Then she was content to be the victim. She sat against the trunk of a tree, and smiled, mouth sagging. He knelt beside her and dragged his fingers through her hair. How long had he wanted to do that. And kiss her eyes, and her nose. This mystified her, but she liked it, judging by her expression, as she liked him to stroke her breasts. Small breasts, but throbbing mounds of womanhood, with strangely flaccid nipples, even when aroused. Or perhaps he had not yet fully aroused her. But she preferred him to explore her belly, moved it and thrust it in his face, and exploded into more delighted laughter when he allowed himself a gentle bite.
And then the laughter died, and he straightened in some haste, gazed at Wapisiane, felt fear rising from his own belly to meet the strength coming down. The Indian boy was unarmed, but he had his hands and Ins teeth, and he too had tasted blood at the feast.
He asked a question of Yarico, and the girl tossed her head, and answered him, vigorously and angrily. Wapisiane gazed at Edward for several seconds, seeming to be drinking him in with his eyes, and then turned and disappeared as silendy as he had come.
Yarico laughed, touched Edward with her forefinger, and then thrust it between her legs, before cupping her hands and encircling her belly.
‘You mean he would have you mother his childrenr" Edward asked in horror. 'But then...
She shook her head, gently, from side to side, and an expression of utter contempt crossed her face.
'But he is angry,' Edward said. 'He will tell your father,' He pointed at the village, waved his arms above his head, fists clenched.
Yarico gave another of her unforgettable shrieks, and again her head was shaking, from side to side, slowly. But now her arms were reaching for him, once again.
The sun, Yarico, rose at dawn and declined at dusk. The moon, Yarico, was already high in the sky on most nights, and remained there, bathing St Christopher in its unforgettable light. The tobacco, Yarico, took to the fields and grew like weeds, sprouting forth in unimaginable profusion. The yams, the fish, the coconuts which were their staple diet, all contained Yarico. Every dream, every waking moment, was but an aspect of Yarico.
Even the men contained Yarico. But with them he must be careful. They saw his contentedness, and were pleasantly surprised. But then, they were content themselves, and put his obvious happiness down to the withdrawal of the stern command and criticism of his father. Certainly Berwicke was more easy. Or perhaps life itself was more easy. There were some hours' work needed on the tobacco every day, and there was some cooking and laundry to be done. But now they could smoke their own crop, and Painton had left them delicacies like cheese and even a few bottles of wine. They dreamed, of Tom's return, with ships and men. And women. Tony Hilton might spend hours watching the Indian girls going about their various tasks, but he remembered too well the blood rolling down their chins to wish more than that. He too was content to wait. And so they assumed that Edward also dreamed, whatever boys dream about. They had forgotten, as they had forgotten snow and hail, market days and storms at sea, King James and Steenie Villiers, and all the ills of life. There were none here.
But they were also a reminder that one day Father would return, and with him, Mama. There was onrushing cataclysm. Which made him the more anxious. He spent his leisure hours climbing Brimstone Hill, where he would be sure to find her, and his nights escaping the solitude of his house and seeking her behind the tobacco field, for she was always there. They sought love and found it with a passionate intensity which frightened him, when he thought about it, but which could not be resisted when he was in her presence. He endeavoured to introduce some aspect of rationality into their relationship by teaching her English while they were both regaining their strengths, and indeed she proved an apt pupil, for she was intelligent and anxious to please him in every way. Yet he could not escape the overwhelming feeling that to her he was no more than a large toy, fascinating in the colour of his skin, the texture of his face and hair and flesh, the innocence which she delighted in destroying, for she taught him to use his mouth and teeth on every part of her body, and she cared not where he made his entry so long as she felt him in her and against her. But how to know where pleasure ended and sin began? Or did sin belong here at all, in this enchanted, heathen place? Could he sin with a girl who had torn a living man to pieces with her teeth. Was she not, equally, his plaything, to be done with as he chose? There was a satisfying thought, and when he remembered the law laid down by Father on their first day here, he could not convince himself that sin had come into that at all. Father had been afraid of antagonizing the natives. He was just as afraid of that, and lived for some weeks in terror of what Wapisiane might do or say, but Yarico was reassuring, and certainly it seemed that she knew her people, and her designated husband, for Tegramond was as unfailingly good humoured as ever, and every day his women made the trek
along the beach with their fish for the white men, and stood and giggled together and pointed at whatever took their fancy, and seemed amazed that the men should choose to keep to themselves.
Surely, no sin in paradise. Nothing, in paradise, save unchanging sun and heat, daylight and darkness, a dawn breeze and a midday rain shower, the rumble of the surf and the desire of Yarico. Until the day that she was not on the hilltop when he got there, towards dusk, as was usual. For a moment he was too surprised to think. It had been an unnaturally hot day, even for St Christopher, and so they had done less work than usual, and now he was surprised to discover that it was as hot at dusk as it had been at noon. The breeze was absent, yet the clouds still moved, and when he looked at them from this vantage point he saw that they were far more numerous than usual, and thickly clustered, and in many places dark grey and even black, instead of fleecy white. And strange, now his interest was aroused, there were no Indian children bathing off the village, usually clearly to be seen from up here. The Island gave the appearance of having been deserted, save for the three Englishmen below him, lying on the sand and smoking their rolled leaves, and dreaming aloud to each other.
The breeze puffed against his cheek, returning without warning, and he looked up in surprise. There was no twilight in these latitudes, but this transition from light to darkness was too sudden. It was caused by the cloud. It was huge, and black, and it spread and spread and spread to the eastern horizon, and the breeze was suddenly filled with rain, moving along, stinging his face and hands, filling his belly with fear.
But Yarico was here. She stood amidst the trees, arms outstretched. 'Hurricane,' she said, and pointed. 'Wind.' And waved her hand.
He ran to her, and they ducked into the trees. But this was Guyana again, as the huge raindrops crashed downwards, only here there was wind, stinging and sending branches thrashing to and fro. And then there was a louder sound, a noise he had never heard before, a growing whine as if every bird in the world was gathered together and rushing at St Christopher, crying and beating their wings in unison.
Yarico threw herself to the ground, and he dropped with her. He watched her digging her toes and fingers into the earth, hands scrabbling to find some solidity, and wondered if this was a new means of self-satisfaction. Then she was gone, and he was gone. He did not know how or where. He felt no pain, just an enormous dizziness, and looked up. But he saw nothing, although his instincts told him he had been rolled off the path and down into the jungle below. How long he lay there he had no idea. The howling of the wind became one continuous roaring in his ears, shutting out all possibility of thought. The rain pounded on his face and body, hurting him, but not suggesting that he move. And then, sometimes, it would stop, and leave only the wind, before returning again with incessant power. The night grew ever darker, and the noise around him, when he could hear it above the wind, the crashes and the thuds, the huge booms of the breakers on the beach far below, the rumble of the thunder and the crackle of the lightning which cut vivid slashes through the darkness, grew ever more terrifying.
In time, Yarico came to him again. Certainly she was as terrified as himself, but she had experienced such a storm before, and besides, she loved. This night he truly realized that. She was a savage, a bloodthirsty cannibal, and he would never be able to forget her as she had been on that terrible day, but she loved, with a protective desire which made nonsense of differences hi language, and religion, and outlook, in past and no doubt in future, in present. Where there was a love of this calibre, there could never be sin.
And again in time, there was dawn. The wind dropped, although it remained a gale, but the terrifying whine and the equally terrifying clouds had passed away, and the sky was a more brilliant blue than he had ever seen, a drenched blue, washed clean by the pounding rain.
He sat up, and then stood up, cautiously, because his muscles were cramped and he could not help but wonder if anything was broken. Amazingly he was unharmed, and so was the girl. In their mossy hollow they had lain in safety. Not so the forest. A giant hand had swept across St Christopher, plucking and flicking, enjoying itself with all the gusto of the Caribs destroying the man from Dominica. The analogy came strongly to mind as he looked at the uprooted trees, the overturned boulders, the swathes of bushes and scattered shrubs, almost as if a gigantic scythe had been at work. And the wind had come from the east, so there had been the mountain between them and the worst. What the windward side of the island must be like did not bear consideration.
And the beach. 'By Christ,' he shouted, and ran from Brimstone Hill. Yarico came behind, more slowly. She knew what he would find.
He stood on the lip of the hill. The beach was obliterated beneath the huge foaming breakers which still hurled themselves at the shore, ripping up the sand with horrific force, smashing it and swirling it, and sucking it back out to sea. The village remained above the high water mark. Tegramond had made them build wisely. Above the high water mark. But not above the high wind mark. There had been a village. This much was evident in the discoloured sand, the timber which lay scattered across the grass and into the field. But then, there had had been a field, and the field had contained an almost ripe tobacco crop. Now it was nothing more than a scar. Even the seed beds had disappeared, the carefully prepared earth demolished as a child might have demolished an unwanted sandcastle. He was obsessed with this relationship to childishness, to the childish fiendishness of the Caribs, and now of the weather. He wondered how any responsible adult mind could conceive of destruction on such a vast scale, and then implement such a concept.
But there had been people here. He ran down the path, panting, amazed at his selfishness, for his soul cried out, no, I cannot be the only white person left alive in this terrible community. No love there, no feeling to Tony and Hal Ashton and Berwicke. No love such as had brought Yarico feeling her way through the darkness and the danger to find him, last night. Such as brought her behind him now, scurrying down the path, anxious for his friends because he was anxious for them, although her mind must be consumed with worry for her own people; the Carib village was much more exposed.
He reached the foot of the hill, found the sand piled up in huge drifts much like the Suffolk snow, thrown against the grassy banks as if to protect the land beyond. But it had not protected the land beyond.
He kicked his way through the shattered timbers. They had been so proud of their huts, of the way they had been constructed, of the wooden utensils they had carved. They were here too, and so were the remains of the wine bottles, and even one of the muskets, sticking up out of the sand.
'Edward? By God, 'tis the boy.' Ashton came staggering out of the trees, bleary eyed and shaking.
'Ned.' Hilton was behind them, face ashen.
Last of all came Berwicke. How he had aged in a night. Perhaps there had always been a considerable amount of white in his hair, but it had been kept sufficiently concealed behind the remaining black. Now it was all in evidence, and his round cheeks had shrunk, and his shoulders were bowed. 'Edward,' he said. 'Thank God, for that at the least'
'The girl saved my life,' Edward said.
Yarico stood, some distance away, watching them, as they watched her, for in the tumult of the night she had lost her cloth, and now he, too, realized for the first time that he was naked.
‘It was a fierce wind,' he said, stupidly.
'Aye,' Berwicke said. 'Well, it matters naught now. There can be no law, no discipline, where there is no colony.' He turned away from the boy. 'We were not meant to hold this pleasant land. It belongs to the wind, and the sea. And the people of blood.'
How calm the sea. Edward paused to wipe his brow, to toss his head and scatter the sweat as did his Carib friends. And to gaze at the water. It stretched forever, a measureless blue carpet, undulating, but no more than gently. That it could have acted the angry fiend of a few weeks ago seemed incredible, looking at it now. Yet it had not been a dream. He had to do no more than walk along the beach, and look at the colony, at the empty weal which had been the tobacco plantation, at the scattered huts, at the sand still piled in huge drifts, only slowly being whittled away by the breeze, at the men, as scattered as their erstwhile belongs, lying on the sand, existing, in a tropical paradise which held within it the core of destruction.
He could never have supposed that once these men had been his friends. More, his mentors. He had begged them to work, to make some effort to restore the buildings and replant the crop, and they had thrown stones at him. Berwicke, a man whose entire body, always overweight, had sagged into a coma, who stared at the field and muttered to himself. Ashton, a sailing master come to grief upon an endless reef, gazing at the waters and remembering rather than dreaming. Tony Hilton, strangest of all. Hilton climbed the hill every day, at the least, and looked out to sea. He would do no more. 'Plantations,' he said in disgust. 'Months of back-breaking work. To be scattered into dust whenever He feels the mood? Speak not to me of plantations.'
No longer men, but creatures. Edward had taken himself to where men still were men. Now he discovered why the Indian village had given such an impression of flimsy impermanence. There had been storms before, hurricanes, as the Caribs called them, and it made no sense to stand before such a wind. One took shelter, and allowed one's house to scatter, and when the wind was gone, one rebuilt one's house. It was only a matter of a few hours' work.
He had endeavoured to ask Yarico and her father if such storms were common. They had said yes, and no, which he intrepreted to mean that they were common enough in this part of the world, but that they did not invariably destroy a particular island. But as to time, he could learn nothing. The Caribs thought in moons, and it was apparently a great number of moons since the last hurricane had struck St Christopher. But as the Caribs regarded any number greater than five as enormous, he was very little further ahead.
It did not matter. He was happy here. He was one of the young men, an important phrase. Theirs was a meaninglessly busy life. They fished, and they swam, and they wrestled, and they practised the use of their weapons, the long spear which they hurled with deadly accuracy, and the bow, with a range hardly longer, for it was a small and poorly stringed instrument, but with which again they attained great accuracy. They slept together in a larger than usual hut, as they were the unmated ones, and they acknowledged as their leader the chief designate, Wapisiane.
This single fact had disturbed Edward, at first. But Wapisiane apparently bore no grudge, or concealed it well. There was no morality in this culture, beyond the necessity to be brave. They reminded Edward of dogs. When a boy felt the necessity he sat on the sand and masturbated, or coupled with another boy. It seldom occurred to them to seek one of the girls, for pleasure. Rather was this a duty which would follow manhood, for the perpetuation of the tribe. That their new friend found it enjoyable to trail into the woods behind Yarico they found at once amusing and contemptible. But they also soon learned to respect him. At fourteen he was a full grown man, stronger than any of the Indian boys, and he had been taught the use of his fists by Tony during the voyage from England, an art which was totally incomprehensible to them. The first time he answered a challenge, and his assailant lowered his head and shoulders to throw bodi arms around his waist, he had struck down with all his force and stretched the boy unconscious on the sand. He had, indeed, been terrified that he might have killed him, but the other Indians had been delighted, and soon enough his victim had scrambled to his feet, dazed, and quite disinclined to continue the fight.
This total personal liberty encompassed even the adults. It was impossible to decide who belonged to whom, mother, father, child or wife. The small children were herded together, and were cared for by the older women. The younger women worked the fields, for they grew corn, and cleaned fish, and attended to all household chores, which included rebuilding the houses. Even Yarico, the chief's daughter, slept with the girls and worked with them, and possessed only as much leisure as they did. But she saved her leisure for him.
It occurred to him that to intents and purposes he was married. But far more than that. He wore a breech clout and no tiling more, ate raw fish with is fingers, and indeed, caught them with his bare hands, for Wapisiane was a great fisherman and every morning before dawn he and Edward would scour the shallows off the village, and seldom return with empty baskets. He feared the return of this father, to interrupt this idyll which made so much nonsense of kings and their courts, of titles and towers, of the right to worship or the right not to worship, of the inevitability of growing old, of the certainty of death. There was no death amongst the Caribs, at least, not to the visible eye. Now he learned the secret of the far north of the island, and the reason for the absence of old people; it was the custom amongst the Caribs that the moment any man or woman felt old age or infirmity approaching, they walked away from the village and took themselves to the thick forest at the north, there to die of starvation in solitude. At fourteen this seemed an admirable philosophy. Their entire religion was in this simple mould. All things, the leaves on the trees and the grains of sand on the beaches, possessed life. The more powerful the object or creature, the greater the life. Thus the sea, the wind, the clouds, and above all the sun, were dominant creatures, as near as possible to the Christian concept of God, equalled only by the solid mass of the central mountain, similarly immense, similarly immortal. Prayer consisted of a simple appeal. That there could be a life after death had not occurred to the Caribs.
As for their other philosophy, that by eating the living flesh of an enemy a man could imbibe some of his strength and courage, the occasion had not yet recurred. What would he do should Yarico come to him with a dripping human steak in her hands or in her teeth? But this was a problem of the future, to be set alongside the return of Father, and other incalculable prospects. Life in the Carib encampment was lived from day to day; only the good or famous events from the past were remembered, and any possible sorrows or problems in the future were not considered at all.
Yet the future must come, and in March, five months after the storm, it arrived in the shape of a small vessel, flying the cross of St George, announced by a running Hilton, showing more activity than for months past.
They gathered on the water's edge, white men and Caribs, women, girls and boys, to watch the pinnace making for the shore. Tom Warner stood in the stern, clad in velvet and leather, new doublet and polished thigh boots, tall hat with feather, gleaming hilted rapier suspended from shining baldric, trimmed beard and a jewelled pin at his throat.
'What?' he cried, as he approached. 'There has been some disaster here, I'll warrant.'
'A storm, Tom,' Berwicke said. 'A storm such as you can never have imagined.' He peered into the boat. 'Mistress Warner, well thanks be to God, ma'am. But who is this strapping fellow?'
'Philip, you old fool' Tom said. Ten years old, by God. And what think you of this, eh? Her name is Sarah.'
The little girl clung to the gunwale, and stared at the island and the Indians with wide eyes. Like her brother, she closely resembled her father, short and sturdily built, blue eyed and dark haired.
Tom lifted his wife ashore. 'But when happened this storm? Tegramond, you old villain.' He clasped the smiling cacique to his breast. ' Tis good to see you again. And I bring news. The storm, Ralph, you were to tell me of the storm.'
'Some months gone,' Ashton said.
'Months, and the village is still scattered? And no tobacco planted? Or have you changed your site?"
'We are still at Sandy Point, Tom,' Hilton said. ‘In faith, it has not seemed worth our while to replant where it can be so easily destroyed.'
'By God,' Tom said. 'Rebecca, I’ll have you shake hands with the chief. Now remember, girl, I have told you all of him. He is not half so fierce as he seems, and he is my friend. Perhaps my best friend in all the world. Ralph, I'm that disappointed in you, old friend. How can a colony prosper, without setbacks? Setbacks, storms, illnesses, it is the surviving of these things that makes a man better than these savages. Have we not suffered much together, and still survived, and prospered?"
'Colony,' Hilton said in disgust?’
Tom rounded on him. 'Aye, colony, Tony. For that is what we are.' Fom his doublet he pulled a rolled parchment. 'Here is my warrant. Thomas Warner, gentleman, the King's Lieutenant of the Caribee Isles. I have much to tell you, lads. Much. Welcomed at court, I was. Mr North is a true man, and spread nothing but honest tales of our courage, and my lord of Warwick is again in favour. The grant indeed is in his name, but transmitted through him to me and my heirs. But where is Edward?’
'Edward?' Rebecca freed herself from the cacique's grasp, for he was staring at her with a bemused expression, taking in her padded skirt and her low-cut bodice, her combed hair and her pale skin. 'Where is Edward?"
He stepped through the crowd. Saving his hair, he looked no different to the boys around him.
'Edward?" Tom shouted. 'By Christ, boy, what has become of you?"
'He is all of a savage,' Berwicke said. We call him Caribee.
'Edward?" Rebecca whispered. 'Oh, Edward.'
Her arms were wide. Yet he was strangely reluctant to step into them. There was too much difference here, between what he was and what he had been. It had been too long, since last he had been close to her, and in that time too much had happened. And she was still a young woman, and an attractive one.
He went closer, felt her fingers on his skin, inhaled her scent. 'Mother. 'Tis good to see you.'
She kissed him, held him at arms' length. 'And is that all you can say? But truly, you are not the child who went away. Now I have two men.'
Two men that you'll be proud of,' Tom said, taking his son's hand. 'But I'll have no white Indians in my colony. I've brought you some fine clothes, boy. We're rich. Did you not know that? Ralph Merrifield, you remember Ralph? He has bought our tobacco and advanced me a sum against our next crop. Why, my return is all the talk in London. You'll get yourself dressed, boy. I have need of you, I can see that. There's work to be done.'
'And have you also come with a shipload of colonists, Father?'
Tom frowned. 'No,' he said. I doubt that England is yet the place it was in my youth. Now all they can speak of is the Don's habit of torturing to death intruders found in the Americas, and of the cannibalism of the Caribs. I raised six men in England. Hut they are fine fellows.'
'Six men?' Berwicke asked.
'Disappointing, Ralph, to be sure. So I sailed across the ocean to Virginia, to search for more.'
'And had you success?' Ashton asked.
'Not really. Six more. That is our force for the present.'
'Twelve men, to found a colony?" Edward asked.
There will be more, lad, you may rest assured on that score.'
'Twelve men,' Tony Hilton said contemptuously. 'Warner's Empire, by God. I'll do better on my own.' He turned, and walked into the forest.
5
The Lovers
'Oh, let him go,' Tom Warner said. 'Hell be back, when he's tired of living like an animal. He had always the spirit of a trouble maker. And 'tis true enough I failed him in his present. But not you, Ralph....' he waved his hand, and two of the young men brought up a large box. 'The finest beaver hat in England. Hal, there's enough beer coming ashore for you to bathe in. And Edward, your sword.'
His eyes gleamed as he watched his son take the blade, and slowly turn it over. Caribee. But the boy was, after all, a Warner.
Rebecca could read his mind. 'And a man,' she said softly.
Edward raised his head. ‘It is good to see you again. So good. How are Uncle Edward and Aunt Jane?’
'Well.' But her face was solemn. She anticipated his next question.
'And Mother Elizabeth?'
'Dead these two years. She was old, Edward. Old.'
'As we shall all grow old, one day,' Tom declared. 'Meanwhile, there is work to do.'
He had been rejuvenated. The doubts and the fears had been swept away by his reception in England. He considered it, and rightly, no more than a just reward for his efforts, for his courage and his determination, and regretted only that he had waited until the second half of his life to reveal such qualities to those in power. Now he bubbled with confidence.
"You may be disappointed,' he told Ashton and Berwicke and Edward, ‘In these lads, but they've the backs for work, and ambition to be wealthy.'
"This wealth you speak of,' Ashton remarked. 'You did not bring it back with your"
'Have you not all got new clothes? And weapons? Is there not a sufficient stock of European food, and good wine and cheese, to allow us to enjoy this heathen diet?' Tom bellowed. 'As for the rest, why, it is invested in the future of the colony. John Jefferson, you remember John Jefferson, Ralph? He will be arriving soon enough with another shipload of men. And he'll be bringing the women to make our lads wives. Then we'll see young Hilton come crawling back out of that bush. And for the meanwhile, fear not, old friends, I have made them all take the same oath as ourselves. There'll be no friction with Tegramond.'
He paused, and again gazed at Edward. But he was not disposed to make an issue of what remained only a rumour. The boy had been lonely, and going on the evidence of his own eyes, alone. He could not be blamed for seeking some positive company. Meanwhile, it was necessary to dangle the dream always before their eyes. He at least never doubted that it would come true.
'Aye,' he said. 'This island will be the fortune of us all. And many more besides. St Christopher? 'What rubbish. We're no papists. We have renamed it, by God. Merrifield and Warner, Mer and War, so Merwar's Hope. That's how it shall be marked on the maps forever more. Merwar's Hope. Now here's something to make your eyes gleam.'
For another boat was approaching the shore, a noisy boat, with its barkings and yelpings, and soon two mastiffs, a dog and a bitch, came bounding through the shallows.
'We had that trouble, to keep them apart at sea,' Tom said. 'But now, why, they'll mate and provide all the guards we shall ever need. What say you, Tegramond, old friend?"
For the Caribs had gathered in a huddle, staring fearfully at the bounding dogs, who could sense the fear, and now bared their teeth and set their forelegs firmly in the sand; the chief had his hand on the hilt of his sword.
'They'll not harm you, Tegramond,' Tom said. 'Unless you make them, or I tell them.'
The cacique pointed. 'Spanish,' he said.
‘Aye, the Spaniards use them, to be sure. But we'll not, I promise you that, without good cause. Yet a few sharp-toothed brutes will render our numbers more equal,' he remarked to his friends. ‘I've a mind that Tegramond will not live forever, whereas this colony of ours is now planted for eternity.'
His energy could not help but be contagious. Within a month the seed beds were again arranged and filled, and they were at work rebuilding the village. He made them clear more land, and in their enthusiasm they encroached across the line drawn by Tegramond, two years before. But the Carib chieftain merely smiled, and continued his weekly visits to the Warners for his cup of wine.
It was a season of endless labour, reminiscent of their first arrival on the island. Edward seldom found the time to escape into the forest during the day, and he was far too tired at night. And besides, he no longer possessed the inclination. There seemed so much to do at home. So much to talk about, with Mama. So much to show Philip, who regarded his elder brother with awe. So many hours to be spent attempting to entertain Sarah.
But the best part of each day was that spent with Mama. The Warner house was the largest in the village, with three rooms and a porch running the whole length of the front, looking out over Sandy Point and the bay. Here Tom had his men construct a chair for Mama, on rounded timbers, so that she could sit in the evening and rock herself slowly to and fro, and watch the sun declining into the endless Caribbean Sea. Here her children would gather at her feet, and often enough Berwicke and Ashton would come over as well, to talk, to remember, and to dream. And here Edward could consider her, and think. A great gulf seemed to have been torn out of his life. When he had last seen her, he had known the comfort of her arms as a child, and nothing more. Now she had returned, and he knew the comfort of a woman's arms as a man. Hideous thoughts, but thoughts not to be turned away as he sat on the floor and watched her, her long light brown hair floating over the back of the chair, her gown, so tantalizing in its exposure of sunburned neck and suddenly pale breast, closing in to grip her waist, to trace the outline of her leg under her skirt, for she very rapidly discarded the fashionable hip pads as being quite impossible to manage in a largely physical life such as she had now undertaken. To all of these were matched her face and her smile. Father's possession. The sight and the thought made him sweat, and when he did seek Yarico it was with a desperate intensity which seemed to reassure the Indian girl for their less frequent meetings.
He took to returning to the house at odd moments of the day, to observe her and to gain precious moments of private conversation. She was eager to have him close, having missed him from her life for three years, and compounded his problems by inviting him into her bedchamber, often when she was in a state of undress, and on one unforgettable occasion when she had been frightened by a lizard which had got in through the window and gone scuttling across the floor. Her scream had summoned him, because Father was out at the time, and he had burst through the door to discover her pressed against the wall, naked.
For a few terrible minutes he had acted the role she had chosen for him, that of her still young son. He had caught the lizard without difficulty, and laughed, and presented it to her as a harmless creature. She had gazed at him for a moment, and then at it, beginning to smile, while he had been allowed to look, at the endless white of her legs, the tremendous growth of hair between, the sucked in belly, even when she lacked the corsets dictated by habit, and above, the huge breasts. She possessed everything Yarico did, and everything Yarico lacked. Only her nipples remained flaccid. He was her son.
And yet, when she had raised her head, the quivering lizard still held between her hands, and looked into his face, she had realized the danger in which she had placed them. Colour had flared into her cheeks, and she had licked her lips before saying, very softly, ‘I had forgot how large you are grown, Edward. Here, take your pet, and I will dress myself.'
Yet dismay had not lasted. This was the most terrifying thing of all. She was, he remembered, a dozen years younger than Father, and Father was in a mood of constant preoccupation. Could not a woman flirt with her own son, while revealing always nothing more than the admiration of a mother? She was eager to touch him, to hold his shoulders and feel the rippling muscles, to trace the brown flesh, to wonder, perhaps, at his reluctance to be embraced, to kiss her and touch her back. He dared not. To let her go, having once truly held her in his arms, would be next to impossible. The strangest of terrible thoughts kept entering his head, culminating in the dream of Father dead, and Mother a widow, turning to her eldest son for support, and more than support. For now that he was all but a man there could be no question as to who would succeed Father. Berwicke and Ashton had been tried, and found wanting. Hilton had deserted the colony. The newcomers were no more than newcomers; it was remarkable how the Caribs treated them with disdain, when they appeared to notice them at all, while their friendship towards the four original colonists remained unchanging. But that they also worshipped the white woman, or at the least found her compellingly attractive, was plain to see; she had to do no more than take a walk along the beach to have them gathered round in admiration.
Only sanity, and the cloying embraces of Yarico, demanded that he wait for John Jefferson, and the arrival of the promised females, like the other men.
Her name was the Hopewell, and she dropped anchor in the Old Road formed by the isthmus leading to the south peninsular, off the Carib village. As usual everyone on the island gathered to watch her, and to greet the boat which came ashore. For once again they had a splendid crop to be shipped, and the golden leaves were gathered and sheaved.
They stared, and broke into cheers as they saw the flutter of skirts being lowered into the boats. 'By God,' Ashton said. 'My throat feels as dry as a boy's. What a pity Tony did not live for this day.
For they had seen nothing of him since the moment he had taken to the forest, and the conclusion seemed obvious.
Tegramond stood next to the Warners. Even he had managed to learn a word or two of English. He waved his arms, encompassing the sea and the sky, and said, 'Many people come.' But he smiled, and Tom Warner smiled also, and clapped him on the shoulder.
'Women,' he said. 'Men, women.' He crossed the forefingers of each hand, and Tegramond laughed.
'Tom,' John Jefferson cried, as the first boat grounded in the shallows. 'Well met. By God, but you told no lies when you described this place. I have not seen such beauty. I wish I could stay. Perhaps I shall, at least, return after I have sold your tobacco. Mistress Warner.' He kissed Rebecca's hand. 'And this is Edward? By God, sir, you're a giant.'
He was himself a large man, dominated by the huge hook of his nose, which threw cheeks and wide mouth hi to the shade. He wore a broad hat and sweated right through his doublet, and looked ill at ease, despite his enthusiasm.
'What news of England, Mr Jefferson?' Ralph asked.
‘It changes little, Mr Berwicke. The King is ailing, and I fear that we may soon be ruled by Prince Charles. Ah, well, they say any change is usually for the better.' He laid his finger alongside his nose. 'But I am no politician, you'll understand. Now, Tom, tell me what you think of these.'
Edward had already been staring at the two remaining boats coming ashore, frowning in a mixture of alarm and dismay. For one thing, each boat contained four sailors, sitting in the bows, armed with cutlasses and with pistols in their belts, and Father had always insisted that there be no display of weapons in front of the Indians. For another, the people gathered amidships in the boats were unlike any he had ever seen before. White skinned, certainly; in fact most of them were either yellow or red haired, with very pale flesh. But there was no suggestion of breeding or even civilization amongst them; their hair was wild and curling, the men's beards were undipped, and their clothes were a collection of rags.
Tom Warner had also noticed the boats as they came into the surf, and had begun to frown. 'What's this, John? What's this?'
Tis a difficult question you posed us, Tom,' Jefferson explained. "Which we undertook to solve as best we could. This colony of yours still sounds a savage place to English ears, and your crops, if prime quality, are still small. Success begets success, they say. As your colony becomes larger and more prosperous, so will men and women of quality become anxious to join you. Until then, why, it is necessary to prime the pump, so to speak. These people are from Ireland.'
‘Ireland?' Ashton said, peering at the boats, which were now grounding. 'You mean Catholic rebels?’
'Were they not, Mr Ashton, they would hardly be here. Tis becoming quite a custom, in these days, to ship the disaffected off to the Virginias and the Carolinas, there to work for a spell. So I arranged a shipload for you, Tom. You'll find them good, sturdy people, capable of fine work, if properly supervised. Line them up there,' he told his officer.
The Irish men and women were made to wade ashore, and arranged in two lines, the females in front and the males behind; there were twelve men and eleven women. None was very old, and they certainly looked strong enough, and cheerful enough, as well, despite the undoubted rigours of the voyage they had just undergone. They muttered amongst themselves and winked and smiled at the amazed colonists, and the women were not above tugging at the tattered bodices of their gowns to reveal swelling flesh, or combing their hair from their foreheads as they observed Rebecca. But to Edward's dismay there was hardly one he would have called pretty, or even attractive; certainly not when set next to Mama. Although perhaps their filth and the odour which arose collectively from the group had something to do with this.
'By God,' Tom was muttering. "What are they, then, slaves?"
‘Indentured servants, Tom,' Jefferson said. ‘I have purchased them for you, with some of your profits from the last crop. The last of your profits, I may say. They are now bound to serve you for ten years. For that period of time you may certainly look upon them as your servants, bound to do your every bidding. Your only duty is to feed them and clothe them.'
Tom walked slowly down the line of women, frowning as they giggled at him, and glancing at the group of young men behind him, who were whispering amongst themselves. ' Tis not what I had expected.'
'But all that could be secured, Tom. You should know the difficulties yourself.'
'And at least they seem cheerful and well behaved,' Rebecca said.
'Ah, well....' Jefferson pulled at his long nose. They are that happy to see dry land again, and to keep them happy we gave each man and woman a glass of wine before bringing them ashore. They're Irish, you'll understand, Mrs Warner, and given to riot and general ill behaviour. They need a strong hand over them.'
'And I have such powers?’ Tom demanded.
They are yours, Tom, for a space of ten years. Here, I have drawn up a paper for their understanding. This has been read to them, and they appreciate its worth. I think it would be best where you to continue its dictates.'
Tom took the rolled parchment, and perused it with a grim face. 'By God,' he said at last. 'For insolence, a dozen lashes on the bare back. For raising a hand against an employer, two dozen lashes on the bare back. For attempting to escape, four dozen lashes on a bare back. John, you've an omission here. There is no actual death sentence.'
Jefferson did not appear to notice the sarcasm. 'Ah, well, you see, as they are only bound for a term of years, it is your responsibility to keep them alive. To the best of your ability, that is. Should they attempt to mutiny, now, you'd be entitled to use whatever force you considered necessary, and no doubt make an example of the ringleader. It'd be best to leave them in no doubt as to that.'
Tom scratched his head. "You pose me a pretty problem here, John. What say you, friends?'
They outnumber us, to be sure,' Ashton said. 'But not to any great extent. And providing we keep our wits about us, we should not find ourselves in any quandary. There's no doubt that with those sturdy fellows we could clear a much larger area to put into cultivation.'
'And in any event,' Berwicke put in, 'we can always call on the chief for assistance, should we need it.'
'And the women?' Tom asked.
'Well, they'll be a great help,' said one of the young men - He glanced at his companions, and flushed. ‘It seems to me that Mistress Warner is faced with a sight too many domestic duties.'
Rebecca smiled. ‘I won'‘I say no to that, William Jarring. But I've a notion you see more arising from these girls than a mere laundry.'
Well. .. .' Jarring stood on one leg and again gazed in confusion at his compatriots.
'As I said, John, a pretty problem,' Tom said. 'My boys have been bachelors for too long.'
'Well, then, why not let them pick and choose,' Jefferson suggested. 'Ten years is a long time. With fortune none of these girls, at the least, will want to return to their bogs at the end of it.'
'Saving that you quite forgot to bring us a priest, John.'
There's a fault I shall remedy on my next voyage, I swear. But for the time being, you can fill that duty, Tom. You are King's Lieutenant, and Governor of these islands. You have the right to perform a marriage, at least in common law, providing the banns are read in proper fashion.'
'Aye,' Tom muttered, pulling at his lip. ‘I had little conception that there was so much to growing a few sheaves of tobacco.'
'Yet was it always your ambition to grow people as well, Mr Warner, ' Rebecca pointed out. 'Did you not dream of a place where all men could be free, of law as well as imposition, each to attempt to live his life in his own way?’
'And here is my dream coming to an immediate end.'
'Only as it is forced upon you, sir,' she insisted. 'Can you not look upon these people, no, upon us all, as your own children? We have bound ourselves to obey you, and do so faithfully. These Irish folk may need to be shown your fist on occasion, but have not your own sons always needed that, and do they not still love you and obey you? I think Mr Jefferson is right. We need to grow, and we cannot afford to be too particular about the means we employ. And if I may in any way influence your decision, I shall be happy to play the mother to these girls.'
Tom continued to frown, and stare from his people to the newcomers, until one of the Irishmen called out, 'Sure, and are we to stand here the day, being broiled in this sun? 'Tis better we'd be clapped back in the hold of that tub.'
'Hold your miserable tongue,' bellowed the officer from the ship, stepping forward and whipping his stick to and fro. The sounds of the blows echoed across the beach, and the Irishmen cursed, and one or two raised their fists, only to be checked by the pistols of the sailors. The Caribs muttered amongst themselves on the far side of the strand, and Tegramond grinned.
'Avast there,' Tom growled. 'We'll not air our differences in front of the savages. All right, my decision is made. Each man is allowed a male servant, and a female. I'll force no man, by God, and no woman, for that matter. You'll make your choices and abide by them with full responsibility. But whosoever shows me a full belly shall be married within the month. And to his wife he shall show the respect of a gentleman. I'll have that understood.'
'Spoken like a Solomon, Tom,' Jefferson said. 'Come, will you make a choice now?'
‘It'd be better done over a bottle,' someone muttered.
Tom rounded on them, his face an angry flush. ‘I'll have no lewdness here,' he shouted. 'Choose now, or be done with it. And remember, I'll have respect, and good manners. We'll make these people serve us best by treating them as we would our own families.'
'But there are only eleven females, Mr Warner,' Jarring protested. 'And fourteen unmarried men.' He ignored Edward.
'Now, there's a fact,' someone else remarked.
'Thirteen,' Berwicke said. ‘I'll not be lumbering myself with a wife after sixty years of bachelorhood.'
'Still two short," Jarring said.
' Tis a pity you'd not a couple more of these girls tucked away, John,' Tom said. There's nothing likely to disrupt the colony more than jealousy. Ah, well, you'll have to draw lots, lads. Mr Ashton is reserved, as he is one of my original colonists. But two of you'll go short.'
Jefferson was tugging away at his nose. There is another wench,' he said in a low voice.
'Eh?" Tom turned. 'And you'd not bring her ashore?’
'She's under duress, if you must know. Seems someone responsible for rounding up these beggars made a mistake. This young woman claims some quality. Oh, 'tis vague enough, and nothing that any of us should note, but it's had that bad an effect on her character. She's pushed a knife clear through one of the crew.'
'Killed him?' Rebecca whispered.
'No. Although he’ll wear a scar to his grave. Still, it was her intent no less.'
'No doubt she had a reason,' Tom suggested.
'Well, it was attempted rape, to be sure. But still, she was nothing better than a serving girl, by his lights. In any event, Tom, I'd not burden you with a born troublemaker. She can go back to England, if she survives the voyage, and cool her heels in the Fleet.'
‘No,' Rebecca said. 'Bring the creature ashore. I’ll wager she needs nothing more than fresh air and kind treatment.'
Jefferson glanced from Tom to his wife, and Tom nodded. 'Yes, she was protecting her virtue, then I've every sympathy with her.'
'Virtue?' Jefferson asked in amazement. ‘You’ll find none in this crowd. They're fornicating before they know the meaning of the word. But I'll have her ashore.'
He signalled the ship, and a moment later they saw the young woman being forced over the side; she seemed to feel each touch of a male hand, each command from a male voice, as a drop of boiling water, to be resisted and avoided. Edward felt a sudden compassion for her, and with it, a sudden excitement. The eleven girls on the beach in front of him interested him no more than the Carib women, perhaps even than Yarico, now. She was the most intelligent of them all, but she was still very little more than an animal, and she was capable of filling him with disgust. He could not imagine her, or any of them, deeming it necessary to rebuff an amorous sailor. But here was a girl who had acted very much as Mama might have done, only she was to be punished for it.
And here was some beauty, too. No doubt it was already present, in his mind, but then, he could tell by the expressions of the men around him, and even of the Caribs, that this was not the whole of it. She gloried in a head of the most marvellous auburn hair, winch possessed a peculiar sheen to it, even in the afternoon sunlight. Below, the skin was very lightly dusted with freckles, entirely lacking the muddy quality of the other girls. Nor were her features vacantly rounded, as theirs, but rather aquiline, with a straight nose set between two wide grey eyes, and a matching mouth which sat well above a pointed chin. There was nobility, even hauteur, in the way she gazed at the beach, allowed herself to take in the Caribs, with interest but not fear, and then to dwell with the utmost contempt on the group of eager white men. Only when she saw Rebecca did her expression change, but for a moment, before resuming her normal reserve.
She was tall; when she stood up she matched any of the sailors, and slender, but yet obviously a full grown woman; she wore no more than a shift, winch the breeze flattened against breast and belly, gathered around thigh and buttock. And she had all the instincts of a lady, for when she stepped down on to the beach, and a playful gust threatened to lift her skirt, she held it firm with her hand where her predecessors had cared nothing for their exposed legs.
'Over here,' Jefferson said.
The mate gestured the girl in the direction of the others. He seemed to prefer not to touch her, at this moment. Still holding the skirt of her shift she crossed the sand towards them.
'By God,' Jarring said. 'Now there is a woman. When do we draw lots, Captain Warner?'
The girl stopped, and her gaze, hitherto studying the sand, came up. 'Ye lay a finger on me and I'll take out both your eyes,' she said, quietly, and yet very distinctly. The brogue was there, and yet hidden beneath a veneer of education.
'You seer" Jefferson pointed out. 'She's incorrigible.'
‘I do not think so,' Rebecca said softly, and stepped forward. 'These girls were sent out here less as wives than as servants, were they not? And am I not, as wife of the Governor, entitled to a servant for my house?'
'But....' Jarring began, to be silenced by a look from Ashton.
'You are, Rebecca,' said the sailing master. ‘I think that is an entirely suitable suggestion. And indeed, given the time to settle herself, and to understand that we are gentlemen and not louts, Mr Jarring, she may well prove a good wife to one of us yet.'
'Providing we can wait that long,' Jarring said in disgust, and turned his attention to the other girls.
'What is your name?' Rebecca asked. The two women were of almost the same height.
The girl stared at her, and flushed. 'My name is Susan Deardon,' she said. 'And I'd know what ye want of me. I’ll not be sold off like a cow.'
That shall not happen, Susan, I promise you,' Rebecca said. 'Now, firstly, I want your trust. That way we may become friends, and life may take on a more pleasant aspect.'
With the coming of July, Ashton, Berwicke and Edward fell to watching the sky. But it remained clear. There was increased rain, and occasionally they could see the heavy dark clouds forming on the horizon, but always they dispersed before the wind, without assailing the island. Yarico was confident. 'Hurricane, no,' she pronounced, and would fall to playing with his body, as she invariably did whenever they were alone.
He lay on his back, in the forest adjoining Brimstone Hill, their usual meeting place as it had been the first. His clasped hands were beneath his head, and he looked down on her glossy black hair as she fingered and stroked, kissed and caressed. She never tired of him, after more than a year, delighted it seemed equally in arousing him and then in reducing him to flaccid impotence. He was her toy, her plaything, and she loved him. This was the disturbing factor. He marvelled that she had not yet become pregnant. Three of the Irish girls already had swelling bellies, and there seemed little doubt that there would be others before very long; Father anticipated the arrival of the priest with more anxiety than he worried about the shipment of his crop, for he could not convince himself that the civil ceremonies he had performed had any significance before God.
What would happen should Yarico also give birth did not bear consideration. Because try as he might Edward could discover no similar feeling within himself. He admitted to an endlessly muddled series of emotions. He loved her physical loving—and yet could not help but imagine how much more marvellous would it be should it be done to and by a white girl. This was Susan's effect on him. She had even managed to replace Mama in his midnight dreams. Not that she ever paid any attention to him. She paid little attention to anyone. Father and Mama allowed her to take her meals with themselves and the children, and in many ways treated her as a daughter, yet they were seldom rewarded with a smile and when two of the Irishmen had got drunk and fought, and Father, reluctantly, had ordered them to be flogged for causing a riot, her eyes had smouldered as she had watched the punishment
Edward blamed her not a whit. To be torn from home and family, merely on account of birth and religion, seemed unjust. And the sight of her, the smell of her, for she was most remarkably clean about her person, and the very presence of her, kept him in a state of constant excitement, from which again Yarico benefited, still without seeking to discover whence it arose, without, perhaps, ever suspecting that it had a source other than herself.
He sat up, suddenly decided. Yarico moved her head, to gaze at him, eyes watchful.
‘I must go,' he said. ‘I have remembered....' he reached for his breeches, dragged them on. ‘I must go.'
Yarico stared at him. He bent over her, kissed her gently on the forehead.
Tomorrow?' she asked.
He hesitated. 'Perhaps. I must go.' He ran away from her, over the brow of the hill and down the winding path. Great beads of sweat rolled down his neck, flew from his face. Relief, certainly. She was choking him, slowly, incessantly, with her love. Love? Savage Indians could not love. That girl had torn a man to pieces with her teeth. He must never forget that. He could never forget that. He was her conquest. Her prisoner, she had thought. He would indeed have been her prisoner, had she had the wit to become pregnant. Father would have seen to that, rather than antagonize Tegramoud. But now he had escaped.
And there was the sweat of anticipation, too. Because it was Sunday, many of the colonists were asleep. Others were gathered by the water's edge, smoking and talking. The Irish labourers, with the frenetic energy peculiar to themselves, were farther up the beach, playing a remarkable game in which they armed themselves with palm fronds, carefully trimmed of excess leaves so that only the hard, curved spine remained to provide a four foot long club, with which they chased a dried husk to and fro, as often whacking each other on the shins as gaining their objective. A truly strange people.
It needed no more than caution to approach the village from the rear, through the tobacco field, past the seed beds and the sheds erected for the drying and curing of the crop, for Father had come to the conclusion that he would save by doing this here, and more, produce a distinctive brand of tobacco. Too much was lost by rot on the way home.
He stood in the little yard behind the Governor's house, and watched his sister building castles in the sand. She was six years old, and remained a total stranger to him, a small, dark, earnest child, with unutterably deep eyes and a perpetually dribbling nose, who spoke little and cried less, seemed wrapped up within herself in the possession of some vast secret.
Sitting on the little step which led to the back door of the hut was Susan Deardon. Her feet were bare, as usual, and her legs drawn up beneath her. Her magnificent hair was loose and fluttered in the afternoon breeze. She looked half asleep, but her eyes followed the child. Christ, how he sweated. But this was all to the good. Father and Mama must have taken a walk along the beach, perhaps to visit Tegramond.
He stepped round the building, and her head moved. 'Ye're a strange one, Master Edward,' she said. 'What brings ye creeping through the grass like a thief?'
He cursed the flush he could feel burning his cheeks. 'What makes you sit here by yourself, when everyone else is enjoying themselves?'
'Enjoying themselves? Is that what they're at?' Her shoulder rose and fell. ‘I'm to watch Miss Sarah.'
'And I came to watch you,' he said boldly.
Her head half turned. There was no change in her expression. But she moved her legs, stretching them in front of her, and arranged her skirt across her ankles. She wore one of Mama's old gowns, pulled in to fit her slender waist, but refused to attempt shoes. And what need, in such a climate and with such beautiful feet.
'Because there's nothing I'd rather do,' Edward said, and sat beside her. Now his sister also watched him, briefly, before returning to her game in the sand. 'Why don't you admit it?" he asked. 'This place is not half so bad as you'd anticipated. You've food to eat, and water or wine to drink. You've as pleasant a climate as anyone could dream of....'
'And I'm owned by pleasant people,' she said.
"You're not owned by anyone, Susan.'
'Of course ye're right, Master Edward. I'm just borrowed. Do ye know how old I am? Eighteen. So when your mother is finished with me, I’ll be twenty-eight. Mistress Warner's castoff.'
'You could end that tomorrow.' The saliva drained from his mouth to leave his throat parched.
At last she looked at him. 'Marry one of them thickheaded louts? Then I would be entering slavery.'
‘I was thinking that there are gentlemen on this island.'
It occurred to him that he had never really seen her before. She had been a face, exposed by its very circumstances, but strong enough to protect the brain within; a body, well concealed beneath her clothes; bare feet which but promised the beauty that would exist in the rest of her. And the hair. It was the hair which filled his dreams. Would the hair on her belly be that glorious? But now the mask was splitting, from sheer surprise. Her reserve had, after all, been no more than loneliness. And suddenly she looked less an untouchable beauty than a frightened young girl.
Then it was closing again, shutting herself away behind the cool grey of her eyes. 'Ye've a mind to mock me, Master Edward.'
She was again staring at Sarah.
'No,' he said. 'Believe me, Susan.'
His hand started to move across the step, towards hers, and then slipped back again. Christ curse him for a coward, but he was afraid of her.
'Then ye're a fool,' she said. 'Or a dreamer. Ye know nothing of me. Ye've never touched my flesh.'
'A dreamer,' he said. 'Not a fool, Susan. Would the reality be so different to the dream?’
Her head turned, so quickly she took him by surprise. 'There's the girl,' she muttered.
'She'll not understand.' But he was incapable of movement.
Not Susan. She placed her hands on his cheeks and kissed him on the mouth. She all but sucked the tongue from his throat. And here was no Indian smell. Here was fresh beauty. And breasts. His hands came up, to close on them, to feel the nipples right through the cloth, to feel the surging flesh beneath. Mama had breasts like these. Oh, Christ in Heaven.
Her hands were on his chest. 'God, I have wanted,' she whispered. 'And you. If it's my tits ye're after, Master Edward, they're yours. Just don't mock me.'
'No,' he said. ‘I'm sorry. I have wanted, you. Since you stepped ashore. I fell in love with you then, Susan.'
She tossed her head, straightened her shift. 'Every man on the Island did that. Even the savages.'
'And have you yielded to any of them?"
'Christ,' she muttered. To that?'
'Listen,' He seized her hands. He could do that, now, and as they lay flaccid, his own rested on her lap. On her thighs, and everything that lay beneath the gown. So, was he about to lie? He could not tell. He knew now that he did not love Yarico, that he would never love Yarico. He knew now that he would dream of that day in his mother's bedroom until he died. But at least that dream now possessed red hair, rather than brown. ‘I love you, Susan,' he said. ‘I want you. But all of you. I want you to marry me.'
She was gazing at him, and he was no longer afraid of her eyes. ‘I'm a bastard,' she said. 'My father was a big man. Oh, he was a big man. My mother was a whore. But she was his whore. Life was good, until your English came. They burned Daddy's castle. They hanged him. They laid Ma on her back until she died of exhaustion, and they went on laying her after that. I'm no virgin, Edward Warner. They got me too, but I didn't die, so I was right for slavery.'
Christ, how he hated. Them. Them. Out there in the world. But this world was no more than twenty miles long by ten wide, if that.
‘I'm no virgin, either,' he said.
'Ye're sixteen.'
‘I'll be seventeen in a month. I'm a man grown. ‘Ive had to be, Susan. I'll care for us. I'll build us a house, back there. I'll give you sons. And one day this colony will be mine.'
Now he was afraid again. There was a quality hi her eyes which seemed to say, liar, liar, liar, you want these tits and this belly. You want to own these legs, because you have never seen legs to equal them. But she was wrong there. And if a man could not possess his mother, well, then surely he could love this magnificent creature.
'Then ye'd best act the part,' she said, softly.
Footsteps, coming through the house. Edward hastily stood up, on one side of the step, and Susan followed his example, on the other. Rebecca came through first, Tom at her shoulder. 'Sarah.' She stooped and scooped the girl into her arms. 'You've been good?'
'Oh, yes, Mama. Edward was with me.'
'Mooning about the plantation on a Sunday afternoon?' Tom demanded. ' Tis not like you, boy. Where is Philip?’
‘I have no idea, Father.
'Susan?"
'He ... he wandered off.' Her cheeks were flushed and now she bit her hp. It was difficult to suppose anyone on this island opposing that bluffly domineering manner. But Edward reminded himself that he had seen his father just as nervous and uncertain as this girl.
'Careless,' Tom said. 'You'll do better in future, Susan.'
'The boy is growing, Mr Warner,' she said, quietly.
He stopped in surprise, and glanced from her to his wife.
'Why, that's true enough,' Rebecca agreed. 'And the men are on the beach.'
'Aye,' Tom said. 'But you'll remember your place, girl. Now and always.'
Edward sucked breath into his nostrils, felt his heart pounding, and for the second time this afternoon cursed the heat in his cheeks. 'Not always, Father. I would like to speak with you.'
Now Tom was frowning, and looking from boy to girl. "You'll take Sarah inside, Rebecca.'
Her turn to hesitate. But she knew better than to increase his simmering anger. She gave Edward a warning glance, and closed the door behind her.
'Yes?" Tom inquired.
‘I would take a wife, sir,' Edward said. 'Susan.' Tom looked at the girl. 'Your doing?’
There's no other man on the island I'd rather wed, Mr Warner. If that is what ye mean.'
'Slut,' he snapped, and swung the back of his hand. It caught her across the mouth and stretched her on the sand, legs kicking and skirt flying.
'Sir,' Edward said. 'You have no right.'
Susan sat up, straightened her skirt, and only then wiped the trickle of blood from her lips.
'No right?' Tom shouted. 'She's that fortunate I do not take the skin from her arse. And you, by God, look at you, sixteen years old, and you'd take a wife, would you?’
Edward refused to lower his gaze. 'You made me a man, sir, before I was twelve. You've a thriving colony now. Have you no wish for a grandson?’
'By God,' Tom said. 'What have you been doing, then? Crawling around the Carib village hoping to thrust your weapon into some cannibal?' He continued without giving Edward the time to consider a reply. 'No. They'd not have you. They like men, not boys. And she....' his arm outflung. 'Do you think she cares a damn for you? She seeks to be free. Aye, she'd laugh in your face the moment the words were spoken. Get from my sight, boy. Mention this to me again and I'll flog you both round the camp, so help me God. Now take to the woods, and do not return before supper time.' He seized Susan by the hair as she would have risen. 'Not you, girl. You'll spend the rest of this day on your knees, here in this yard. And you'll pray that I forget this afternoon's work.'
The anger bubbled inside him, curling his fingers into fists, causing him to rip the branches from trees and slowly strip them to the bark. Once, even, he caught a lizard, and hurled it from him with all his strength, listening to its passage through the bushes with tumultuous glee. Anger, against whom? Father? Or self? He was a coward. There was a fact. He had crumpled like a leaf in the hand. What would she think of him now?
But he hated Father, too. For treating him as a child. Why, if he wished, he could take Father as he had taken that lizard, and ... if he wished. If he had the courage, to oppose not only Tom Warner, but the King's Lieutenant, Governor of the Caribee Isles. There was a dream.
And Susan. Desire clouded up his body, turned his legs to lead, left his brain a limp rag. Susan, all of that tall, straight white-skinned beauty, all of that proud face, all of the promise which had surged beneath the shift, all of that abundant fire-red hair, had been granted to him. For the space of a few short seconds.
It could be his, forever. To take that would be to reject all else. But what else was there worth having, where that was absent? Especially where all that would be there, all the time, perhaps, in time, belonging to someone else. In a very little time. Of course Father would now seek to force her into marriage with one of the colonists. Then would life truly become unbearable.
His decision was made. He was so happy he felt like bursting into song. And then grew serious again. A time for planning. But it all seemed very simple. Once the decision was made, it all fell into place.
He returned to the village at dusk, as instructed, in time for supper. They sat around the table as usual, Father at the head, Mama at the foot, Edward and Sarah on one side, Philip and Susan on the other. Father's bad temper had disappeared, as it usually did, and he was, again as usual, determined to make it up to all. He talked and joked. His conversation played around their heads like a sea breeze. Unsuccessfully. Mama was quiet, the children inquisitive. 'You looked so funny, kneeling in the yard, Sue,' Philip said. 'Why were you kneeling there all afternoon?'
Susan stared at her plate.
'She'd been kissing Edward,' Sarah said. 'Hadn't you, Sue? Like this.' She pursed her lips and thrust them forward.
'Be quiet, child,' Mama snapped, and looked at Tom.
'Aye,' Father said. 'Be quiet. You'll not bear a grudge, Susan.'
Susan's head raised, for the first time. There were tear stains on her cheeks.
'Say so, girl,' Father commanded. ‘I'll not bear a grudge, Mr Warner’
Edward tried to attract her attention by staring at her. But she would not look at him.
'Well, then,' Father said. ‘It's done.' He stood up. 'You'll join me in a leaf, Edward.'
There was condescension. They were all adults together, now, provided they stopped being adults whenever he so commanded. Edward's anger rose, kept his resolve at fever pitch. He retired early, to the hammock in the room he shared with Philip and Sarah. They were already abed, and soon asleep. But he had to wait for the others, to listen to every last creak. At last he fell asleep himself, to awaken with a start only a few minutes later. The house was still, the village quiet, the only sound the ever present soughing of the breeze through the trees, and the never ending rumble of the surf.
He lowered his feet from his hammock, slowly, cautiously, touched the floor, and stood up. He had deliberately undressed in his most careless fashion, left his breeches under the hammock. These he dragged on, but did not bother with shoes. He seldom wore them anyway, and he would not need them where he was going.
He picked up his sword and crossed the floor, listening to the snoring from Sarah's hammock. She seemed to breathe less than to wheeze, and she was six years old. Pity the man who married her, and spent the rest of his life listening to her gasp. Carefully he pulled the door open, watching the hammocks behind him, motionless in the gloom. He would never see them again. Did he care? They were strangers to him, milksops from a milksop society, their inadequacy revealed in the paleness of their skins. No, he would not miss them.
He stood in the little hall, listening, and hearing nothing. Well, then, Mama? He would never see her again, either. But he was deliberately escaping, Mama. And with Susan at his side he would have no time to think of other women, other limbs, other breasts, other lips.
Susan slept in the front room, which meant that she was compelled to stow and rehang her hammock with each day and night. But at least here she was alone. Cautiously he crossed the room, anxious about a board which had creaked during dinner. But this time there was no sound. He stood by the hammock, his eyes accustomed to the darkness now, and looked down at her. Her hair drifted over the side, seemed almost to touch the floor. She was on her back, her face upturned.
He bent lower, and her whisper reached him. ‘If ye touch me, Master Edward, I shall scream.'
He knelt beside her. He was so close he could smell her; even her scent held endless promise. 'Listen. Will you come with me?'
Now at last she moved, to turn her body so that she could face him. 'Come with yer’
'We shall leave this place. This island. I have thought it out. The Caribs keep no night watch, and their canoes are on the beach. We will take one, and paddle across to Nevis, It is only a few miles, and the Indians say it is uninhabited. They will never find us.'
‘Ye're mad,' she asserted. 'What would we live on?’
There are fish, and coconuts. Same as here. I would take weapons. Father's pistols are right by the door.'
'Such a step takes courage,' she said. ‘I doubt ye possess so much, Edward. Ye'd not defy your father.'
'Will you not trust me?'
‘With my life? It amounts to that, whether we succeed or not.'
‘I'd give my life for you, Susan. I swear it But allow me the chance.'
She smiled; he felt her breath on his face, and he could see the flash of her teeth. 'Ye're a passionate devil, Edward Warner. And all ye really want is to pull these tits. Here boy, help yourself.' She leaned out of the hammock and her breasts touched his face; he realized with a thrill of amazement that she was naked beneath the blanket. He seized her shoulders, crushed his face into the soft flesh, felt the erect nipples seep into his mouth, heard the beat of her heart only an inch away. 'God,' she whispered. 'Ye have a way with ye, boy.'
But he was pushing her away. He did not know why. Except that he hated Father and every human being on the colony. On the island. Save this one. ‘I want you as my wife,' he said. ‘I want all of you. Will you come?'
She waited, for the longest moment he had ever known. Then she threw back the blanket, chopped her feet to the floor. He was alone with a naked, beautiful white woman, for the second time in his life. He felt a tremendous surge of energy and manhood within him. But it was not merely sexual. Here was an enormous responsibility, placed on his shoulders. An enormous honour, placed in his keeping. To protect that he could assail the world.
It was a time to do. As she reached for her shift, he tiptoed across the room to stick a brace of pistols in his belt, and hang the pouch with the bullets and powder over his shoulder. Aye, he thought. The world.
He led her through the jungle paths he knew so well, navigating himself by the moon. Often he held her hand to help her over an outcrop; the touch of her sent his heart pounding and his mind soaring. They spoke little. In the strangest way, where down to yesterday he had been master and she servant, now in a matter of hours they had become old friends. Intimate friends, although he had hardly touched her.
But their progress was slow, and soon enough he felt the shift in the breeze which heralded dawn. He stopped. 'We'll not make Nevis before daybreak,' he said.
She waited, for him to decide to go back. What would she do then, he wondered? They could not regain their hammocks before daybreak, either.
‘If we go farther into the forest,' he said. ‘We can lie there the day. It will be better, indeed. For they will not suppose us to be so close.' He bit his lip as she did not reply. ‘It'll mean going hungry, but just for one day. And then tomorrow night, when they have abandoned the search, we may resume our way without difficulty.'
'We'll not go hungry.' She also carried a bag over her shoulder, and from it took a cheese. ‘I thought our journey might well be delayed. But the concealment must lie in your care. I know naught of this forest.'
Yet she was not afraid of it, or if she was, she did not reveal it. He left the shore and struck inland, using the mass of Mount Misery, for such was the name the white men had given to the central hill, as a guide. They plunged into ever thicker trees, ever more close-packed bushes; had he not by now been certain there were no snakes on the island he would have been afraid himself. They forded tumbling streams and waded cooling pools, climbing all the while, as the sky lightened and the sun, huge and round and red, came peeping above the eastern horizon, bouncing from all the mountain peaks of the Leewards before reaching Merwar's Hope, the last of them all.
'Here,' he said, coming across a fern-filled hollow. 'Here we will be safe. They will not come this far to look for us.'
Susan flopped on to her face, and lay there on the damp grass, breathing slowly, muscles still twitching with exhaustion. ‘I have not been so weary for years,' she said. 'But so... so clean, as well. Because I have not been so free, for years.'
He knelt beside her. He was as exhausted, surely. But he remained excited by her nearness. And now there could be no going back. The village would have been awakened by now, and their departure would have been noticed. There would be a great deal of excitement on the beach. Now it was the pair of them, against the world. As he had wanted.
He touched her, gently, taking her thick hair and drawing it through his fingers, arranging it so that it lay evenly on her back.
‘I must sleep,' she whispered. ‘I must sleep. When I awaken, Edward, dear Edward....'
'When you awaken,' he said. There must be no forcing of this girl. No antagonizing. No differences between them. They must be as one, now and always.
He moved away, sat against a tree, watched her as he ate some of the cheese. He was tired, certainly, but still too excited to sleep. And just to look at her was to watch a dream come true. For soon she turned, on her side towards him, pillowed on the soft ferns, one knee drawn up, her arms extended in front of her and then clasped, drawing her breasts together, glowing white globes which thrust upwards from the tattered shift. All his, now. All his.
He slept, and awoke, to watch her again. For she too had awakened, and taken herself into the forest with a modesty he had not expected; Yarico had never done more than spread her legs as she felt the need. But now he could watch the flaming hair moving through the ferns, without hearing the rest of her.
She parted the bushes, looked down at him. 'What time is it?’
'Not yet noon.'
A bead of sweat trickled out from her hair and rolled down her temple. Even her sweat was different to Yarico's. 'Do ye wish me, then?' she asked.
His throat was dry. He had to lick his lips. 'Are you not hungry?'
'Afterwards,' she said. ‘I should like to know, now, that we can love, Edward.'
'Yes,' he said, and felt the blood rushing into his face.
She lifted the shift over her head, half turned away from him, spread it on the ground, stooping, her back to him. All he had ever dreamed of. All any man had ever dreamed of, except for the thinnness. She had none of Mother's voluptuousness. The legs were endlessly long, endlessly straight, smoothly muscled. The buttocks were small, and tight; they controlled the equally tight muscles of the flat belly. Even the thighs were slender as a boy's, and the hair was scanty, however thick. The breasts were smaller than he had supposed, but yet they surged, standing away from her chest as if scarce belonging to her, only just beginning to sag from their own weight, with nipples long and pointed like a poking finger. And the whole was shrouded in the white skin, all lightly dusted with the pale brown freckles, firm textured and amazingly dry, where Mama had been moist to the touch.
He moved behind her, caught her round the waist as Yarico had taught him, hands sliding up her breasts while he brought his body against hers. She uttered a little shriek, and kicked him, twisting her body to and fro, striking behind her with her elbows. He let her go and fell backwards, sitting on the ferns to stare up at her in dismay. 'Susan?'
She panted, on her knees, turning slowly to face him. 'Are ye a monster?’
'A ... did you not want me?'
‘I wanted ye, Edward. But not up the arse. I'm Christian, no matter what may have happened to me.'
'Up the... no,' he protested. ‘I did not mean that. Sue, dearest Sue, I but sought to make an entry.' He leaned forward to take her hands, so obviously upset that her gaze softened.
'Ye claimed experience,' she muttered. ‘I believed ye.' 'Tell me,' he begged. ‘I have no knowledge of white girls." Her frown was back. 'Ye've been with an Indian? Mounted her like a dog?’ ‘It is their way.'
'Christ,' she said. 'Oh Christ, what have I done?' She looked down at her body, as if seeing it for the first time.
‘I am the same man,' he said. ‘If you would educate me, Susan, I shall submit with pleasure.'
'A savage,' she said. 'Ye've entered a heathen savage. Aye, they call ye Caribee.' She pulled her hands free. 'Ye must allow me time, Edward. Not long. I swear it. But ye must let me accept ye as ye are, not as I had imagined.'
'You thought me an innocent boy,' he said, and gasped in honor at the face.
She had picked up her shift. 'Aye. With a backyard tumble to your credit.' She glanced at him, saw his expression, and following his gaze. They were surrounded by faces, brown and amused, interested and delighted. Successful faces. As how else could they be? This was their forest. The white people were no more than intruders.
'Oh, Christ have mercy on me,' Susan whispered.
'Be merciful to her, Tom, I beg of you,' Rebecca whispered. They stood in front of the entire colony, in front of the village, looking down the sweep of the beach as the Caribs drove their two captives towards Sandy Point. Edward's and Susan's wrists were bound behind them, and they stumbled over the sand, heads bowed as the Indians kicked them and prodded them; Susan's hair clouded across her face and hid her tears.
'Merciful,' Tom muttered. ‘I dare not be, sweetheart. I would, believe me. But these people, understand how they watch me. How they wait, to see the temper of Warner justice, whether weak or strong.' His throat was dry. Be merciful, she said. Perhaps that would not, after all, be difficult. Did he fear a single one of the colonists? He could truthfully say not. He had measured them all, their abilities and their ineptness, their strengths and their weaknesses, and he knew that against them he could call out the resources of Tegramond and his savages, whenever he wished.
But that was not quite true. He did fear one white person on this island. And that boy was now approaching him, bound and humiliated. There would be a reckoning there, one day, and that reckoning would not be abated by love. Only by strength, and determination. And in the end, by fear.
And then, the girl. Oh, Christ, the girl. She was close now, staggering towards him. Sweat drenched her body, rolled from her hair in a steady stream. Her shift was caught against her flesh at breast and thigh and groin. He had never seen a woman quite so perfectly made. But she was an Irish whore. This thought had crossed his mind too often. It had crossed his mind when Rebecca had first elected to have her in their house. He had thought then, what a blameless life you have led, Tom Warner. What woman have you ever sought, what woman, have you ever considered, save your wife; if not Sarah, then Rebecca. But of late the zest had gone from Rebecca's love-making. The eager woman who had worked her body against his that morning in the Tower no longer existed. Was it fear of another pregnancy? According to Jane Warner she had all but died. Or was it, despite all her assurances, a deep seated resentment against his having left her? He often wondered how Rebecca, not yet forty, strongly built and passionate by nature, had spent those three years. With Sarah at her breast she would have been more beautiful, more passionate than ever; he remembered the nursing mother of Edward and Philip.
The prisoners stood before him, feet sinking into the soft sand, breath rasping, sweat staining their faces. The Caribs piled the sword and pistols in front of them.
Tom gazed at his son. "You'll answer a charge of deserting the colony, and larceny.'
'Larceny, Father,' Edward said. 'There is no law against deserting the colony.'
'The boy speaks the truth, Tom,' Berwicke pointed out. 'But this is an omission on our part that were best remedied.'
'Aye,' Tom said. ‘I'm assuming the girl led you, boy.'
'No, sir,' Edward declared. ‘It was my doing. We meant no harm, sir. We wished only to marry. And as that was impossible here, we sought another, less restricted land.'
Tom turned to the girl. After several attempts she had succeeded in tossing the cloud of red hair from her face; only a few strands remained, past which the grey eyes looked with their usual clarity. Those eyes, those lips, that body, possessed by Edward. How he hated her. Hated with all the intensity of a savage jealousy. Hated with the anger of a man who must at all costs remain the disinterested judge.
'Have you no words?' he demanded. 'You were on the beach, when the articles were read. For absconding the colony, four dozen lashes.’
'No,' Rebecca cried.
'Be quiet, woman.'
He watched Susan's nostrils dilate as she breathed. ‘Ye'd find it easier to cut my throat,' she said quietly. 'But not so enjoyable, maybe.'
She defied him. She had identified the desire in him. Perhaps she had always known it, in the way he had looked at her.
'Four dozen lashes were too much for a woman, Tom,' Ashton whispered. 'She'd not survive. And if she did, she'd be good for nothing.'
'You'd start sentencing on physical appearances, Hal?'
'You've no right to punish her at all, sir,' Edward said. 'She is no longer an indentured servant, as I have taken her as my wife.'
Tom stepped forward, whipped the back of his hand across the boy's face. Edward took the blow with a jerk of his head, but kept his feet. ‘I'm Governor here, by God,' Tom said. ‘I'm the King's Lieutenant. You'd do well to remember that.' He raised his voice. 'All of you. I act for the King, in his name. My son has reminded me that we suffer from serious omissions here, as regards law. I had hoped that such laws would not be necessary, but as they are, why, by God, we shall set to work this afternoon to draw up a code to manage our conduct. But the girl is a confessed absconder and for the servants there are laws enough. She'll receive four dozen lashes.'
'Tom,' Rebecca screamed. 'You cannot.'
'Get away, woman,' Tom shouted, freeing his arm with a jerk. He moved so violently that she staggered. Then she regained her balance, gazed at her husband for a moment, and went into their house. Sarah ran behind her, coughing and sneezing. Philip remained standing in the porch, staring at his father and brother with wide eyes.
Susan's mouth slowly opened, as if she would have spoken. Now she slowly closed it again. There were pink spots in her cheeks.
‘It shall be done now,' Tom said, feeling the resolution seeping away from his mind. 'Mr Jarring, you'll see to it.'
"Yes, sir, Captain Warner,' Jarring cried in delight, and signalled two of his friends to follow him. 'We'll fetch stakes from the bush.'
'Four dozen lashes, Tom?" Berwicke whispered.
'She's a sturdy wench,' Tom said. 'You're bemused by her pretty face, Ralph. She's nothing but a whore from the bogs of Killarney. I doubt Jarring will mark her back.'
'By God, sir,' Edward said. ‘You harm this girl, and I'll... I’ll kill you.'
'Beware, boy,' Tom said. 'That is nothing less than treason, to threaten the King's Lieutenant. I'll have order here, by God. She'll be punished and you'll watch it, sir. We'll see if your belly has grown stronger with age.'
Colour flooded Edward's face. He had not suspected his father could enter so deep a mood. But now Jarring and his companions were back from the forest, equipped with two cut down saplings, each about six feet long. These they proceeded to embed in the sand, in front of the Governor's House, setting them four feet apart, and testing them with their own weight to make sure they would not move. A nod to the Caribs, and the Indians stood aside from their captives, yet remained in a cluster on the beach, watching the white people with great interest, no doubt wondering if they meant to eat the girl. Jarring slit the rope binding Susan's wrists, and she was marched forward, a man holding each of her arms, placed between the stakes, facing the house, and her arms extended on each side of her body, one wrist being secured to each of the uprights. Still she made no sound, but remained gazing at Tom Warner, her face composed, only her breathing a trifle laboured.
'By God, sir,' Jarring said. 'We have no whip.'
Tom found Iris mouth choked with saliva, as it had used to be when superintending an execution. He had to spit and swallow before he could speak. 'You've a belt, Mr Jarring. We all have belts.'
'A happy thought,' Jarring cried.
'No studs,' Berwicke said. 'No studs and no buckles, Mr Jarring.'
Jarring nodded. He secured five of the belts, and these he bound together at the buckles, to leave himself with five leather thongs. 'Shall I cut her hair?'
'No,' Susan cried. ‘I beg of ye, Mr Warner.'
'Let one of the women bind it,' Tom said.
‘I’ll do it,' cried an Irish girl, running forward to grin at Susan as she gathered the long red hair into two plaits, securing each one with a string, and then hanging them in front of the tensed shoulders. 'There ye are, sweetheart,' she said. 'They'll not harm a hair of your head.'
Which brought a gale of laughter from her companions.
'Then there's the shift,' Jarring said, speaking very deliberately.
'Remove it, man,' Tom shouted. 'And get on with it.'
Jarring hesitated, then seized the material and jerked; the straps parted and it came away without resistance, to fall in a cloud of linen about her ankles. Tom could hear the sucking of breaths around him. Never had he seen such a magnificent sight; the strength in thigh and arm, for she stood with legs spread and muscles tight, waiting for the first blow; the mark of the ribs, one after the other, as her breath was similarly drawn; the spread of pale forested belly, the composure of the firm-lipped face—Edward had known all this. By Christ, he thought - All this.
Jarring swung his arm, and the five fold crack spread across the beach and up into the trees. Susan's whole body shook, but she never moved her feet The second and the third blows followed in quick succession, and her eyes turned up, away from the watchers, to gaze at the sky. But now there were tears rolling down her cheeks.
The fifth blow brought her mouth open, with surprising suddenness. The sixth blow had a moan escaping those parted lips, and now her feet moved, constantly, as she shuddered and stamped. At the seventh blow the rope holding her left wrist began to slip and at the eighth blow the dam broke; as blood flew from her lacerated back she screamed, and again, and again, an endless, terrible and terrifying sound, which brought the morning alive and even had Jarring hesitating. But he was swinging again, the leather straps blood wet now in the sunlight, each blow causing a fresh cascade of red drops fly into the air, each crack bringing a fresh scream from the tortured lips. But the screams were losing their pitch, just as those so sturdy legs were losing their strength. Now she hung, her ankles and her knees flaccid, suspended by her wrists, and now the ropes holding the wrists were commencing to slide down the stakes, so that with every blow she sagged lower. She was actually being flogged into the ground. You should stop it, Tom's brain cried. Stop it now, or you will create an enemy for all the rest of your life. An enemy? He watched Edward out of the corner of his eye, watched the sweat standing out on the boy's face, the hard line into which his mouth had formed.
"You'll stop this madness, Tom Warner.'
The voice cut across the morning, a voice strange to them for upwards of a year, so unexpected they turned in horror, thinking to see a ghost, to stare at the tall, thin man, long beard a mass of curls to match the hair which tumbled about his shoulders, yet all the hair unable to conceal the tremendous gash of a mouth. He leaned on a staff, as tall as himself, and had a bow slung from his shoulders, and beside it, a quiver of arrows. Nothing else, yet the colonists gazed at him as if he were behind the touchhole of a cannon with a glowing match.
'Hilton?’ Ashton asked. Tony Hilton?"
Hilton came forward, slowly, into the assembly. The Caribs were shouting and gesticulating. They were unused to having anyone creeping up on them in this fashion, but they had been too interested in the white man's sport.
'By God,' Tom said. 'We had thought you dead.'
‘I am not so easily destroyed, Tom.' Hilton walked up to Jarring, still moving with great deliberation, took the bloodstained belts from his hand, and threw them on the sand. He knelt beside the girl, still now and perhaps fainted. From his belt he took his knife, gleaming sharp in the sunlight, and cut the ropes holding her wrists. She tumbled forward on to her face, without a sound, and he hastily rolled her on to her back. ‘I deserted this colony, Tom,' Hilton said. 'Would you take the flesh from my bones as well?'
'We....' Tom licked his lips. He was conscious that Rebecca was in the doorway behind him. 'We had just realized that there was an omission in our laws.'
'Laws?’ Hilton demanded. ‘I remember your dream, Tom, of a land where laws were unnecessary, where men were free.' He looked down at the girl. ‘I'll take this creature away from here.'
'You'll do what?" Jarring demanded, laying his hand on Hilton's shoulder.
A moment later he scattered sand as he stretched his length on the beach. 'No man touches me, or this girl. By Christ, Tom, you'll have to commit a murder. And be sure I'll not go alone.'
Tom chewed his lip. But his rage was past, and with it the vicious hatred of the girl. The vicious lust to see so much unattainable beauty destroyed as well. Now he felt only the sickness, the self-hatred, the certainty that this day would leave a scar across the face of the colony which time would not heal.
'She's an indentured servant, Tony,' Ashton observed mildly.
'The women are available as wives, as I understand it,' Hilton said. 'You've waved this carrot in front of as for too long. I worked and fought with you, Tom Warner, when this colony was but a dream, and you promised me something like this for my reward. Now I'm claiming my right.'
To skulk in the forest?" Tom asked.
Hilton gazed at the girl; her eyelids were starting to flutter, and even through her unconsciousness her face was beginning to twist with pain. ‘I've made a home, on the north side, Tom. Tobacco growing was never my style. But I'll submit to the laws of the colony, play my part. You need someone on watch over there, and you could use my nets. You'll get a deal more fish on windward than ever over here. But I'll bow to your laws, and to you yourself, Tom, if you give me this girl.'
'Let him take her, Tom,' Berwicke whispered. ' Tis certain you'll have a rebel on your hands in her, forever more. And when there is one troublemaker, be sure you'll find others, soon enough.'
'And do I not have a say in this?' Edward demanded.
Hilton straightened, Susan in his arms; her eyes were open, now, and she stared at him, frowning, while the pain tears still seeped away from her eyes. 'No, lad, you do not,' he said. 'She gave you her trust. You lost your right to her when you let them take you.' He walked up the sand. ‘I'll be back, with my bride. When she's in a fit state to be married.'
Tom watched them disappear into the trees, gazed at the grinning Irish, the staring colonists, the bemused Caribs. 'So what do you gawk at?" he shouted. The girl committed a crime, and has been punished. Now a place has been found for her. The incident is closed.'
Slowly, hesitating, muttering amongst themselves, the crowd broke up. Ashton glanced at Berwicke, and the two men left together, strolling down the beach deep in conversation. Only Edward remained staling at his father.
Tom picked up the sword, turned it over before raising his head. ‘I'd best keep this. Hilton was right. You have played very little of the man this day, boy.'
'Had I done so I'd have killed someone, and perhaps been killed myself. I had no conception that you would play the savage.'
‘I did what I had to do, as Governor of this colony,' Tom said. 'You'll not make these people work, and face disaster, perhaps, and rise again, by feeding them milk. As for you, boy, as you say, you would have been killed. Better that, however much the grief to your mother and I. You'll not hold your head high amongst these people, or the Indians, ever again.' He went inside. Rebecca lay in her hammock. Sarah had gone out the back. Tom threw the sword in the corner, took off his hat. 'There's not a scene I'd repeat every day of the week.'
‘You surprise me,' Rebecca said. Never had he heard such coldness in her tone.
He stood above her. 'What mean you, woman?'
Her eyes came up, gazed into his. 'You were all of dripping saliva when you saw that girl lashed. Aye, you, and every man there. I conceived myself in the midst of a pack of wolves. I'd have felt safer with the Indians.'
He hesitated. But now was not the time for more anger, especially where she was so nearly right. 'Aye,' he said. ‘It was a time for quick and savage justice, and it made us less than men. We must discover a better means of conducting our affairs, where it is less of a spectacle. It is the spectacle that does the harm.' He sighed. 'There is so much to be done. Every day turns up another problem. Edward will remain one now for too long. Hilton has reappeared to become one. And count upon it, there will be endless others. I had no conception of what I undertook, when I landed here so confidently. Yet will we survive, and prosper, Rebecca. This land is Warner land. In time we shall seek the other islands, and they too will prosper. The Spaniards have no interest where there is no gold, and in time we shall muster sufficient numbers even to set the Caribs at naught. Do not fear the future, Rebecca. My faith in it grows with every disaster we overcome. But I thank God I shall ever have you at my side in the struggle.'
Her head turned, away from him. 'Perhaps you will have me at your side, in the future, Mr Warner.'
'Perhaps?’
'Perhaps,' she said. ‘I know not now to whom I am married, a captain of the King, a kindly man, given only to just anger and legal lust, or some adventurer returned from pirating, filled with the dreams and the wild talk of Walter Raleigh, and yet entirely lacking his greatness of spirit.'
'Woman,' Tom snapped, ‘I am not in the mood to be tried by your humour.'
She sat up, a suddenly blazing virago. And once he had mourned her lack of fire. 'So, then, sir,' she shouted. 'Would you strap me, naked, between those stakes, and tear the flesh from my bones? Ah, you'd not have the courage for that, Tom Warner. You'd give the leather to that boy Jarring.'
He stared at her, taken aback, his mouth opening and shutting again.
'So leave me be,' she said. 'Give me time, to get to know this new man. I'd not anticipated more than one in my life.'
He hesitated, and then went outside. Edward still stood on the porch, staring at the sea. Phihp scraped the sand by the door. 'Why is everyone quarrelling today, Father? Why did Susan have to bleed?’
'Oh, hold your mouth shut, boy,' Tom said. But he had no wish to speak with anyone, this day; he could see Ashton and Berwicke returning up the beach. Angrily he stamped through the house again, and out the back, left the village and surveyed the growing tobacco in the field. His wealth. What he had always sought, and now possessed, in abundance. So let them have their tempers and think he had changed. He had brought them all this, and he would bring them more, and yet more.
A sound had him turning, sharply. It was no more than the faintest of rustles, in the bushes by the edge of the field.
'Who's there?' he asked.
A moment's hesitation, and then Yarico stood up.
6
The River of Blood
There she is, by God,' Jarring shouted. 'A sail. At last. A sail.' He seized the conch shell with which the watch was provided, ran to the lip of Brimstone Hill to look down on the village and the tobacco fields, and blew a long, wailing blast, which screamed on the wind across the southern half of the island. Ships were the only punctuation in the endless life of the colonists, and when the ship was delayed, morale immediately seeped away into irritation and quarrels. Thus the conch must only be blown when there could be no doubt that the sail on the horizon was standing in.
Its wail caught every attention on the island, for the sound penetrated as far as the Carib town. The Indians gathered on the beach to gaze seaward. At the foot of the hill, work in the tobacco field ceased, and the colonists and their servants and their women gathered at the water's edge, differences forgotten at this suggestion of news from home, of fresh European food and wine, of reinforcements for the colony, of a vehicle for the removal of their tobacco.
All of these things were necessary, Tom thought, as he stood on the porch of his house and gazed at his people. And yet the sinking of their differences was by far the most important. Would that he could have discovered a means of accomplishing this without the uncertain assistance of Jefferson's vessel. He had assumed that governing an island would be little different to commanding a regiment of foot, or the Tower of London, for that matter. He had assumed so many things. He had found the Irish labourers the simplest to deal with, as, indeed, so many of his foot soldiers in the past had been Irish vagabonds. These men understood command and the lash, and little else. Yet here again there was a difference. He could not inspire them, by standing before them and pointing his sword at the enemy. There was no enemy. There was not an Irishman living—it was impossible to imagine an Irishman living—who would not respond to such a call on his valour and aggression. To hoe another furrow, to prune another leaf, left them sullenly discontented; hence the stocks which had made their unwelcome appearance in the centre of the village, close by the whipping post. O'Reilly sat there now, as he had sat there for the previous two days. A big, cheerful young man with a shock of fair hair and a straggling beard, he considered himself their natural leader, apparently felt it necessary to assert himself, and suffer for it, every couple of months.
Then the women. In many ways they were the most content of all. But even that was a transient phase. Their pleasure at being freed from the ship and the prison they had infested before that, at finding themselves in a tropical paradise with eager young men to love their bodies, was already dwindling. Three were mothers; three others would not be long delayed. It was more than ever necessary for Jefferson to have brought a priest with him; already two of the girls had been whipped for promiscuity. For adultery he could order a more severe punishment
Punish, punish, punish, was that, then, to be his role? Had he exchanged the position of gaoler to the nobility merely to become gaoler to this pack of layabouts? He had punished none of the men. He was too conscious of his weakness, here. They were his colonists. They had to have arms at hand and the freedom to live their lives. So when they sought outside love he had whipped the women. He was in the presence of a force he could not command and could not otherwise control, because he lacked the strength. It should not have been so. Berwicke might by now be past physical endeavour, but Ashton remained always a powerful aid, and there should also have been Edward and Hilton; he did not doubt that they were each worth six of the colonists. But Hilton was seldom seen on the leeward coast and since he had removed her, Susan had never appeared in the village. He brought fish and coconuts, as he had promised. He acknowledged the Warners as the leaders of the colony, and no doubt, if called upon, he would lend that strong and angry right arm, that bow and that sword and that pistol to his governor. But how to summon a man ten miles away, when he might be needed in seconds?
No, if it came to a business of force, it would have to be Edward. If he could trust the boy. If he could trust the boy for anything, whether for him or against him. Near a year now, and he had not forgiven. He mooned the beach, did no more than his share of work in the fields, grew in height and breadth and strength with every day, until already, at seventeen, there was scarce a man would dare lift a hand against him in the entire colony—and remembered.
As did Rebecca. Only in Rebecca's presence did Edward's face soften; only when Edward was near did Rebecca smile. But Rebecca provided a more serious cause for concern. She would have few relations with him, only those she regarded as her duty. But this was not entirely disgust, he was sure. She complained of headaches and was often hot to the touch, while she sweated in a quite unusual profusion. Her dwindling strength could be seen in the gauntness of her face and body, the great shadows which had accumulated under her eyes, the sudden streaks of white which marked her hair. She was ailing, and he knew not what caused it. As with Sarah. Her constantly running nose and her endless sneezes were more a matter of irritation than alarm, but she was none the less hardly suited to this climate.
Of all his family, only Philip was unchangingly his, in appearance and health and support. But Philip wanted several years to manhood. He had not been forced to it like his brother.
And did they, did the colonists, did the labourers, did his personal problems, really matter? Was not the colony, despite all, thriving, and had not the ship, after all, arrived? Were not his fears the product of his own imagination, his own guilt? Because he was guilty. He was guilty of so many crimes he dared not stop to count them. Of adultery, merely to begin with. Of breaking his own rule regarding Indian women. Of loving, where he had never loved Rebecca. Of wanting and desiring like the most profligate courtier, when he had refused all during his days at court, had even, on one unforgettable occasion, spurned the advances of Frances Howard. Then he had been a man. Now he was a... a dog. Summoned to Ins duties by his bitch, daily.
But no one knew. Of this he was sure. He took himself into the forest, from time to time. But he had been given the character of a solitary man, disappointed in his family, in his colonists, in his very island. No one knew how his heart sang with joy whenever he saw her, waiting for him, shrouded in her midnight hair, a bundle of lascivious evil, for she was undoubtedly that, intent on possessing his body with the ferocity of some demon, reawakening in him all the long forgotten manhood he had delighted in sharing with Sarah. And no one knew, either, the black despair with which he returned from these trysts, his energy and his desire spent, the fascinating laughter of Yarico following him through the trees, flooding his ears to remind him that he, the Governor and the lawgiver, was the biggest criminal on the island.
Edward stood by the porch. ' 'Tis the ship, Father,' he said 'Will you not come?'
Tom raised his head. Excitement, at last, in the boy's tone. He must forget that word. In the man's tone. A fine figure of a man. No, a splendid figure of a man. A dominating figure of a man. He had created this colony, for Edward and Philip, to give them property and empire they could never possess in England. 'You'd best see if your mother wishes to rise.'
He walked down the beach, joined his colonists and their women and children, to stare at the vessel which came round the north of the island, drifting rather than sailing, for there was little wind.
But this ship would hardly have sailed very fast in any event. Her foremast was gone, and her mainsail was a tattered rag. Only her mizzen seemed intact, as she ghosted towards the beach.
'She's been in a storm,' someone muttered.
'A hurricane,' said someone else.
‘In the spring?' asked a third voice, with contempt.
Oh, they were knowledgeable, his colonists. But not knowledgeable enough. 'She's been in battle,' he said quietly, and their heads turned. The fact that life was a conflict, between nations, fought with guns and swords, had passed them by, here on Merwar's Hope. They fought amongst themselves, and were whipped for it, but they had seen no death here. Perhaps they doubted such a thing was possible. Sometimes he doubted it himself, could he but forget the memory of the Dominican savage being torn to pieces at the stake.
'By God,' Ashton said. 'You're right, Tom. Look there.'
For now they could see the shattered bulwarks, the gaping hole in her hull, just on the waterline.
'But she flies no flag,' Berwicke said.
'Aye. We'd best approach this with caution. She carries a deal of metal,' Tom said. 'Ralph, you'll assemble the women and prepare them to take to the forest. Where do you think she'll come ashore, Hal?'
Ashton studied her through the glass. ‘I cannot make out the name,' he muttered. 'But there are men aboard, and able to move. She is under control, and I see them making ready to anchor. She should come in by the Neck.'
'Then we'd best down there to see what can be done. Edward, you'll issue arms to every man. Not the Irish. Ralph, you'll remain here with four men to see that no mischief is done to the plantation. Creevey, you've my permission to leave the village. Make your way across the island to Mr Hilton, and request his presence, fully armed, if you please. Be off with you, now. The rest of you men will accompany me.'
They gazed at him with some surprise. They had not known such decision, such certainty, since the day the girl had been flogged. Suddenly they remembered that he was, before all else, a soldier. And that their natural instincts were in that direction, too. They fell in behind him, hefting their firepieces, with cartridges and powder horns slung from their shoulders, and cutlasses hung from their belts. They might not amount to much in a fight, Tom considered, but they looked the part, every man save himself and Ashton stripped to the waist and browned by the sun, every man eager to relieve his boredom.
They marched along the beach, a full dozen of them, staying close to the trees, in case the stranger should take it into his head to open fire, but easily keeping pace with her. And at the Neck they found Tegramond, wearing his sword, with a score of his braves, also armed.
'Ship, fight,' Tegramond said.
'Not with us, I hope, old friend,' Tom said. 'But she has certainly been in a battle. I have a notion they will want our help, not our enmity.'
Tegramond touched the sword Tom wore. 'Tom, fight,' he said.
'Only if I have to. Let us see what he has in mind, first.'
The stranger approached slowly. The men on the shore watched, and sweated, and talked amongst themselves. They had long broken their ranks and sat on the sand, drinking coconut milk and gossiping.
Edward remained standing, by himself, leaning against a tree, watching the vessel. He had no friends here. His contempt for them, and theirs for him, was too openly expressed. His mind was over on the north side of the island, but Hilton had made it plain he was not welcome, and he would not go against Hilton. Because he was afraid? He doubted that. Not of the man, at any rate.
Or did he seek to convince himself? The colonists regarded him as a nothing. They had watched him humiliated by his own father, reduced to the stature of his younger brother, into helpless obedience. Nor did he deny them that right. He waited. Life was a matter of waiting, for something. For Mother to get well again, perhaps. For Yarico to come back to him. He had gone into the forest, to their usual meeting place, and she had not been there. He had climbed Brimstone Hill, and she had not been there. She had not forgiven him, either. Yet she had not come to the village to taunt him. Perhaps he had, after all, had a civilizing effect on her.