CHAPTER TEN
The wind shoved hard against the boat, causing it to shudder and creak. Outside, the waves rose, crested, and threw their power forth with full fury, pulling every object they encountered to the depths of the Bay.
Carr was very glad that Rowlett's shantyboat was on land. Carefully closing the door before it should be torn out of his hand, he turned back to his father's liegeman, saying, "I hope the fleet will be all right."
"This sort of sou'easter don't go far north," Rowlett said with firmness. "It'll tear its heart out 'fore it reaches as far as the eel grounds." Sitting on his bed, he leaned his back against the wall, being careful to place his head to the right of where his rifle lay on hooks upon the wall. The top of his head just brushed the shelf above, which held a mishmash of objects: a box of crackers, a decoy so real that it looked as though it would quack at any moment, and glass jars holding various dried items.
Carr nodded, relieved; he had no need to question Rowlett's weather sense. Walking over to the stove, he checked on the progress of the teakettle as he said, "It must be frustrating for you, being all cooped up like this."
"Ah, well." Rowlett waved away the remark with his good arm. His other arm was bandaged, still recovering from the gunshot wound he had received during the naval pursuit upon the Honga River. "Gives me a nice vacation, you might say."
It was the closest Rowlett ever came to admitting that he disliked the tasks that his liege-master assigned him. Carr had witnessed the fights between his father and Rowlett at the time that his father first began sending his fleet into Third Landstead territory – if one could call it a fight where the liegeman began every sentence with the words, "With respect," and kept his eyes dipped the whole time. It was probably the safest thing he could have done; Carr's father, with the instincts long bred into him in his youth, was unlikely to hit a man who was acting as though he were a humble servant.
But it had not made any difference in the end. Rowlett had been forced by his liege-master to break the high law, not once but many times.
"Something on your mind, Master Carr?"
Rowlett's voice broke into Carr's thoughts, and he realized that he had been standing in front of the whistling tea kettle for some time. He reached out to seize the kettle handle and then hissed, snatching his burnt fingers back.
Rowlett was at his side at once. "Petroleum jelly's above the washbowl," he said succinctly. "That bad enough that it needs bandaging?"
Carr shook his head, sucking his fingers. "Just cold water, I think." He turned away. Ignoring the barrel of lukewarm water, he opened the door and thrust his hand out into the cool rain.
Behind him, Rowlett bustled around, pulling objects off the shelves on the wall next to the stove. "Corn syrup?" he asked.
"Yes, please," Carr replied, feeling a familiar sort of calm descend upon him. Then, deciding that it really wasn't fair for him to take advantage of his father's liegeman in this manner, he closed the door and turned, saying, "Let me do that, Rowlett. Your arm is still bad."
"Not so bad that I ain't able to pour a couple cups of tea." Rowlett's servant dialect became more pronounced, as it always did when he was alone with Carr. "Now, you sit yourself down, Master Carr. This won't take but a minute."
Carr had no memories of the days when Rowlett had been a servant in the House of His Master's Kindness, but he had always envisioned Rowlett as being a servant somewhat like Carr's old nurse: the type that respectfully bullied masters into doing the things they ought to do. It was a shame, really, that Rowlett had never been able to transform that talent into a weapon to turn Carr's father onto the straight path.
But maybe he had tried and failed, Carr reflected as he sat down on the lid-covered toilet seat next to the door, watching Rowlett pour corn syrup into the tea cups. Carr's father was a very stubborn man.
Carr tried again. "Shall I light another lamp? It's getting rather dark."
Rowlett nodded. "Would be right nice if you did that, Master Carr. Thank you."
Carr rose so hastily that he nearly bumped his arm into the saw hanging on the wall beside him. Next to the saw were the pegs for Rowlett's overcoat and hat, and above the pegs jutted out a high shelf with lamps, extra kerosene, and matches. Carr took one of the lamps over to the table next to the bed and then fumbled with the fuel and matches, feeling as awkward as a culling boy on his first day at work.
Suddenly Rowlett was at his side. "No, no, master – that's one of the old-fashioned lamps. You got to cut the wick first."
"Oh?" said Carr weakly and stepped aside to let Rowlett do his work. He had a sudden vision of himself in the summer kitchen, making a mess of the servants' carefully ordered workspace. He made a small noise of distress.
Rowlett looked cautiously back over his shoulder. "Something the matter, sir?"
Realizing that Rowlett could not know the cause of distress in his liege-master's son, Carr said hastily, "No, that's fine. Go right ahead. I'm interfering."
"Ah." Rowlett's expression cleared. He turned his attention back to the wick. After a moment, he said, "I heard things have been a bit messy upstairs, in the mansion."
Carr had wandered back to the stove. He stared at its pipe, which poked its way through the wall to send smoke outside. "My father sacked Bat and Sally."
"Heard that." Rowlett appeared at his elbow, offering him a cup of syrup-sweetened tea.
Carr took it but did not drink. "How can he do such things, Rowlett? And how can my mother just stand by and let him?"
"'Stead of interfering?" Rowlett gave him a small smile. "You ain't so different from either of your folks, you know."
Carr stared down at his cup, unable to speak. The shantyboat shuddered once more as fresh waves crashed onto the beach, a few yards away. The air inside the boat was close and damp.
Rowlett took him by the elbow and gently guided him over to the room's only chair, next to the table. "You want to sit down, sir? You're looking a bit peaky."
Carr sat down because it was easier than finding an excuse not to. He placed his tea cup and saucer next to Rowlett's empty tobacco-pipe and stared at both objects, trying to make sense of his muddled thoughts. "I just don't understand them," he heard himself say. "I don't understand them at all. How—?" His throat tightened. "How could you pledge your loyalty to someone like my father, Rowlett? Was it just that you wanted to be a master? Or that you were afraid my father would throw you out if you refused the rank he offered you?"
"Well, now," said Rowlett in an uneasy voice, "I can't rightly say, after all these years."
The liegeman's tone snapped Carr out of his muddle-mindedness. He looked over his shoulder, saying quickly, "I'm sorry, Rowlett. That was utterly unfair of me, asking you questions like that."
Rowlett smiled. He was leaning back against the washstand, wiping his hands with a towel. "Then again," he said, "there's times when you ain't nothing like your folks at all. You're your own man, entirely your own."
What he meant, Carr knew, was that his father would never have made an apology like that. Carr held his breath, trying to prevent himself from asking the same questions a second time.
Rowlett carefully placed the towel back on its peg, saying, "Don't know whether you've ever seen pictures of your mama when she was young."
"I'm told she was pretty," Carr said cautiously as he scooted his chair over so that he could watch Rowlett more easily.
"Wasn't just pretty. Was a beauty – the handsomest girl in this landstead." Rowlett fiddled with the towel, adjusting it.
Carr said slowly, "Were you in love with her?"
"Maybe a bit." Rowlett's mouth quirked into a smile. "Maybe a lot. Every man and boy was, that came within sight of her. Wasn't just her looks – she was vivacious, full of fire. She had beaus lining up from here to the capital, and on up to Bay Beach. She could have married any master she wanted – but she didn't want none of them. Prideful, they called her."
"And was she?" Carr asked, fascinated by this new perspective on
his mother. He had seen photographs of her when she was young; she hadn't looked prideful to him, merely sad.
Rowlett shook his head as he turned back. "Not her. A little too shy, if anything. But she had some stubbornness to her too, and she couldn't quite see the point of the life she was living. 'There must be more to life than an endless round of parties,' she said to me once. 'I just can't figure out what I should be doing instead. I wish I could meet someone who would show me.'"
"And then she met my father," Carr said slowly.
"That she did. Oh, he was no catch – no catch at all, in the eyes of most folk. Handsome, yeah. Titled, yeah. But his family was poor as third-rankers by then, and he didn't even have his family's good name, 'cause he'd gone off on his own way. He didn't have a word for what he was in those days – just knew that it was wrong, the way everyone was treating the servants. Knew that there had to be a better way. But no one around him would take any notice of what he said."
"Except my mother," Carr said in a soft voice.
Rowlett nodded as he went over to fetch his own tea. "'Cept her. They met at a party, and the minute they got talking, it was like the world had opened thrice as big for both of them. They was made for each other, it seemed. . . . Least, it seemed that way to them. Your granddaddy, he had other ideas."
"I remember my father said once that my mother's father wasn't happy about him courting my mother."
Rowlett snorted. "That's putting it mild. Your granddaddy was sort of cautious at the start, creeping up on the idea of how maybe your father's title was good enough reason for him to be a suitor to your mama, since she seemed so dead set on seeing him. But your father weren't ever one to be less than outspoken, and he made clear what he thought of how the servants are treated in the Dozen Landsteads. Minute your granddaddy heard that, he exploded like a steamer's boiler – ordered your father never to set foot in this House again. Told your mama she wasn't to see him ever, no more."
"And did she obey him?" Carr asked, his tea now completely forgotten in his entrancement at the tale.
Rowlett snorted again. "Didn't I just say she's stubborn? Us out in the fleet, we was making wagers on how long it would be 'fore the elopement came round. . . . But then your granddaddy died."
"And my uncle inherited this House," Carr said.
"Not for long. Your great-granddaddy died too, not long after, and his title of High Master went to your uncle. So your uncle, he was in a sad fix. He needed an heir, didn't want to marry to produce that heir himself, but your mother was insisting she'd die 'fore she married anyone 'cept your daddy. And there was your daddy, insisting to your uncle's face that, if he had control over the landstead, he'd abolish the ranks of master and servant and make everyone equal. Oh, it was a trying time for your uncle. Don't suppose he got no sleep those first triple of months."
"But he let my mother marry my father," Carr said, running his finger along the back of the wood chair.
Rowlett nodded. He was still standing against the washbasin, the back of his head reflected in the mirror over the bowl. "That he did. He made a fair jag of it, your uncle did – saw a bad harvest and decided he'd make the best of it he could. He let your mama marry – but only on condition that your daddy was regent, not heir. And made your father agree that, once you was of age, you'd come live with your uncle."
Carr nodded. "My father told me about their negotiations, at the time of my parents' marriage. I suppose my uncle was hoping that, despite everything, he'd be able to persuade me not to be an Egalitarian like my father."
Rowlett stared down at his tea, swallowed it in a single gulp, and then set the tea aside. "Now, I've never been one for politics, and a man's faith is his own, that's what I say. So I don't go meddling with such matters. Thing is, though, I don't know if you realize how fierce your folks' love is – not just for themselves, but for the servants. Everyone around them at the time, they made the mistake of thinking this was a simple tale of two lover-birds wanting to marry. Wasn't that simple – wasn't that simple at all. Your daddy, he wouldn't have married the prettiest girl in the landstead – nor her money – if she hadn't wanted what he wanted. And your mama wouldn't have given him the time of day if he wasn't set on freeing the servants. Oh, you should have seen her in those days, her face bright, talking of the days to come when the servants' chains'd be broken and they could have the freedom to do all the things that any master or mastress can do from the day they're born."
"She's still like that," Carr said in a low voice. "My father too. It's not . . . Rowlett, I've never been ashamed of my parents for their ideals. It's just . . ."
Rowlett turned round and began washing his cup, using water from the pitcher, and soap from the shelf under the mirror. "Your folks ain't always so smart at making decisions about their own folk. Any servant in this House would say the same – any liegeman too. But you know, we all make mistakes, Master Carr. Best you remember that, 'fore the time comes when you need that knowledge."
Carr stared at the chair back. "I'm only six tri-years old. I won't be making my own decisions for another tri-year – at least, not any decisions that aren't supervised by my father or my House Master at school."
"Well, then." Rowlett reached for the towel again. "You got plenty of time. You're lucky you ain't like your daddy and mama, having to decide all at once what to do, back when they was your age."
Carr said nothing. Outside, the Bay howled – a lonely sound, like a Bay retriever lost in a marsh, trying to find its way home.
o—o—o
Spring Youth turned to Spring Manhood, ripe as the strawberries growing in the dependency garden. The forsythia shrubs, imported with great expense from an Yclau colony, had shed the last of their golden petals, but now the brilliant-petaled native azalea bushes took their pride of place on the lawn of Cliffsdale Mansion. The nearby woods were filled with darting birds, seeking food for their newborn. And down at the beach, the fleet returned from its eeling.
Carr's father promptly sent them out to scrape crabs. Fortunately, the scraping grounds in the Second Landstead had not yet been fully depleted; there would be no opportunity for the House of His Master's Kindness to come into conflict again with the Second Landstead's heirship House – at least, not until Carr was safely ensconced in school during the autumn term. In the meantime, mindful of his duties to his school masters – who always seemed more than a little surprised that a lad of his rank would bother to do his lessons – Carr took his schoolbooks outside and spent long afternoons sitting in an isolated spot on the beach, listening with half an ear to the sound of the flatties, doryboats, punts, and skiffs returning with their harvests of blue crabs.
He rarely saw Jesse any more. To his surprise, the young foreigner had not immediately packed his bag and left after their argument. Carr supposed that Jesse regarded this mansion as a convenient base for his operations. Carr began to wonder whether he himself had ever been anything more than a convenient way for Jesse to receive free lodgings.
Fortunately, his parents did not notice the estrangement between their son and his guest. His father had reached the final stages of galley-proofing his book, which meant he spent most of his time at home with blue pencil in hand, squinting at the long sheets of paper from the printers, only occasionally emerging with the blank look of a diving canvasback who has forgotten that anything exists on the surface of the water. His mother, released from her work of reading aloud to her husband, had taken it into her head to redecorate the servants' bedrooms, which meant that she spent most of her time creating messes that the servants had to clean up at the end of their long days.
Carr watched all this with new eyes. With Rowlett's story weaving itself still in his head, he noticed – as he had never really noticed before – that his father received no visitors, other than an occasional Egalitarian who had come to ask some favor from the highest-ranked Egalitarian in the landstead. His mother – who had been the most beautiful woman in the Second Landstead, and whose beaus had been lin
ed up from the capital to Bay Beach – received no visitors at all; nor did she visit anyone.
Neither of his parents complained of this fact; nor had they ever. Their thoughts were firmly centered only on one matter: the day when they should bring freedom to the downtrodden servants of the Second Landstead.
Or perhaps not merely one matter, for on the few occasions when his father emerged from his galley-proofing, it was inevitably to ask Carr how his work was going at the Solomons Island Harbor, or whether he needed any assistance at schoolwork, or whether he had any unmet needs. And his mother, while clearly endeavoring not to hover over him, always seemed to find excuses to give him some trinket that had come her way: a shell with mother-of-pearl gleaming on the inside, the empty halves of fragile blue eggs still nestled in their nest. In this manner, Carr began to grasp just how much courage and love it had taken his parents to allow their only son the freedom to leave and make his own way in the world, rather than remain their companion in exile.
And with this realization came the knowledge that he supposed came to most journeymen eventually: the awareness that his parents were not computers, making static judgments and releasing their carefully calculated results. Rather, his parents were human beings, just as capable as he was of making mistakes, and just as much in need of guidance from wiser men and women.
Even so, nothing prepared him for what came next.
Master and Servant (Waterman) Page 10
