Beyond the Savage Sea Page 5

  Drake made a mental note that Edwinna fed her bondslaves well. It surprised him. She’d struck him as stingy, withholding.

  “Then you are fond of...Mistress Crawford?” He balked at calling her Mrs. Steel.

  “Mistress Edwinna? Oh, ay, sir,” Jeremy said enthusiastically. “A fortnight ago, when I lost m’cap in the cow pond, Mr. Plum, he were goin’ t’ thrash me—it were the second cap I lost in a fortnight. But Mistress Edwinna, she wouldna let him. She made Mr. Plum go t’ the storehouse and give me a new cap.”

  Jeremy liked Edwinna. That, too, came as a surprise. It roused his curiosity. He wanted to ask more about this woman he’d married, but he refused to stoop to pumping a child. Instead he asked, “Who is Mr. Plum?”

  “The head overseer, sir,” the boy said with awe, as if he couldn’t imagine anyone not knowing. Plum, evidently, was God on Crawford Plantation. Already Drake was prepared to dislike him.

  The mare plodded along, rocking him in the sun-warmed saddle. Ahead on the trail, the little affingoes scrambled up the slope, diligent, obedient, carrying their loads without complaint. The drovers were a different story. They slunk along, paying the affingoes no attention except to yank roughly at their harnesses when a load slipped. Drake watched them with hearty dislike. Jacka was their leader, despite his smaller size. When he barked, the others jumped. He looked to be a cunning man, as trustworthy as a fox. Once, when Jacka whirled as if to bark an order at Jeremy, Drake glared at him, and the man shut his mouth and skulked on. The look he gave Drake in the split second before turning was not that of a passive bondslave. It was bold, glittering.

  “I got me a girl...”

  “Have you?” Drake stood in the stirrups and looked back to get his bearings. He hated the company he was in and hated like hell to let Speightstown slip out of sight. No wonder Edwinna had insisted he carry a pistol in his belt.

  “Ay. Her name’s Marigold. She be twelve. She be a bondslave, like me—a kitchen maid to Mistress Edwinna. Course, she don’t know that she’s me girl. I ain’t never talked to her yet. But once I waved to her and she waved back.”

  Drake had to smile. “A wave is nice.”

  “Ay.” Jeremy screwed up his face and looked up at Drake, solemn. “What d’ye think I should do next, sir—grab her and kiss her?”

  Drake wiped a hand over his mouth to hide his amusement.

  “That might be too rash. Why don’t you start by smiling at her?”

  “Ay. But...what if she don’t smile back?”

  What, indeed? Drake could remember being thirteen—the age when an unreturned smile could wound deeper than a sword thrust. He reached out and tousled the boy’s shaggy hair,

  “Well, she might smile back and she might not. But we’re men, and that’s the risk we take. It’s up to us to smile first, isn’t it?”

  “Ay, sir!” Jeremy beamed, and Drake had the impression he’d just become the father of a thirteen-year-old. Suddenly embarrassed, or perhaps just tired of striving to be manly, Jeremy sprinted ahead on the path to walk beside his favorite affingoe, whom he’d named Sugar.

  Drake’s worries came surging back. He stood in the stirrups and squinted into the sun to get a glimpse of Speightstown. The hamlet was growing smaller with every step his mare took. Where in the devil was Crawford Plantation—at the end of the world?

  The path sloped upward, cutting through a field of mature cane that rustled in the wind and towered a good foot above his head. He felt as if he’d been swallowed up. Speightstown soon disappeared. There was only blue sky above, cane behind him, cane ahead of him, cane on either side of him. It gave him a panicky feeling. London bred, he preferred to be surrounded by houses, people, streets, noise, cart traffic. Paths trailed into the cane, but only a small animal would use them. He’d discovered the hard way—by reaching out and grabbing at a tuft of cane as he rode past—that the foliage on mature cane was as sharp as a razor. He’d cut his palm.

  Nevertheless, he loved listening to the wind in the cane. He was a sensual man and he loved sensual things. The wind rustling through the cane sounded like silk petticoats slithering to the floor, a woman undressing for love—an altogether lovely sound.

  Mesmerized by the sound, he didn’t hear the commotion developing uptrail until violent shouts rang out, and the tops of the cane whipped wildly as though something large was running through the field.

  “Catch the bastard. Don’t let ’im escape. The reward!”

  Drake loosed his pistol, slung himself out of the saddle, and sprinted toward the uproar, worried about the boy. But it wasn’t Jeremy. He found Jeremy standing scared-eyed and rooted to the path, clutching Sugar’s halter.

  “Stay here,” he ordered and sprinted on. If this were London, he would know what to do. He’d dealt with footpads and robbers who’d tried to break into his shop. This was so alien. Shouts and curses rang. Something squealed in agony. Human? Animal? He couldn’t tell. Blocking the trail, spooked affingoes milled, brayed, bumped into each other, the wooden boxes and barrels on their backs clunking.

  In the few moments it took Drake to reach Jacka, the commotion was all but over. Hastings and Yates came lumbering out of the cane as Drake ran up, their bodies scratched and bleeding from the sharp cane. They dragged a black man behind them. A vicious kick in the kidney sent the fellow flying to Jacka’s feet, where he cowered, shaking and bleeding from cane cuts.

  “Who is he?” Drake demanded.

  Jacka smiled with vicious satisfaction and savagely looped a rope around the black’s thin neck. “Runaway nigger. There’ll be a reward o’ thirty shillings.”

  If this was a runaway, he’d been months on the run. He looked starved—his belly was so taut, so concave, it appeared to be affixed to his backbone—and his ragged loincloth, the only article of clothing he wore, hung from hipbones that were as sharply peaked as buzzard beaks. His frizzy black hair was long and wild and matted, sticking out in all directions. Thick white calluses caked the bottoms of his bare feet, and his chest was so thin his ribs stuck out like the wooden frame of a dinghy. Drake pursed his lips grimly. The poor devil had been badly mistreated. His back was a patchwork quilt of cat-o’-nine-tails scars.

  “How can you be sure he’s a runaway?”

  Jacka all but sneered. “He ain’t carryin’ no ticket. No nigger can leave his plantation without a ticket signed by his master, spellin’ out where he’s goin’. ‘Tis the law.”

  Drake narrowed his eyes at Jacka in disgust. Since when was the law so bloody damned revered by a Newgate convict? It was the reward driving Jacka, not the law.

  “Does he belong to Crawford Plantation?” He hoped not. He didn’t want to believe Edwinna Crawford could order a slave flogged half to death.

  “Nay, not Crawford Plantation.”

  Drake watched the shaking black man and felt a surge of sympathy. A damp spot suddenly appeared on his ragged loincloth and spread wetly. Yates chortled and pointed at it. Drake glared at him. Yates was a simpleton—a huge, filthy, brainless brute.

  Drake nodded at the black man, ignoring Yates, but unable to ignore his foul body stench. Hastings was sucking on his cane scratches and spitting the blood at the black’s bowed head. Drake glared at him.

  “What will happen to him?”

  Jacka shrugged. “Be burned alive in Bridgetown, likely.”

  “Burned alive!”

  “Ain’t half what the nigger deserves, hidin’ along the sugar path, makin’ ready to grab that cask.” Jacka jerked a thumb at a keg that lay askew in the trampled cane, then at the affingoe who’d carried it and still milled in circles in alarm, pivoting on its hind legs, braying softly. Jacka laughed mirthlessly. “The jest’s on him. Weren’t no food in that cask— were only Ireland caps.”

  Drake needed just an instant to make up his mind.

  “Let him go.” he ordered crisply. For a moment the men looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Jacka’s surly mouth went slack. Hastings stopped sucking his scratches and s
tared. Even slow-witted Yates blinked, his mouth hanging open.

  “Let ’im go?” Jacka exploded. “Are ye daft? There be a reward o’ thirty shillings, and it rightfully be mine—mine and Yates’s and Hastings’s.”

  Drake brought the pistol up and pointed it straight at Jacka’s heart. “Do it!”

  Jacka’s eyes blazed. Drake cocked the pistol. Then, with a string of curses, Jacka yanked the rope noose off the black’s neck and challenged, “The planters o’ Barbados ain’t gonna fall in love with you fer this.”

  Drake could not care less. He didn’t know any planters, but he knew his own conscience. He pointed the pistol at Hastings. “Now, unload a keg of dried fish. Break it open with your musket butt and leave it here on the path.”

  Jacka had a fit. “Mr. Plum’ll have our heads!”

  “I will have your heads. Thwart me again, and so help me God I’ll blow you to kingdom come. I’ve done it before to your sort—thieves breaking into my shop in London...”

  Jacka glowered at him but snapped his fingers, and Hastings jumped to carry out the order. Hastings unloaded a keg from an affingoe’s back. Five hard thrusts with the oak butt of a musket split the keg wide open. The overpowering aroma of dried smoked fish curled into the air. Curious, Jeremy had crept up the path. Drake ordered him to go on up the trail and calm the affingoes. He didn’t want the boy witnessing Jacka’s humiliation, or the boy would surely pay for it later. Jacka looked the vengeful sort.

  The black wretch continued to cower on the ground, his terror-stricken eyes following every move of Drake’s pistol. Poor devil. He hadn’t understood a word. He expected to be shot.

  Drake let his pistol arm go limp and gestured with sign language that the man was free to go. At first the slave didn’t comprehend. Drake made signs again. Suddenly, a fierce hope transfused the fear in the slave’s eyes. He swung his matted head toward the others who stood there, sullen, angry, muttering under their breath. He turned a fierce, piercing look at Drake, then leaped up and dove into the cane, disappearing into its green thickness as expertly, as silently, as a wild animal. Drake couldn’t even follow the slave’s passage with his eyes. Now and then the tops of cane moved contrary to the wind. That was he.

  When the sullen, angry bondslaves had reloaded the barrel of Ireland caps on the burro, they started out again. This time Drake took charge of the party’s musket, not trusting them, and kept it on his own saddle. He hadn’t a doubt that given the opportunity, Jacka would kill him and likely tell Edwinna that runaway slaves had done it. He wasn’t going to take that chance. He rode at the tail end of the burro train, keeping the three bond slaves in sight.

  When they reached the top of the next hill, Drake stood in his stirrups and looked back down the cane path to where they’d left the open keg of fish. He saw with satisfaction that it was gone. Someone had scooped it up and carried it away. He drew a grim breath. At least the poor wretch would have something to eat for a few days.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  “You should not have done it,” Edwinna said angrily. The only answer she received was a glare from blazing blue eyes. It was night and dark. She and Drake Steel were in Crawford Hall’s dining chamber, partaking of a silent, mutually hostile meal lighted by only one tallow candle that smoked in the chandelier above the table and cast a dingy glow. The shipment of candles from the colonies of New England had not arrived, and all Barbados was dark.

  Night sounds drifted in through the open windows. Palm fronds rattled in the trade winds. Tree frogs whistled. A drum beat softly among the slave huts, and she could hear the faint answering beat from another plantation. No doubt the slaves were telling what Drake Steel had done. By morning all Barbados would know it. The fool! He was a well-meaning fool, but a fool nevertheless.

  By cautious design, Edwinna had put herself at one end of the dining table and Drake Steel at the opposite end, a long, safe sea of polished mahogany between them. It had been a mistake. That place had been her father’s, and Drake Steel’s broad shoulders and angry glares filled the space as effectively as if her father had sprung back to life. She gave him a hot look. She didn’t want to be reminded of her father. She wanted to forget she’d ever had a father.

  In truth, she was more upset and worried than angry. He would yet put his neck in the noose. When the governor heard, and the governor would hear, she would have to make amends. Her spirits sank. She could ill afford to part with sugar for bribes, but she would have to. Someone would have to pay for what Drake Steel had done in releasing the runaway slave.

  Discouraged, she pictured her uncle hearing the news. He would crow and run straight to the governor. It was one more mark against her—proof she was unfit to govern Crawford Plantation. She sent Drake an angry look. How dare he put Thomas and Harry’s plantation in jeopardy!

  Still, her sense of fair play would not allow her to damn him completely. In all fairness, she admired what he’d done. He’d said he hated slavery, and at first opportunity he had acted on it. At least he was no false-face. She gazed at him. There was much to admire in a man who lived by his moral convictions. She tore her gaze away. He was such a dominating man that he rattled her. She didn’t want him in her house. He scared her.

  Drake eyed Edwinna with deadly calm—a calm which, if she had been his sister Verity, would have sent her quickly tiptoeing out of the room, leaving him carefully alone. He was not a man who lost his temper often; but he was overwarm, wilting, and in no mood to be lectured by an overbearing woman who wore her hair like a sexual banner and flaunted it at him, yet behaved in every other way as if bed were the last thing on her mind.

  He pointed at the chandelier, at the single candle burning there. “Hold your hand in that flame for one minute, damn it. Then multiply the pain by a thousand, and you will gain some slight idea of the agony of being burned to death.”

  “I would not have allowed him to be sent to Bridgetown to be burned to death.”

  “Ha!”

  “What do you think I am?”

  “A slave owner.”

  “I may be a slave owner, but that doesn’t mean I have no compassion for a poor beaten runaway. I do. There are other ways to handle these matters. If you had brought the slave to Crawford Plantation I would have discovered who his master is, written him, and purchased the slave myself.”

  He didn’t believe her. She was a slave owner. He was completely willing to tar her with the same brush. He withdrew his attention from her hair and her mouth, and gave it to his meal. There was sugar on everything—the carrots, the turnips, the potatoes, sprinkled on the salad greens. Even the roast of pork bore a crust of blackened sugar. Was there nowhere on this island he could escape sugar?

  He didn’t seem to like his meal, Edwinna noticed, craning her neck to see what he was picking at. She’d hoped he would like it. Despite her anger with him, part of her had hoped he would like Crawford Plantation and like her. But those hopes seemed remote. The only looks she got from him were caustic ones. She watched him flick the sugar crust off his pork with the point of his knife.

  “Is the meal not to your liking?”

  “Must sugar be put on everything?”

  “Speak to Honor. Honor will cook it as you wish.”

  “I would sooner speak to a dim-witted cow.”

  “She is not that bad.”

  “Yes, she is.” Drake thought about Honor. Her name was a joke. She was Edwinna’s fat trollop of a cook, a bondslave straight out of Newgate Prison in London. Edwinna’s entire household was an inefficient bunch of misfits—elderly, deaf, infirm, half-blind. There was a cute little black boy called Tutu who had the run of the house. Drake liked him. He liked children running about a house, but Edwinna’s abominable pet monkey, a vexing creature called Priscilla, also had the run of the house. She’d jumped on Drake the moment he’d arrived, scaring him out of his wits, and when he’d tried to shoo her away, she’d bitten him. Bitten him! And Edwinna acted as if it were nothing, insisting it
was his own fault for scaring Priscilla. Scare the monkey? He’d like to barbecue her.

  There were only two servants of any worth—Jeremy’s little friend, Marigold, who was so shy Drake couldn’t even glance at her without causing her misery; and Kena, who seemed sensible. All in all, Edwinna’s household was a royal hodgepodge. Speak to Honor, indeed. He would get better results speaking directly to the sugar barrel.

  “Is there any wine?”

  “No.”

  “Wonderful.”

  He glanced around the dimly lighted room, discontented, wondering how long he would be stuck here. A year? That seemed too long by three hundred sixty-five days. Here, too, as in Tarcher’s cottage, legs of furniture stood in saucers of water to thwart ants. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Priscilla slipping into the room, strutting on her knuckles, tail straight up, tipped like a shepherd’s crook. She was a tiny ball of white fur. Her brown eyes were amazingly sweet and human. She settled in the shadows and contemplated him with her earnest monkey stare. He wondered where he would be bitten this time—shin, wrist, ear?

  “I must insist on having your word that you will never again interfere with a runaway slave.”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  “You do not understand—”

  “You do not understand. I did what I felt to be right. I followed my conscience.”

  “Your conscience? Your conscience will be of small use to me when I am asked to defend your actions to the governor.”

  “I can defend myself.”

  “Just as you defended yourself in the sea yesterday, chained to the boulders.”

  He put down his eating utensils, rested his forearms on the table, and took a hot breath. The look he slanted at her would have sent Verity backing rapidly out of the room and Verity was the boldest woman he’d ever known—until now. But Edwinna was not fazed by it. She went barreling on.