumptions, despite his religious convictions.
“Fletcher, what bothers you about the matter?” I asked pleasantly.
“Nothing, my Lord.”
I continued to stare at him.
Donoughy sighed. “Fletcher believes it is a sin, my Lord.”
“I don’t believe it is,” Fletcher said quickly. “It is. It’s an abomination in the eyes of God. I’m sorry my Lord, I mean you no offense, but it is clearly wrong.”
I sighed; my assumptions were correct. “Which? My having a matelot or sodomy? The two things can be quite mutually exclusive.”
“Sodomy, my Lord,” Fletcher said with exasperation. “I understand that some men are weak, and when denied women, they resort to sin to satisfy themselves the same as they resort to whoring, thievery, gambling, or drink. They will answer for those sins on Judgment Day if they do not embrace the Lord. But my Lord, you do not appear to be a weak man; and by your own admission you do not see it as a means of last resort but as a favored choice. You sin… arrogantly in such matters, and I do not understand why you wish to consign yourself to eternal damnation.”
“Fletcher, I break a number of the Commandments on a regular basis. Committing sodomy should be the least of my problems on Judgment Day.”
He had to think on that for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped dejectedly. “This is probably all too true, my Lord. You at least admit it is a sin, do you not?”
“Aye, sodomy is a sin, everyone knows that, so is murder, adultery, robbery, blasphemy, and,” I sighed, “the Seven Deadly Sins which I am s
ure I embrace with equal conviction.”
Fletcher rolled his eyes.
“Surely you jest, My Lord,” Donoughy said. “You do not appear to be a man who bows before avarice or gluttony.”
I chuckled, as I had not expected such a jest from him. “True, true, thank you, Mister Donoughy. I do not embrace all seven, but I do possess a fondness for lust, pride, and anger, and I have been known to occasionally indulge in envy and I often partake of sloth. And even more strangely, I have been known to commit other sins in the name of such virtues as zeal, generosity, love, and kindness. Though I must admit I have never managed humility, faith, or discipline.”
“You revel in it, my Lord,” Fletcher said with even more exasperation. “How can you revel in it?”
“Fletcher, I do not believe in God.”
“I do not believe you, my Lord,” he said with a dismissive gesture. “And how can you describe anything as a sin, if you do not believe God made it so?”
“I believe man made it so and,” I thought back to my conversations with Gaston on the subject. “Some things are truly wrong, no matter why we decide they are.”
“And is sodomy one of those things, my Lord?”
This brought me pause, as I realized I did view it as a sin. The question was, why? Was it merely because I had been told for so many years that it was?
I began to think aloud. “In truth, Fletcher, I have never given it much thought. I will not be so childish as to say that since it is something I wish to do, then it is obviously a proper thing. However, I cannot see where it harms one’s fellow man or oneself. I can see where a case could be made that is not in keeping with nature, as it does not produce offspring, which is the purpose we assume for our privates. Yet, our bodies are as they are, and my cock is a thing of pleasure for my person, and it experiences and passes along to me an equal amount of pleasure whether it be burrowed in a man or a woman. I cannot see why it would do thus if it was not in its nature to do so. Likewise, if my arse enjoys something inside it, which it does, I fail to see how it could enjoy such a thing if it was not meant to. I feel the perversity would lie in my creation or design, if such things are wrong and yet make me so happy.”
Brethren Page 49
