"Caribbee" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoover Thomas)

Chapter Six

A light breeze stirred the bedroom's jalousie shutters, sending strands of the midnight moon dancing across the curves of her naked, almond skin. As always when she slept she was back in Pernambuco, in the whitewashed room of long ago, perfumed with frangipani, with moonlight and soft shadows that pirouetted against the clay walls.

… Slowly, silently, the moon at the window darkens, as a shadow blossoms through the airless space, and in her dream the form becomes the ancient babalawo of Pernambuco, hovering above her. Then something passes across her face, a reverent caress, and there is softness and scent in its touch, like a linen kerchief that hints of wild berries. The taste of its honeyed sweetness enters the dream, and she finds herself drifting deeper into sleep as his arms encircle her, drawing her up against him with soft Yoruba words.

Her body seems to float, the dream deepening, its world of light and shadow absorbing her, beckoning, the softness of the bed gliding away.

Now she feels the touch of her soft cotton shift against her breasts and senses the hands that lower it about her. Soon she is buoyed upward, toward the waiting moon, past the jalousies at the window, noiselessly across the rooftop…

She awoke as the man carrying her in his arms dropped abruptly to the yard of the compound. She looked to see the face, and for an instant she thought it truly was the old priest in Brazil… the same three clan marks, the same burning eyes. Then she realized the face was younger, that of another man, one she knew from more recent dreams. She struggled to escape, but the drugged cloth came again, its pungent, cloying sweetness sending her thoughts drifting back toward the void of the dream.

… Now the wall of the compound floats past, vaulted by the figure who holds her draped in his arms. His Yoruba words are telling her she has the beauty of Oshun, beloved wife of Shango. That tonight they will live among the Orisa, the powerful gods that dwell in the forest and the sky. For a moment the cool night air purges away the sweetness of the drug, the potion this babalawo had used to numb her senses, and she is aware of the hard flex of his muscle against her body. Without thinking she clings to him, her fear and confusion mingled with the ancient comfort of his warmth, till her mind merges once more with the dark…

Atiba pointed down toward the wide sea that lay before them, a sparkling expanse spreading out from the shoreline at the bottom of the hill, faintly tinged with moonlight. "I brought you here tonight to make you understand something. In Ife we say: 'The darkness of night is deeper than the shadow of the forest.' Do you understand the chains on your heart can be stronger than the chains on your body?''

He turned back to look at Serina, his gaze lingering over the sparkling highlights the moon now sprinkled in her hair. He found himself suddenly remembering a Yoruba woman he had loved once, not one of his wives, but a tall woman who served the royal compound at Ife. He had met with her secretly, after his wives were killed in the wars, and he still thought of her often. Something in the elegant face of this mulata brought back those memories even more strongly. She too had been strong-willed, like this one. Was this woman also sacred to Shango, as that one had been…?

"You only become a slave when you give up your people. '' His voice grew gentle, almost a whisper. "What is your Yoruba name?"

"I'm not Yoruba." She spoke quickly and curtly, forcing the words past her anger as she huddled for warmth, legs drawn up, arms encircling her knees. Then she reached to pull her shift tighter about her and tried to clear her thoughts. The path on which hed carried her, through forests and fields, was a blurred memory. Only slowly had she realized they were on a hillside now, overlooking the sea. He was beside her, wearing only a blue shirt and loincloth, his profile outlined in the moonlight.

"Don't say that. The first thing you must know is who you are. Unless you understand that, you will always be a slave."

"I know who I am. I'm mulata. Portugues. I'm not African." She glanced down at the grass beside her bare feet and suddenly wished her skin were whiter. I'm the color of dead leaves, she thought shamefully, of the barren earth. Then she gripped the hem of her shift and summoned back her pride. "I'm not a preto. Why would I have an African name?"

She felt her anger rising up once more, purging her feelings of helplessness. To be stolen from her bed by this ignorant preto, brought to some desolate spot with nothing but the distant sound of the sea. That he would dare to steal her away, a highborn mulata. She did not consort with blacks. She was almost… white.

The wind laced suddenly through her hair, splaying it across her cheeks, and she realized the night air was perfumed now, almost as the cloth had been, a wild fragrance that seemed to dispel a portion of her anger, her humiliation. For a moment she found herself thinking of the forbidden things possible in the night, those hidden hours when the rules of day can be sacrificed to need. And she became aware of the warmth of his body next to hers as he crouched, waiting, motionless as the trees at the bottom of the hill.

If she were his captive, then nothing he did to her would be of her own willing. How could she prevent him? Yet he made no move to take her. Why was he waiting?

"But to have a Yoruba name means to possess something the branco can never own." He caressed her again with his glance. Even though she was pale, he had wanted her from the first moment he saw her. And he had recognized the same want in her eyes, only held in check by her pride.

Why was she so proud, he wondered. If anything, she should feel shame, that her skin was so wan and pale. In Ife the women in the compounds would laugh at her, saying the moons would come and go and she would only wet her feet, barren. No man would take some frail albino to share his mat.

Even more-for all her fine Ingles clothes and her soft bed she was ten times more slave than he would ever be. How to make her understand that?

"You only become a slave when you give up the ways of your people. Even if your father was a branco, you were born of a Yoruba woman. You still can be Yoruba. And then you will be something, have something." The powerful hands that had carried her to this remote hilltop were now toying idly with the grass. "You are not the property of a branco unless you consent to be. To be a slave you must first submit, give him your spirit. If you refuse, if you remember your own people, he can never truly enslave you. He will have only your body, the work of your hands. The day you understand that, you are human again."

"You are wrong." She straightened. "Here in the Americas you are whatever the branco says. You will never be a man unless he says you are." She noticed a tiny race in her heartbeat and told herself again she did not want to feel desire for this preto, now or ever. "Do you want to know why? Because your skin is black. And to the Ingles black is the color of evil. They have books of learning that say the Christian God made Africans black because they are born of evil; they are less than human. They say your blackness outside comes from your darkness within." She looked away, shamed once more by the shade of her own skin, her unmistakable kinship with this preto next to her. Then she continued, bitterly repeating the things she’d heard that the Puritan divines were now saying in the island's parish churches. "The Ingles claim Africans are not men but savages, something between man and beast. And because of that, their priests declare it is the will of their God that you be slaves…"

She had intended to goad him more, to pour out the abusive scorn she had so often endured herself, but the softness of the Yoruba words against her tongue sounded more musical than she had wanted. He was quietly smiling as she continued. "And now I order you to take me back before Master Briggs discovers I'm gone."

"The sun is many hours away. So for a while yet you won't have to see how black I am." He laughed and a pale glimmer of moonlight played across the three clan marks on his cheek. "I thought you had more understanding than is expected of a woman. Perhaps I was wrong. We say 'The thread follows the needle; it does not make its own way.' For you the Portugues, and now this branco Briggs, have been the needle; you merely the thread." He grasped her shoulder and pulled her around. "Why do you let some branco tell you who you are? I say they are the savages. They are not my color; they are sickly pale. They don't worship my gods; they pray to some cruel God who has no power over the earth. Their language is ugly and harsh; mine is melodic, rich with verses and ancient wisdom." He smiled again at the irony of it. "But tonight you have told me something very important about the mind of these Ingles. You have explained why they want so much to make me submit. If they think we are evil, then they must also think us powerful."

Suddenly he leaped to his feet and joyously whirled in a circle, entoning a deep, eerie chant toward the stars. It was like a song of triumph.

She sat watching till he finished, then listened to the medley of frightened night birds from the dark down the hill. How could this preto understand so well her own secret shame, see so clearly the lies she told herself in order to live?

Abruptly he reached down and slipped his hands under her arms, lifting her up to him. "The first thing I want to do tonight is give you back a Yoruba name. A name that has meaning." He paused. "What was your mother called?"

"Her name was Dara."

"Our word for 'beautiful.' " He studied her angular face gravely. "It would suit you as well, for truly you are beautiful too. If you took that name, it would always remind you that your mother was a woman of our people."

She found herself wishing she had the strength to push his warm body away, to shout out to him one final time that he was a preto, that his father was a preto and her own a branco, that she had no desire to so much as touch him… But suddenly she was ashamed to say the word "white," and that shame brought a wave of anger. At him, at herself. All her life she had been proud to be mulata. What right did this illiterate preto have to make her feel ashamed now? "And what are you? You are a preto slave. Who brings me to a hilltop in the dark of night and brags about freedom. Tomorrow you will be a slave again, just like yesterday."

"What am I?" Angrily he gripped her arms and pulled her face next to his. The fierceness of his eyes again recalled the old babalawo in Brazil; he had had the same pride in himself, his people. "I am more than the Ingles here are. Ask of them, and you will discover half once were criminals, or men with no lands of their own, no lineage. In my veins there is royal blood, a line hundreds of generations old. My own father was nearest the throne of the ruling Oba in Ife. He was a babalawo, as I am, but he was also a warrior. Before he was betrayed in battle, he was the second most powerful man in Ife. That's who I am, my father's son."

"What happened? Was he killed?" Impulsively she took his hand and was surprised by its warmth.

"He disappeared one day. Many markets later I learned he was betrayed by some of our own people. Because he was too powerful in Ife. He was captured and taken down to the sea, sold to the Portugues. I was young then. I had only known twelve rainy seasons. But I was not too young to hunt down the traitors who made him slave. They all died by my sword." He clenched his fist, then slowly it relaxed. "But enough. Tonight I want just one thing. To teach you that you still can be free. That you can be Yoruba again."

"Why do you want so much to change me?"

"Because, Dara"-his eyes were locked on hers-"I would have you be my wife. Here. I will not buy you with a bride price; instead I will kill the man who owns you."

She felt a surge of confusion, entwined with want. But again her disdain of everything preto caught in her breast. Why, she wondered, was she even bothering to listen?

"After you make me 'Yoruba,' I will still be a slave to the Ingles."

"Only for a few more days." His face hardened, a tenseness that spread upward through his high cheeks and into his eyes. "Wait another moon and you will see my warriors seize this island away from them."

"I'll not be one of your Yoruba wives." She drew back and clasped her arms close to her breasts, listening to the night, alive now with the sounds of whistling frogs and crickets.

"Rather than be wife to a Yoruba, you would be whore to an Ingles." He spat out the words. "Which means to be nothing."

"But if you take this island, you can have as many wives as you like. Just as you surely have now in Ife." She drew away, still not trusting the pounding in her chest. "What does one more mean to you?"

"Both my wives in Ife are dead." His hand reached and stroked her hair. "They were killed by the Fulani, years ago. I never chose more, though many families offered me their young women."

"Now you want war again. And death. Here."

"I raised my sword against my enemies in Yorubaland. I will fight against them here. No Yoruba will ever bow to others, black or white." He gently touched her cheek and smoothed her pale skin with his warm fingers. "You can stand with us when we rise up against the Ingles."

His touch tingled unexpectedly, like a bridge to some faraway time she dreamed about and still belonged to. For an instant she almost gave in to the impulse to circle her arms around him, pull him next to her.

He stroked her cheek again, lovingly, before continuing. "Perhaps if I kill all the Ingles chiefs, then you will believe you are free. That your name is Dara, and not what some Portugues once decided to call you." He looked at her again and his eyes had softened now. "Will you help me?"

She watched as the moonlight glistened against the ebony of his skin. This preto slave was opening his life to her, something no other man had ever done. The branco despised his blackness even more than they did hers, but he bore their contempt with pride, with strength, more strength than she had ever before sensed in a man.

And he needed her. Someone finally needed her. She saw it in his eyes, a need he was still too proud to fully admit, a hunger for her to be with him, to share the days ahead when…

Yes

… when she would stand with him to destroy the branco.

"Together." Softly she reached up and circled her arms around his broad neck. Suddenly his blackness was exquisite and beautiful. "Tonight I will be wife to you. Will you hold me now?"

The wind whipped her long black hair across his shoulder, and before she could think she found herself raising her lips to his. He tasted of the forest, of a lost world across the sea she had never known. His scent was sharp, and male.

She felt his thumb brush across her cheek and sensed the wetness of her own tears. What had brought this strange welling to her eyes, here on this desolate hillside. Was it part of love? Was that what she felt now, this equal giving and accepting of each other?

She shoved back his open shirt, to pass her hands across the hard muscles of his chest. Scars were there, deep, the signs of the warrior he once had been. Then she slipped the rough cotton over his back, feeling the open cuts of the lashes, the marks of the slave he was now. Suddenly she realized he wore them as proudly as sword cuts from battle. They were the emblem of his manhood, his Defiance of the Ingles, just as his cheek marks were the insignia of his clan. They were proof to all that his spirit still lived.

She felt his hands touch her shift, and she reached gently to stop him.

Over the years in Brazil so many men had used her. She had been given to any white visitor at the plantation who wanted her: first it was Portuguese traders, ship captains, even priests. Then conquering Hollanders, officers of the Dutch forces who had taken Brazil. A hundred men, all born in Europe, all unbathed and rank, all white. She had sensed their branco contempt for her with anger and shame. To this black Yoruba, this strong, proud man of Africa, she would give herself freely and with love.

She met his gaze, then in a single motion pulled the shift over her head and tossed it away, shaking out the dark hair that fell across her shoulders. As she stood naked before him in the moonlight, the wind against her body seemed like a foretaste of the freedom, the love, he had promised.

He studied her for a moment, the shadows of her firm breasts casting dark ellipses downward across her body. She was dara.

Slowly he grasped her waist and lifted her next to him. As she entwined her legs about his waist, he buried his face against her and together they laughed for joy.

Later she recalled the touch of his body, the soft grass, the sounds of the night in her ears as she cried out in completeness. The first she had ever known. And at last, a perfect quiet had seemed to enfold them as she held him in her arms, his strength tame as a child's.

In the mists of dawn he brought her back, through the forest, serenaded by its invisible choir of egrets and whistling frogs. He carried her home across the rooftop, to her bed, to a world no longer real.

"Damn me, sir, I suppose you've heard the talk. I'll tell you I fear for the worst." Johan Ruyters wiped his mouth with a calloused hand and shoved his tankard across the table, motioning for a refill. The Great Cabin of the Defiance was a mosaic of flickering shadows, lighted only by the swaying candle-lantern over the large oak table. "It could well be the end of Dutch trade in all the English settlements, from here to Virginia."

"I suppose there's a chance. Who can say?" Winston reached for the flask of sack and passed it over. He was exhausted, but his mind was taut with anticipation. Almost ready, he told himself; you'll be gone before the island explodes. There's only one last thing you need: a seasoned pilot for Jamaica Bay. "One of the stories I hear is that if Barbados doesn't swear allegiance to Parliament, there may be a blockade."

"Aye, but that can't last long. And frankly speaking, it matters little to me who governs this damned island, Parliament or its own Assembly." He waved his hand, then his look darkened. "No, it's this word about some kind of Navigation Act that troubles me."

"You mean the story that Parliament's thinking of passing an Act restricting trade in all the American settlements to English bottoms?"

"Aye, and let's all pray it's not true. But we hear the damned London merchants are pushing for it. We've sowed, and now they'd be the ones to reap."

"What do you think you'll do?"

"Do, sir? I'd say there's little we can do. The Low Countries don't want war with England. Though that's what it all may lead to if London tries stopping free trade." He glanced around the timbered cabin: there was a sternchaser cannon lashed to blocks just inside the large windows aft and a locked rack of muskets and pistols secured forward. Why had Winston invited him aboard tonight? They had despised each other from the first. "The better part of our trade in the New World now's with Virginia and Bermuda, along with Barbados and St. Christopher down here in the Caribbees. It'll ruin every captain I know if we're barred from ports in the English settlements."

"Well, the way things look now, you'd probably be wise just to weigh anchor and make for open sea, before there's any trouble here. Assuming your sight drafts are all in order. ''

"Aye, they're signed. But now I'm wondering if I'll ever see them settled." He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his thinning gray hair. "I've finished scrubbing down the Zeelander and started lading in some cotton. This was going to be my best run yet. God damn Cromwell and his army. As long as the Civil War was going on, nobody in London took much notice of the Americas."

"True enough. You Hollanders got rich, since there was scarcely any English shipping. But in a way it'll be your own fault if Barbados has to knuckle under now to England and English merchants."

"I don't follow you, sir." Ruyters regarded him questioningly.

"It'd be a lot easier for them to stand and fight if they didn't have these new slaves you sold them."

"That's a most peculiar idea, sir." He frowned. "How do you see that?"

Winston rose and strolled aft to the stern windows, studying the leaded glass for a moment before unlatching one frame and swinging it out. A gust of cool air washed across his face. "You Hollanders have sold them several thousand Africans who'd probably just as soon see the island turned back to a forest. So they'll be facing the English navy offshore, with a bunch of African warriors at their backs. I don't see how they can man both fronts."

"That's a curious bit of speculation, sir. Which I'm not sure I'd be ready to grant you. But it scarcely matters now." Ruyters stared down at the table. "So what do you think's likely to happen?"

"My guess is the Assembly'll not surrender the island to Cromwell without a fight. There's too much royalist sentiment there." He looked back at Ruyters. "If there's a blockade, or if Cromwell tries to land English forces, I'd wager they'll call up the militia and shoot back."

"But they've nothing to fight with. Scarcely any ordnance worth the name."

"That's what I'm counting on." Winston's eyes sobered.

"What do you mean, sir?"

"It's the poor man that remembers best who once lent him a shilling. I figure that anybody who helps them now will be remembered here in the days to come, regardless of how this turns out."

"Why in the name of hell would you bother helping them? No man with his wits about him wants to get caught in this, not if he's looking to his own interests."

"I'll look to my interests as I see fit." Winston glanced back. "And you can do the same."

"Aye, to be sure. I intend to. But what would you be doing getting mixed up in this trouble? There'll be powder and shot spent before it's over, sir, or I'm not a Christian."

"I figure there's today. And then there's tomorrow, when this island's going to be a sugar factory. And they'll need shippers. They won't forget who stood by them. If I pitch in a bit now-maybe help them fortify the Point, for instance-I'll have first call. I'm thinking of buying another bottom, just for sugar." He looked at Ruyters and laughed. "Why should all the new sugar profits go to you damned Butterboxes? ''

"Well, sir, you're not under my command anymore. I can't stop you from trying." The Dutchman cleared his throat noisily. "But they'd not forget so soon who's stood by them through all the years. Ask any planter here and he'll tell you we've kept this island, and all the rest of the English settlements, from starving for the last twenty years." He took a swallow from his tankard, then settled it down thoughtfully. "Though mind you, we needed them too. England had the spare people to settle the Americas, which the Low Countries never had, but we've had the bottoms to ship them what they need. It's been a perfect partnership." He looked back at Winston. "What exactly do you think you can do, I mean this business about fortifying the Point?"

"Just a little arrangement I'm making with some members of the Assembly."

"I'm asking you as one gentleman to another, sir. Plain as that."

Winston paused a few moments, then walked back from the window. The lantern light played across his lined face. "As a gentleman, then. Between us I'm thinking I'll off-load some of the ordnance on the Defiance and move it up to the Point. I've got twice the cannon on board that they've got in place there. I figure I might also spare them a few budge-barrels of powder and some round shot if they need it."

"I suppose I see your thinking." Ruyters frowned and drank again. "But it's a fool's errand, for all that. Even if they could manage to put up a fight, how long can they last? They're isolated."

"Who can say? But I hear there's talk in the Assembly about trying to form an alliance of all the American settlements. They figure Virginia and Bermuda might join with them. Everybody would, except maybe the Puritans up in New England, who doubtless can be counted on to side with the hotheads in Parliament."

"And I say the devil take those New Englanders. They've started shipping produce in their own bottoms, shutting us out. I've seen their flags carrying lumber to the Canaries and Madeira; they're even sending fish to Portugal and Spain now. When a few years past we were all but keeping them alive. Ten years ago they even made Dutch coin legal tender in Massachusetts, since we handled the better part of their trade. But now I say the hell with them." His face turned hopeful. "But if there was an alliance of the other English settlements, I'll wager there'd be a chance they might manage to stand up to Cromwell for a while. Or at least hold out for terms, like you say. They need our shipping as much as we need them."

"I've heard talk Bermuda may be in favor of it. Nobody knows about Virginia." Winston drank from his tankard. "But for now, the need's right here. At least that's what I'm counting on. If I can help them hold out, they'll remember who stood by them. Anyway, I've got nothing to lose, except maybe a few culverin."

Ruyters eyed him in silence for a moment. The rhythmic creaking of the boards sounded through the smoky gloom of the cabin. Finally he spoke. "Let's be plain. What are they paying you?"

"I told you." Winston reached for the flask. "I've spoken to Bedford, and I'm planning a deal for sugar contracts. I'll take it out in trade later."

Ruyters slammed down his own tankard. "God's wounds, they could just as well have talked to some of us! I'll warrant the Dutch bottoms here've got enough ordnance to fortify both of the breastworks along the west coast." He looked up. "There're a good dozen merchantmen anchored in the bay right now. And we've all got some ordnance. I've even got a fine set of brass nine-pounders they could borrow."

"I'd as soon keep this an English matter for now. There's no need for you Dutchmen to get involved." Winston emptied the flask into his tankard. "The way I see it, I can fortify the breastwork up on the Point with what I've got on board. It'll help them hold off Cromwell's fleet for a while, maybe soften the terms." He turned and tossed the bottle out the open stern window. "Which is just enough to get me signatures on some contracts. Then I take back the guns and Cromwell can have the place."

"What the pox, it's a free trade matter, sir. We've all got a stake in it." Ruyters' look darkened. He thought of the profits he had enjoyed over the years trading with the English settlements. He'd sold household wares, cloth, and liquor to colonists in Virginia and the Caribbees, and he'd shipped back to Europe with furs and tobacco from North America, cotton and dye woods from the Caribbean. Like all Dutch fluyts, his ship was specially built to be lightly manned, enabling him to consistently undercut English shippers. Then too, he and the other Dutch traders made a science of stowage and took better care of their cargos. They could always sell cheaper, give longer credits, and offer lower freight rates than any English trader could. But now that they had slaves to swap for sugar, there would finally be some real profits. "I can't speak for the other men here, but it'd be no trouble for me to lend them a few guns too… And I'd be more than willing to take payment in sugar contracts. Maybe you could mention it privately to Bedford. It'd have to be unofficial, if they're going to be using Dutch guns against the English navy."

"I'm not sure why I'd want to do that."

"As a gentleman, sir. We both have a stake in keeping free trade. Maybe you could just drop a word to Bedford and ask him to bring it up with the Assembly. Tell him we might mislay a few culverin, if he could arrange to have some contracts drawn up."

"What's in it for me?"

"We'll strike an arrangement, sir. Word of honor." Ruyters look brightened. "To be settled later. When I can return the favor."

"Maybe you can do something for me now… if I agree."

"You can name it, sir."

"I've been thinking I could use a good bosun's mate. How about letting me have that crippled Spaniard on the Zeelander if you've still got him? What's his name… the one who had a limp after that fall from the yardarm when we were tacking in to Nevis?"

"You don't mean Vargas?"

"Armando Vargas, that's the one."

Ruyters squinted through the dim light. "He's one of the handiest lads aloft I've got, bad leg or no. A first-rate yardman."

"Well, I think I'd like to take him on."

"I didn't know you were short-handed, sir."

"That's my bargain." Winston walked back to the window. "Let me have him and I'll see what I can do about talking to Bedford."

"I suppose you remember he used to be a navigator of sorts for the Spaniards. For that matter, I'll wager he knows as much as any man you're likely to come across about their shipping in the Windward Passage and their fortifications over there on the Main." Ruyters' eyes narrowed. "Damn my soul, what the devil are you planning?"

"I can always use a good man." He laughed. "Those are my terms."

"You're a lying rogue, I'll stake my life." He shoved back his chair. "But I still like the bargain, for it all. You’ve got a man. Have Bedford raise our matter with the Assembly."

"I'll see what I can do. Only it's just between us for now, till we see how many guns they need."

"It goes without saying." Ruyters rose and extended his hand. "So we'll shake on it. A bargain sealed." He bowed. "Your servant, sir."

Winston pushed open the cabin door and followed him down the companionway to the waist of the ship. Ruyters' shallop was moored alongside, its lantern casting a shimmering light across the waves. The oarsmen bustled to station when they saw him emerge. He bowed again, then swung heavily down the rope ladder.

Winston stood pensively by the railing, inhaling the moist evening air and watching as the shallop's lantern slowly faded into the midnight. Finally he turned and strolled up the companionway to the quarterdeck.

Miss Katherine Bedford should be pleased, he told himself. In any case, better they borrow Dutch guns than mine. Not that the extra ordnance will make much difference if Cromwell posts a fleet of warships with trained gunners. With these planters manning their cannon, the fleet will make short work of the island.

He started back for the cabin, then paused to watch the moonlight breaking over the crests and listen to the rhythmic pound of light surf along the shore. He looked back at the island and asked himself if Katherine's was a cause worth helping. Not if the Americas end up the province of a few rich slaveholders-which on Barbados has got to be sure as the sunrise. So just hold your own course, and let this island get whatever it deserves.

He glanced over the ship and reflected again on his preparations, for the hundredth time. It wouldn't be easy, but the plan was coming together. The sight drafts were still safely locked away in the Great Cabin, ready for delivery day after tomorrow, when the transfer of the indentures became official. And the work of outfitting the ship for transport of men was all but finished. The gun deck had been cleared, with the spare budge barrels of powder and the auxiliary round shot moved to the hold, permitting sleeping hammocks to be lashed up for the new men. Stores of salt fish, cheese, and biscuit had been assembled in a warehouse facing Carlisle Bay; and two hundred half pikes had been forged, fitted with staffs, and secured in the fo'c'sle, together with all of Anthony Walrond's new flintlock muskets.

Everything was ready. And now he finally had a pilot. Armando Vargas had made Jamaica harbor a dozen times back when he sailed with the Spaniards; he always liked to brag about it. Once he’d even described in detail the lookout post on a hilltop somewhere west of Jamaica Bay. If they could slip some men past those sentries on the hill, the fortress and town would fall before the Spaniards' militia even suspected they were around.

Then maybe he would take out time to answer the letter that'd just come from England.

He turned and nodded to several of the men as he moved slowly back down the companionway and into the comforting quiet of the cabin. He'd go up to Joan's tavern after a while, share a last tankard, and listen to that laugh of hers as he spun out the story of Ruyters and the guns. But now he wanted solitude. He'd always believed he thought best, worked best, alone.

He closed the large oak door of the Great Cabin, then walked to the windows aft and studied the wide sea. The Caribbean was home now, the only home left. If there was any question of that before, there wasn't anymore, not after the letter.

He stood a moment longer, then felt for the small key he always kept in his left breeches pocket. Beneath a board at the side of the cabin was a movable panel, and behind it a heavy door, double secured. The key slipped easily into the metal locks, and he listened for the two soft clicks.

Inside were the sight bills, just visible in the flickering light of the lantern, and next to them was a stack of shipping invoices. Finally there was the letter, its outside smeared with grease and the red wax of its seal cracked and half missing. He slipped it out and unfolded it along the creases, feeling his anger well up as he settled to read it one more time. Sir (I shall never again have the pleasure to address you as my obedient son), After many years of my thinking you perished, there has late come word you are abroad in the Caribbees, a matter long known to certain others but until this day Shielded from me, for reasons I now fully Comprehend. The Reputation I find you have acquired brings me no little pain, being that (so I am now advis’d) of a Smuggler and Brigand.

He paused to glance out the stern window once again, remembering how the letter had arrived in the mail packet just delivered by the Rotterdam. It was dated two months past, and it had been deposited at Joan's tavern along with several others intended for seamen known to make port in Barbados. Though I had these many long years thought you dead by the hands of the Spaniard, yet I prayed unceasing to God it should not be so. Now, upon hearing News of what you have become, I am constrained to question God's will. In that you have brought Ignominy to my name, and to the name of those other two sons of mine, both Dutiful, I can find no room for solace, nor can they.

He found his mind going back to memories of William and James, both older. He'd never cared much for either of them, and they'd returned his sentiment in full measure. William was the first-heavy set and slow of wit, with a noticeable weakness for sherry. Since the eldest son inherited everything, he had by now doubtless taken charge of the two thousand acres that was Winston Manor, becoming a country squire who lived off rents from his tenants. And what of James, that nervous image of Lord Harold Winston and no less ambitious and unyielding? Probably by now he was a rich barrister, the profession he’d announced for himself sometime about age ten. Or maybe he’d stood for Parliament, there to uphold the now-ended cause of King Charles. That a son of mine should become celebrated in the Americas for his contempt of Law brings me distress beyond the telling of it. Though I reared you with utmost care and patience, I oft had cause to ponder if you should ever come to any good end, being always of dissolute and unruly inclination. Now I find your Profession has been to defraud the English crown, to which you should be on your knees in Reverence, and to injure the cause of honest Merchants, who are the lifeblood of this Christian nation. I am told your name has even reached the ears of His Majesty, causing him no small Dismay, and adding to his distresses at a time when the very throne of England is in peril from those who would, as you, set personal gain above loyalty and obedience…

He stopped, not wanting to read more, and crumpled the letter.

That was the end of England. Why would he want to go back? Ever? If there’d once been a possibility, now it was gone. The time had come to plant roots in the New World. So what better place than Jamaica? And damned to England. He turned again to the stern windows, feeling the end of all the unease that had come and gone over the years. This was it.

But after Jamaica, what? He was all alone. A white cloud floated past the moon, with a shape like the beakhead of a ship. For a moment it was a gargoyle, and then it was the head of a white horse…

He had turned back, still holding the paper, when he noticed the sound of distant pops, fragile explosions, from the direction of the Point. He walked, puzzling, back to the safe and was closing the door, the key already in the lock, when he suddenly stopped.

The Assembly Room was somewhere near Lookout Point, just across the bay. It was too much of a coincidence.

With a silent curse he reached in and felt until his hand closed around the leather packet of sight bills, the ones he would exchange for the indentures. Under them were the other papers he would need, and he took those too. Then he quickly locked the cabinet and rose to make his way out to the companionway. As he passed the table, he reached for his pistols, checking the prime and shoving them into his belt as he moved out into the evening air.

He moved aft to the quartergallery railing to listen again. Now there could be no mistaking. Up the hill, behind Lookout Point, there were flashes of light in the dark. Musket fire.

"What do you suppose it could be, Cap'n?" John Mewes appeared at the head of the companionway.

"Just pray it's not what I think it is. Or we may need some powder and shot ourselves." He glanced back toward the hill. "Sound general muster. Every man on deck."

"Aye." Mewes turned and headed for the quarterdeck.

Even as the bell was still sounding, seamen began to appear through the open hatch, some half dressed and groggy. Others were mumbling that their dice game had been interrupted. Winston met them on the main deck, and slowly they formed a ragged column facing him. Now there was more gunfire from the hill, unmistakable.

"I'm going to issue muskets." He walked along the line, checking each seaman personally. Every other man seemed to be tipsy. "To every man here that's sober. We're going ashore, and you'll be under my command."

"Beggin' yor pardon, Cap'n, what's all that commotion up there apt to be?" A grizzled seaman peered toward the sounds as he finished securing the string supporting his breeches.

"It might just be the inauguration of a new Civil War, Hawkins." Winston's voice sounded down the deck. "So look lively. We collect on our sight bills. Tonight."