Beyond the Savage Sea Read online

  BEYOND THE SAVAGE SEA

  JoAnn Wendt

  About the Author

  Publishing Information

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  Chapter 1

  Barbados, the Caribbean

  December 1659

  Edwinna Crawford left the boiling house at a run, her long, thick braid swinging as she loped. She was dressed in a shirt, men’s breeches, stockings, and shoes. She and her plantation overseer, Matthew Plum, had been at work there since dawn, seeing to the installation of a new sugar-boiling kettle. Now, as she ran breathless up a cane path in the morning sun to Crawford Hall, her smooth brow creased with worry.

  Harvest would begin in two weeks and she desperately needed a good harvest. Last year, rats had infested the island, invading the fields, feeding on the sugary roots, causing the cane to rot where it stood. To destroy the rats, she’d had to burn field after field. She’d nearly lost her entire sugar crop—a financial calamity she could ill afford. Crawford Plantation was already deep in debt.

  Now she had a new worry. Her uncle, George Crawford, had ridden in. He hadn’t come for a social visit. He hated her as much as she hated him. What did he want? He was a planter, and no planter went on casual visits two weeks before harvest. There was too much to do. Had he come about that clause in her father’s will? Matthew Plum had warned her. Simon Tarcher, who served as Speightstown’s magistrate and her trusted lawyer, had warned her, too. She tried to cast off a sense of foreboding, but couldn’t. Her uncle was greedy and clever.

  The path sloped steadily upward, past a sea of tall green cane that rustled in the trade winds, billowing, wave after green wave. There were endless fields of cane rolling richly over the plateau that formed the broad spine of the island. Cane covered the island, broken only by patches of mahogany forest and by deep dark ravines, descending in terraced fields to the jewel blue Caribbean Sea three miles away.

  Ordinarily, Edwinna’s heart leapt at the sight. She loved planting, harvest, and the hard, exacting work of making sugar. But today she took no joy in it. Why had George Crawford come? Why?

  The trade winds blew gently into her face as she ran, bringing the familiar smells of sea, fertile soil, and ripening cane fields. Out of habit she stopped at the top of the hill, the highest point on Crawford Plantation, and looked down over the miles of billowing cane toward Speightstown. Nestled beside the bright blue sea, the tiny sugar port shimmered in its white sand cove. It was a beautiful cove, but a cruel one. Today was execution day there. She hated for any human being to die condemned to death by slow drowning, shackled to boulders in the cove to await the incoming tide. She hated suffering in any form.

  Yet, she firmly believed that pirates had to be executed. They were the scourge of the Caribbean—their ships were more numerous than sharks. She knew, firsthand, the disaster they could bring down upon planters. You could toil two years to bring forth a sugar crop—planting the cane, growing it fourteen to sixteen months, harvesting it, grinding it, boiling it, curing it three months in the curing house, sorting it, packing it into kegs, loading it on the backs of burros, taking it down to the sugar ports on hazardous trails that wound through mosquito-filled ravines. Two years! And when you sent it off to sea, a pirate ship could swoop down out of nowhere and take it all in ten minutes.

  Kill them. Let the punishment fit the crime. Live by the sea, die by it. Still, she thought, shuddering, it is terrible to die that way.

  Crawford Hall dominated the hilltop, visible from all directions, its gabled red tiled roof and white stucco walls awash in the brilliant Caribbean sun. Built by her father with his first sugar money, it was constructed of quarried limestone coral and ballast stones that had come from England in the holds of cargoless ships. Fearful of slave uprisings, Peter Crawford had built it like a fortress. The walls stood two feet thick. There was no window glass in Barbados, but each window was fitted out with two sets of stout wooden shutters that could shut out storm or siege. A ten-foot-tall limestone coral wall covered with lush tropical flowers encircled the house, meeting in the front at wrought-iron gates, which her father had kept tightly locked day and night.

  Edwinna left the gates open. Unlike her father, she’d been born in Barbados. She had no Englishman’s fear of black skin. She’d lived among blacks all her life. If she locked her gates at night, she did so not as a precaution against her blacks but against her whites. Most of the white bond slaves were convicts straight out of Newgate Prison in London. Slyer, less trustworthy men she’d never met—except for her uncle, George Crawford.

  She gazed out again at the beautiful panorama of sky, cane fields, sea, and Speightstown nestling in its cove, and her throat tightened. She thought of the letter Simon Tarcher had sent up to her, with the bizarre solution to the problem of the clause in her father’s will. She’d read the letter so many times she knew it by heart. It was a desperate, frightening solution, but Simon Tarcher could be trusted. He and Matthew Plum were the only men on Barbados she was willing to trust.

  But perhaps she would not be forced to the wall. She hoped her uncle had come on a different matter. If not, she would have only until noon to get to Speightstown. By midafternoon, the tide would be in, the executions over. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and strode through the open gate into her house to face George Crawford.

  He waited for her inside, in her dining chamber, seated at the table, hovering over a bowl of kill-devil punch someone had been foolish enough to make for him. The bowl stood half emptied. She could smell the rank, raw scent of rum, could see its effect in her uncle’s flushed face. He’d brought his disgusting son with him—Clive, with his handsome looks and evil ways.

  Clive looked her over with bold eyes and smiled. Edwinna didn’t return the smile. She’d had little use for him when they were children and had none now. He was a bully who took what he wanted. She kept her distance.

  “You should keep your gates locked,” George Crawford said crossly, starting in on her without greeting.

  “Yes, Uncle.” She refused to argue over trivia. She didn’t like him enough to bother arguing with him about anything. Her uncle was a tall, handsome man of fifty who dressed with fussy vanity. He had been her father’s twin brother—identical in every respect. Edwinna had learned early in life to be wary of both of them.

  Not one to short himself on comfort, he kept his Negro body slave, Caesar, standing behind his chair to attend to his every whim. Caesar was required to wear full livery, buttoned high on his neck. His black face glistened with sweat.

  “And you should whip your house slaves, Edwinna. They are never around to serve me when I come. Never.”

  “I sent them off on chores this morning.”

  Untrue. She’d sent them nowhere. They were terrified of George Crawford. Like children, they’d run off to hide. Her uncle had a vicious reputation. In a fit of temper, he’d once flogged one of his slaves to death. He’d been reprimanded by the governor, of course, but that amounted to a slap on the wrist—a slap in exchange for a human life.

  “Where is Kena?” Clive asked smoothly.

  He knew exactly how to goad her. She clenched her fists.

  “Leave her alone, Clive, or so help me...”

  Chuckling, Clive sat back in his chair and threw up his hands in mock alarm. “Say, now. This is a friendly family talk, isn’t it?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Edwinna saw Kena standing in the corridor that led to the kitchen, clutching her two-year-old son, Tutu, in her arms. Loyal Kena had stayed near, but her lovely eyes were large with fright and her light-skinned, mulatto features were fraught with worry.

  “That is no way to talk to your cousin,” George Crawford scolded her. “And you should dress like a woman,
not like a man.” His eyes raked her with scorn.

  “I dress for my work, Uncle.”

  “Exactly!” He pounced on the point as if waiting for it. Leaning forward, his long, carefully combed hair sweeping over his silk clad shoulders, he gave the table a sharp rap. “Planting and making sugar is man’s work, not woman’s. Women haven’t the knack. Clive and I have been in Bridgetown, discussing this very issue with the governor.”

  Her chest tightened. It was the matter of her father’s will. The governor was its executor. By the terms of the will, her twin brothers, Thomas and Harry, would inherit the plantation when they reached the age of twenty-one. Meanwhile, Edwinna had the right to manage it for them, with one stipulation—she had to marry by age twenty-six, or she forfeited management of the plantation to George Crawford.

  It was an unfair stipulation. Marry? Be ruled by yet another man? A husband? She would rather put her head in a noose. But she would turn twenty-six tomorrow. That’s why her uncle had come, of course. She drew a tense breath.

  “Uncle, you know I have been planting and making sugar since I was sixteen. You know that in the last ten years of my father’s life he took no interest in running the plantation. He left it to me and Matthew Plum to do, and we make some of the best muscovado sugar on the island. The governor knows that. My sugar factor in London writes that the refineries always bid highest per hogshead for mine.”

  She’d erred. His drink-flushed face darkened. The sugar shipped from George Crawford’s plantation bore a poor reputation and fetched a mediocre price in London. It tended to be either overboiled and scorched or underboiled and so full of molasses no one wanted it. She and Matthew Plum well knew why. His boiling house slaves hated him. He boasted all over Bridgetown that he made his boilers test the consistency of the cooking sugar with their bare fingers. His slaves took their revenge where it counted—in the boiling kettle.

  Swiftly she changed her tack. “Uncle, women plant,” she said quickly. “Lady Maud Locksley plants. Dinny Fraser plants.”

  “You are not Maud Locksley. Nor are you Dinny Fraser. They are widows. Their plantations belong to them. This is not your plantation, Edwinna.”

  “Nor is it yours!”

  He leaned forward, livid, the vein in the center of his forehead throbbing. “For two pence I would flog you. You owe me filial obedience. You are my niece.”

  She owed him nothing, but when George Crawford became angry, he tended to vent his temper on his slaves. For Caesar’s sake, she choked down her resentment, but she was frightened. If he got his hands on Crawford Plantation he would ruin it. When Thomas and Harry came home from sea, they would have nothing.

  “Yes, Uncle.” With a trembling hand, she smoothed the hair that had come loose from her braid.

  Clive put in suavely, “We are only thinking of Thomas and Harry’s best interests, Edwinna, as we told the governor when we asked him to reexamine the will.”

  She gave him a dark look. He wasn’t thinking of Thomas and Harry; he was thinking of what he could steal from Crawford Plantation.

  “I’m doing my best, Clive,” she said sharply. “I am running this plantation as best I can. You know it. The governor knows it. Everyone on this island knows it.”

  “And in the meantime,” her uncle charged on, “your credit in London and in the American colonies is stretched thin.”

  She felt as if she were being backed to the wall. It was true. Her credit was stretched to the breaking point. She needed a sugar profit of two thousand pounds sterling each year, just to break even, to keep the plantation maintained and repaired, to replenish equipment and supplies and cattle, to feed and clothe her slaves, to buy provisions from Virginia and Massachusetts—salted fish, dried corn, barreled pork. Last year she’d made no profit.

  “Everyone’s credit is stretched thin, Uncle. Last year every planter on the island lost his crop to rats. Even you.”

  He wouldn’t hear it. He was drunk and uglier than ever.

  “Enough of this. You know the terms of your father’s will and you have not followed them. You have not married. You have defied your father’s wishes.”

  She raked a hand through loose strands of hair. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. “Uncle, I have no wish to marry. The will was unfair. Even the governor said so.”

  “He does not say so now. Not in the light of your failed crop and your mounting debts.” He quaffed the rest of the rum punch, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and rose unsteadily. Caesar leapt to help. “Enough of this, Edwinna. As Clive pointed out, tomorrow you will be twenty-six. I mean to go to Bridgetown then and obtain the governor’s signed order. I will be back here in two days, and I will run this plantation as it should be run.” Over his shoulder he said to Caesar, “Get my horse, you black ape.” Caesar bolted to do as bidden.

  She gave Clive a furious look. Clive was behind this. She might have known.

  “Then I will marry. Uncle. I will marry today.”

  Clive smiled. “Who? Some bondslave? Some riffraff out of Bridgetown? Trickery, Edwinna. The governor will not buy trickery. He is no fool; nor are we.”

  Her thoughts on Simon Tarcher’s letter, she raised her chin resolutely. “I am doing no trickery. I am betrothed, and have been betrothed for six months. I have proof of it. My betrothed is in Speightstown. He’s come from London and will gladly wed me today.”

  Clive laughed and went out to see to his horse. George Crawford lingered to give her a look of contempt. Striding through the dining chamber with unsteady steps, he saw Kena in the corridor, Tutu in her arms. He jabbed a finger at them.

  “Them small black apes will be the first to go. They don’t earn their keep. They can’t work proper until they are ten years old. Why waste money feeding ‘em? I mean to sell the whole lot of ‘em to the first slaver that puts in to Carlisle Bay—every jack one of ‘em under the age of ten.”

  “Uncle, you cannot do that. I won’t allow it. Nor would Thomas or Harry!”

  “I can and I will. As for them old ones that don’t earn their keep? A bit of castor bean ground into their food will hurry them on their way. They are always yammering about the afterlife they want to go to, aren’t they? I’ll help ‘em on their way. This is not an almshouse, Edwinna. This is a plantation. I mean to run it as such.”

  He strode out of the house and into the yard. She watched him go, her chest pounding. He tripped over his own drunken feet and went down, and when Caesar came running to help, he gave him a crack on the head. Patient Caesar helped him across the yard, out the gate, to his horse, and up into the saddle. For thanks he got another blow. George and Clive Crawford rode off, Caesar on foot, trotting in their dust.

  Edwinna watched until they were gone. Kena stole up behind her, clutching Tutu, her eyes huge with fright. Edwinna put her arms around Kena.

  “Don’t worry. It’s all nonsense. I would never let Tutu be sold, never. Nor would Thomas or Harry.”

  Kena gave her a trusting nod. A delicate young woman of nineteen, Kena had eyes as lovely as a doe’s and long, soft black hair that fanned out upon her shoulders like a shawl. Edwinna loved her very much and Kena loved her. Oblivious to the tension, Tutu gurgled happily and lunged for Edwinna. She took him in her arms.

  “Kena, run to my bedchamber. There is a letter from Simon Tarcher on my nightstand. Please fetch it. Kena flew, eager to help.

  Chortling, Tutu poked a finger into Edwinna’s mouth. She kissed it. He was a sweet baby. His skin was ebony black, like his father’s, a boiling house slave who’d died. She closed her eyes and pretended Tutu was hers. She could never have a child of her own. She wasn’t a real woman; she hadn’t had her woman’s flow in many years. Besides, even if she married, she had no intention of letting any man commit the marriage act upon her.

  “Do you love me as much as I love you?” Edwinna asked. Tutu nodded, fuzzy head bobbing, dark eyes shining. She laughed. He didn’t even understand the question. Kena came hurrying back with the letter.
Edwinna gave Tutu back to her, unfolded the letter, and anxiously reread it, although she already knew it by heart. Kena watched, tense, scared. George Crawford terrified everyone. When she’d read the letter a final time, she crushed it into a ball.

  “Run to the stable, Kena. Tell Jeremy to saddle my mare.”

  “Where do you go, Mama?” Kena said, her pretty face worried and loving. All of Edwinna’s slaves called her Mama, though in truth, Kena had every right to call her Edwinna. Edwinna scarcely heard or saw Kena. Her mind’s eye was rereading every line and word of Simon Tarcher’s letter.

  An extreme solution, but it would work. It would keep her uncle and cousin at bay until Thomas and Harry returned from sea and reached the age of inheritance. And she trusted Simon Tarcher as completely as she trusted Matthew Plum. Both were honorable men. They loved her and they loved Thomas and Harry. Her chest throbbed in indecision. But she must do the deed, or lose the plantation.

  “Mama?”

  She pressed her lips together, unwilling to show the anxiety she felt.

  “To Speightstown, Kena. To save my plantation.”

  * * * *

  Drake Steel stood waist deep in crystal blue Caribbean waters and watched death come for him again. It came, this time, in the guise of a rumbling roller that crested over him and dashed the back of his head into the boulder he was shackled to. With the roller came large pieces of coral, lumbering over the ocean floor, careening into his ankles like runaway cart wheels, grating away his skin.

  After the wave had engulfed him, its bubbles prickling in his hair, up his nostrils, in his ears, like the nipping bites of tiny feeding fish, it surged back to the sea. He slung wet, dripping black hair out of his eyes and wrenched ferociously at his wrist irons. Embedded in the boulder with spikes, they refused to budge. For the hundredth time he shouted, voice hoarse with seawater, edged with panic.

  “I am not a pirate!”

  His shout was lost in the thundering din of the surf. Overhead, sea gulls screeched. All around him, shackled men screamed, shrieked and cursed.