Winston shifted uneasily in his sleep, then bolted upright, rubbing the slight ache of his scar as he became aware of the distant spatter of drums. They were sporadic, but intense. Patterns were being repeated again and again all down the coast.

He slipped from the bed and moved quietly to the slatted window, to listen more closely. But now the drums had fallen silent. The only sounds left in the sweltering predawn air were the cooing of wood doves and the harsh "quark" of egrets down by the bridge, accompanied by Joan's easy snores. He looked back and studied her face again, realizing that time was beginning to take its toll. He also knew he didn't care, though he figured she did, mightily.

She'd never concede he could take Jamaica. Maybe she was right. But odds be damned. It was time to make a stand.

Jamaica. He thought about it again, his excitement swelling. Enough cannon, and the Spaniards could never retake it, never even get a warship into the harbor. It was perfect. A place of freedom that would strike a blow against forced labor throughout the New World.

Not a minute too soon either. The future was clear as day. The English settlers in the Caribbees were about to install what had to be the most absolute system of human slavery ever seen. Admittedly, finding sufficient men and women to work the fields had always been the biggest impediment to developing the virgin lands of the Americas, especially for settlements that wanted to grow money crops for export. But now Barbados had discovered Africans. What next? If slavery proved it could work for sugar in the Caribbees, then it probably would also be instituted for cotton and tobacco in Virginia. Agricultural slavery had started here, but soon it would doubtless be introduced wholesale into North America.

Christians, perpetrating the most unspeakable crime against humanity possible. Who knew what it would someday lead to?

He no longer asked himself why he detested slavery so much, but there was a reason, if he'd wanted to think about it. A man was a man. Seeing Briggs horsewhip his Yoruba was too similar to watching Ruyters flog his seamen. He had tasted the cat-o'-nine-tails himself more than once. In fact, whipping the Yoruba was almost worse, since a seaman could always jump ship at the next port. But a slave, especially on a small island like Barbados, had nowhere to go. No escape.

Not yet. But come the day Jamaica was his...

"Are you all right, love?" Joan had awakened and was watching him.

"I was listening to the drums. And thinking." He did not turn.

"Those damned drums. Every morning. Why don't the planters put a halt to it?" She raised up and swabbed her face with the rough cotton sheet. "God curse this heat."

"I'm tired of all of it. Particularly slavery."

"I fancy these Africans are not your worry. You'd best be rethinking this daft scheme of yours with the indentures."

"That's on schedule. The Council agreed to the terms, drew up a list of men, and I picked the ones I wanted."

"What're you thinkin' to do about ordnance?" Skepticism permeated her groggy voice.

"I've got a batch of new flintlocks on the Defiance. Generously supplied to me by Anthony Walrond's trading company." He laughed. "In grateful appreciation for helping out that frigate of theirs that went aground up by Nevis Island."

"I heard about that. I also hear he'd like those muskets back."

"He can see me in hell about that." He was strolling back toward the bed, nude in the early light. She admired the hard ripple of his chest, the long, muscular legs. "Also, I've got the boys at work making some half-pikes. We've set up a forge down by the bay."

"And what, pray, are you expectin' to use for pikestaffs?"

"We're having to cut palm stalks." He caught her look. "I know. But what can I do? There's no cured wood to be had on this short a notice."

"Lo, what an army you'll have." She laughed wryly. "Do you really think all those indentures will fight?"

"For their freedom, yes." He settled onto the bed. "That's what I'm counting on."

"Well, you're counting wrong, love. Most of them don't care a damn for anything, except maybe drinkin' in the shade. Believe me, I know them."

"I'll give them something to fight for. It won't be like here, where they're worked to death, then turned out to starve."

"I could tell you a few stories about human nature that might serve to enlighten you." She stretched back and pulled up her shift to rub a mosquito bite on her thigh. "If it was me, I'd be trying to get hold of some of these Africans. From the scars I've seen on a few of them, I'd say they've done their share of fighting. On my faith, they scare the wits half out of me."

"They make me uneasy too."

"How do you mean, darlin'?"

"All these drums we've been hearing. I found out in Brazil the Yoruba there can talk somehow with a special kind of drum they've got, one that looks like a big hourglass. I figure those here can do it too, only nobody realizes it. Let me tell you, Joan, there was plenty of Yoruba talk this morning. So far, the Africans here are considerably outnumbered, but if they start a revolt, the indentures might decide to rise up too. Then..."

"Some indentures here tried a little uprising once, a couple of years back. And about a dozen got hanged for their pains. I don't fancy they'll try it again soon."

"Don't be so sure. Remember how the Irish indentures went over to the Spaniards that time they attacked the English settlement up on Nevis Island? They swam out to the Spaniards' frigates, hailed them as fellow Papists, and then told them exactly where all the fortifications were."

"But how many of these Africans are there here now? Probably not all that many."

"Maybe not yet. With the Dutch slavers that've come so far, I'd guess there're no more than a couple of thousand or so. But there're more slave ships coming every week. Who knows what'll happen when there're three or four thousand, or more?"

"It'll not happen soon. How can it?" She slipped her arms around his neck and drew him down next to her. "Let's talk about something else. Tell me how you plan to take Jamaica. God's life, I still don't know why you'd want to try doing it at all."

"You're just afraid I can't do it." He turned and kissed her, then pulled down the top of her shift and nipped at one of her exposed breasts. "Tell me the truth."

"Maybe I will someday. If you get back alive." She took his face in her hands and lifted it away. "By the bye, I hear you had a fine time at the ball. Dancin' with that jade."

"Who?"

"You know who, you whoremaster. The high and mighty Miss Bedford."

"I'd had a bit to drink. I don't precisely recall what all happened."

"Don't you now? Well, some of the Council recall that evening well enough, you can be sure. You weren't too drunk to scare the wits out of them with those Spanish pistols. It's the talk of the island." She watched as he returned his mouth to her breast and began to tease the nipple with his tongue. "Now listen to me. That little virgin's no good for you. For one thing, I hear she's supposed to be marryin' our leading royalist, Sir Anthony, though I swear I don't know what he sees in her. She's probably happier ridin' her horse than being with a man. I warrant she'd probably as soon be a man herself."

"I don't want to hear any more about Miss Bedford." He slipped an arm beneath her and drew her up next to him. "I've got something else in mind."

She trailed her hand down his chest to his groin. Then she smiled. "My, but that's promisin'."

"There's always apt to be room for improvement. If you set your mind to it."

"God knows, I've spoiled you." She leaned over and kissed his thigh, then began to tease him with her tongue. Without a word he shifted around and brushed the stubble of his cheeks against her loins. She was already moist, from sweat and desire.

"God, that's why I always let you come back." She moved against him with a tiny shudder. "When by rights I should know better. Sometimes I think I taught you too well what pleases me."

"I know something else you like even better." He seized a plump down pillow and stationed it in the middle of the bed, then started to reach for her. She was assessing her handiwork admiringly. He was ready, the way she wanted him.

"Could be." She drew herself above him. "But you can't always be havin' everything your own way. You've got me feelin' too randy this mornin'. So now I'm going to show you why your frustrated virgin, Miss Bedford, fancies ridin' that horse of hers so much."

Serina was already awake before the drums started. Listening intently to catch the soft cadence of the verses, she repeated them silently, knowing they meant the cowrie shells had been cast.

It was madness.

Benjamin Briggs sometimes called her to his room in the mornings, but she knew there would be no call today. He had ordered her from his bed just after midnight, drunk and cursing about a delay at the sugar mill.

Who had cast the cowries? Was it the tall, strong one named Atiba? Could it be he was also a Yoruba babalawo?

She had heard the verses for the cowries once before, years ago in Brazil. There were thousands, which her mother had recited for her all in one week, the entire canon. Even now she still remembered some of them, just a few. Her mother had never admitted to anybody else she knew the verses, since women weren't supposed to cast the cowries. The men of the Yoruba always claimed the powers of the cowries were too great for any save a true babalawo, and no woman would ever be permitted to be that. Women were only allowed to consult the gods by casting the four quarters of the kola nut, which only foretold daily matters. Important affairs of state were reserved for the cowries, and for men. But her mother had secretly learned the verses; she'd never said how. She'd even promised to explain them one day, but that day never came.

When she was sure the drums had finished, she rose slowly from the sweltering pallet that served as her bed and searched the floor in the half-dark till she felt the smooth cotton of her shift. She slipped it on, then began brushing her long gleaming hair, proud even now that it had always been straight, like a Portuguese donna's.

She slept alone in a small room next to the second-floor landing of the back stairway, the one by the kitchen that was used by servants. When she had finished with her hair and swirled it into a high bun, Portuguese style, she slowly pushed open the slatted jalousies to study the clutter of the compound. As always, she found herself comparing this haphazard English house to the mansion she had known in Brazil, on the large plantation outside Pernambuco.

Now it seemed a memory from another world, that dazzling white room she had shared with her mother in the servants' compound. The day the senhor de engenho, the master of the plantation, announced that she would go to the black-robed Jesuits' school, instead of being put to work in the fields like most of the other slave children, her mother had begun to cry. For years she had thought they were tears of joy. Then the next day her mother had started work on their room. She had whitewashed the walls, smeared a fresh layer of hard clay on the floor, then planted a small frangipani tree by the window. During the night its tiny red blossoms would flood their room with a sweet, almost cloying fragrance, so they woke every morning to a day bathed in perfume. Years later her mother had confessed the beautiful room and the perfume of the tree were intended to always make her want to return there from the foul rooms of the branco and their priests.

She remembered those early years best. Her mother would rise before dawn, then wake the old, gnarled Ashanti slave who was the cook for the household, ordering the breakfast the senhor had specified the night before. Then she would walk quietly down to the slave quarters to waken the gang driver, who would rouse the rest of the plantation with his bell. Next she would return to their room and brush her beautiful mulata daughter's hair, to keep it always straight and shining, in preparation for the trip to the mission school the priests had built two miles down the road.

Serina still recalled the barefoot walk down that long, tree- lined roadway, and her mother's command, repeated every morning, to never let the sun touch her light skin. Later she would wander slowly back through the searing midday heat, puzzling over the new language called Spanish she was learning, and the strange teachings of the Christians. The priests had taught her to read from the catechism, and to write out the stories they told of the Catholic saints--stories her mother demanded she repeat to her each night. She would then declare them lies, and threaten her with a dose of the purgative physic-nut to expel their poisons.

Her mother would sometimes stroke her soft skin and explain that the Christians' false God must have been copied from Olorun, the Yoruba high god and deity of the cosmos. It was well known he was the universal spirit who had created the world, the only god who had never lived on earth. Perhaps the Christians had somehow heard of him and hoped to steal him for their own. He was so powerful that the other gods were all his children--Shango, Ogun, all the Yoruba deities of the earth and rivers and sky. The Yoruba priests had never been known to mention a white god called Jesu.

But she had learned many things from Jesu's priests. The most important was that she was a slave. Owned by the senhor de engenho. She was his property, as much as his oxen and his fields of cane. That was the true lesson of the priests. A lesson she had never forgotten.

These new saltwater Yoruba were fools. Their life and soul belonged to the branco now. And only the branco could give it back. You could never take it back yourself. There was nothing you could do to make your life your own again.

She recalled a proverb of the Ashanti people. "A slave does not choose his master.''

A slave chose nothing.

She found herself thinking again of her mother. She was called Dara, the Yoruba name meaning "beautiful." And she was beautiful, beyond words, with soft eyes and delicate skin and high cheekbones. Her mother Dara had told her how she had been taken to the bed of her Portuguese owner after only a week in Brazil. He was the senhor de engenho, who had sired mulata bastards from the curing house to the kitchen. They were all still slaves, but her mother had thought her child would be different. She thought the light-skinned girl she bore the branco would be made free. And she had chosen a Yoruba name for her.

The senhor de engenho had decided to name her Serina, one night while drunk.

A slave chose nothing.

Dara's mulata daughter also was not given her freedom. Instead that daughter was taken into the master's house: taught to play the lute and dance the galliards of Joao de Sousa

Carvalho when she was ten, given an orange petticoat and a blue silk mantle when she was twelve, and taken to his bed the day she was fourteen. Her own father. He had used her as his property for eight years, then sold her to a stinking Englishman. She later learned it was for the princely sum of a hundred pounds.

A slave chose nothing.

Still, something in the Defiance of Atiba stirred her. He was bold. And handsome, even though a preto. She had watched his strong body with growing desire those two days they were together in the boiling house. She had begun to find herself wanting to touch him, to tame his wildness inside her. For a moment he had made her regret she had vowed long ago never to give herself to a preto. She was half white, and if ever she had a child, that child would be whiter still. To be white was to be powerful and free. She also would make certain her child was Christian. The Christian God was probably false, but in this world the Christians held everything. They owned the Yoruba. The Yoruba gods of her mother counted for nothing. Not here, not in the New World.

She smiled resignedly and thought once more of Atiba. He would have to learn that too, for all his strength and his pride, just as she had. He could call on Ogun to tell him the future, but that god would be somewhere out of hearing if he tried to war against the branco. She had seen it all before in Brazil. There was no escape.

A slave chose nothing.

Could he be made to understand that? Or would that powerful body one day be hanged and quartered for leading a rebellion that could only fail?

Unsure why she should bother, yet unable to stop herself, she turned from the window and quietly headed down the creaking, makeshift rear stair. Then she slipped past the kitchen door and onto the stone steps leading out into the back of the compound. It was still quiet, with only the occasional cackle of Irish laughter from the kitchen, whose chimney now threaded a line of wood smoke into the morning air.

The gate opened silently and easily--the indenture left to guard it was snoring, still clasping an empty flask--and she was out onto the pathway leading down the hill to the new thatched huts of the slaves.

The path was quiet and gray-dark. Green lizards scurried through the grass around her and frogs whistled among the palms, but there was no sign the indentures were awake yet. In the distance she could hear the low voice of Atiba, lecturing courage to his brave Yoruba warriors.

The preto fools.

She knew a woman would not be welcome, would be thought to "defile" their solemn council of war. Let them have their superstitions. This was the New World. Africa was finished for them. They weren't Yoruba warriors now. Here they were just more preto slaves, for all their posturing. Once more she was glad she had been raised a Portuguese, not a Yoruba woman bound to honor and revere whatever vain man she had been given to as wife.

As she neared the first hut, she stopped to look and shake her head sadly. What would the slaves in Brazil think of these thatched hovels? She knew. They would laugh and ridicule the backwardness of these saltwater preto, who knew nothing of European ways.

Then she noticed a new drum, a small one only just finished, that had been left out for the sun to dry. She had heard once what these special drums were for. They were used in ceremonies, when the men and women danced and somehow were entered and possessed by the gods. But there were no Yoruba women on Briggs' plantation. He had not bothered to buy any yet, since men could cut cane faster. She wanted to smile when she realized the Yoruba men here had to cook their own food, a humiliation probably even greater than slavery, but the smile died on her lips when she realized the drum was just a sad relic of a people torn apart.

She examined the drum, recalling the ones she had seen in Brazil. Its wood was reddish and the skins were tied taut with new white cords. She smoothed her hand against her shift, then picked it up and nestled it under her arm, feeling the coolness of the wood. She remembered the goat skin could be tuned by squeezing the cords along the side. Carefully she picked up the curved wooden mallet used to play it and, gripping the drum tightly against her body, tapped it once, twice, to test the fluctuation in pitch as she pressed the cords.

The sharp, almost human sound brought another rush of memories of Brazil, nights when she had slipped away to the slave quarters and sat at the feet of a powerful old babalawo, an ancient Yoruba priest who had come to be scorned by most of the newly baptized slaves. She was too young then to know that a mulata did not associate with black preto, that a mulata occupied a class apart. And above.

She had listened breathlessly night after starry night as he spun out ancient Yoruba legends of the goddess Oshun--who he said was the favorite wife of Shango. Then he would show her how to repeat the story back to him using just the talking drum.

She looked toward the gathering in the far hut, thinking again of the verses of the cowries. Holding the drum tightly, she began to play the curved stick across the skin. The words came easily.

A se were lo nko

You are learning to be a fool.

O ko ko ogbon

You do not learn wisdom.

She laughed to herself as she watched the startled faces of the Yoruba men emerging from the thatched hut. After a moment, she saw Atiba move out onto the pathway to stare in her direction. She set the drum onto the grass and stared back.

He was approaching now, and the grace of his powerful stride again stirred something, a desire she had first felt those nights in the boiling house. What would it be like, she wondered again, to receive a part of his power for her own?

Though his face declared his outrage, she met his gaze with Defiance--a mulata need never be intimidated by a preto. She continued to watch calmly as he moved directly up the path to where she stood.

Without a word he seized the drum, held it skyward for a moment, then dashed it against a tree stump. Several of the partly healed lash marks on his back opened from the violence of the swing. He watched in satisfaction as the wood shattered, leaving a clutter of splinters, cords, and skin. Then he revolved toward her.

"A branco woman does not touch a Yoruba drum."

Branco. She had never heard herself referred to before as "white." But she had always wanted to. Always. Yet now... now he spat it out, almost as though it meant "unclean."

"A branco woman may do as she pleases." She glared back at him. "That's one of the first things you will have to learn on this island."

"I have nothing to learn from you. Soon, perhaps, you may learn from me."

"You've only begun to learn." She felt herself turning on him, bitterly. She could teach him more than he ever dreamed. But why? "You'll soon find out that you're a preto. Perhaps you still don't know what that means. The branco rule this island. They always will. And they own you."

"You truly are a branco. You may speak our tongue, but there is nothing left of your Yoruba blood. It has long since drained away."

"As yours will soon. To water the cane on this island, if you try to rise up against the branco. "

"I can refuse to submit." The hardness in his eyes aroused her. Was it desperation? Or pride?

"And you'll die for it."

"Then I will die. If the branco kills me today, he cannot kill me again tomorrow. And I will die free." He fixed her with his dark gaze, and the three Yoruba clan marks on his cheek seemed etched in ebony. Then he turned back toward the hut and the waiting men. "Someday soon, perhaps, I will show you what freedom means."

Chapter Five

Katherine held on to the mizzenmast shrouds, shielding her eyes against the glitter of sun on the bay, and looked at Hugh Winston. He was wearing the identical shabby leather jerkin and canvas breeches she remembered from that first morning, along with the same pair of pistols shoved into his belt. He certainly made no effort to present a dignified appearance. Also, the afternoon light made you notice even more the odd scar across one weathered cheek. What would he be like as a lover? Probably nothing so genteel as Anthony Walrond.

Good God, she thought, what would Anthony, and poor Jeremy, say if they learned I came down here to the Defiance, actually sought out this man they hate so much. They'd probably threaten to break off marriage negotiations, out of spite.

But if something's not done, she told herself, none of that's going to matter anyway. If the rumor from London is true, then Barbados is going to be turned upside down. Hugh Winston can help us, no matter what you choose to think of him.

She reflected on Winston's insulting manner and puzzled why she had actually half looked forward to seeing him again. He certainly had none of Anthony's breeding, yet there was something magnetic about a man so rough and careless. Still, God knows, finding him a little more interesting than most of the dreary planters on this island scarcely meant much.

Was he, she found herself wondering, at all attracted to her?

Possibly. If he thought on it at all, he'd see their common ground. She finally realized he despised the Puritans and their slaves as much as she did. And, like her, he was alone. It was a bond between them, whether he knew it now or not....

Then all at once she felt the fear again, that tightness under her bodice she had pushed away no more than half an hour past, when her mare had reached the rim of the hill, the last curve of the rutted dirt road leading down to the bay. She'd reined in Coral, still not sure she had the courage to go and see Winston. While her mare pawed and tugged at the traces, she took a deep breath and watched as a gust of wind sent the blood-red blossoms from a grove of cordia trees fleeing across the road. Then she'd noticed the rush of scented air off the sea, the wide vista of Carlisle Bay spreading out below, the sky full of tiny colored birds flitting through the azure afternoon.

Yes, she'd told herself, it's worth fighting for, worth jeopardizing everything for. Even worth going begging to Hugh Winston for. It's my home.

"Do you ever miss England, living out here in the Caribbees?" She tried to hold her voice nonchalant, with a lilt intended to suggest that none of his answers mattered all that much. Though the afternoon heat was sweltering, she had deliberately put on her most feminine riding dress--a billowing skirt tucked up the side to reveal a ruffle of petticoat and a bodice with sleeves slashed to display the silk smock beneath. She'd even had the servants iron it specially. Anthony always noticed it, and Winston had too, though he was trying to pretend otherwise.

"I remember England less and less." He sipped from his tankard--he had ordered a flask of sack brought up from the Great Cabin just after she came aboard--and seemed to be studying the sun's reflection in its amber contents. "The Americas are my home now, for better or worse. England doesn't really exist for me anymore."

She looked at him and decided Jeremy had been right; the truth was he'd probably be hanged if he returned.

He paused a moment, then continued, "And you, Miss Bedford, have you been back?"

"Not since we left, when I was ten. We went first to Bermuda, where father served for two years as governor and chief officer for the Sommers Island Company. Then we came down here. I don't really even think of England much anymore. I feel I'm a part of the Americas now too." She shaded her face against the sun with one hand and noticed a bead of sweat trickling down her back, along the laces of her bodice. "In truth, I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever see England again."

"I'd just as soon never see it again." He rose and strolled across the deck, toward the steering house. Then he settled his tankard on the binnacle and began to loosen the line securing the whipstaff, a long lever used for controlling the rudder. "Do you really want to stay aboard while I take her out?"

"You've done it every day this week, just around sunset. I've watched you from the hill, and wondered why." She casually adjusted her bodice, to better emphasize the plump fullness of her breasts, then suddenly felt a surge of dismay with herself, that she would consider resorting to tawdry female tricks. But desperate times brought out desperate measures. "Besides, you've got the only frigate in the bay now that's not Dutch, and I thought I'd like to see the island from offshore. I sometimes forget how beautiful it is."

"Then you'd best take a good, long look, Miss Bedford," he replied matter-of-factly. "It's never going to be the same again, not after sugar takes over."

"Katherine. You can call me Katherine." She tried to mask the tenseness--no, the humiliation--in her voice. "I'm sufficiently compromised just being down here; there's scarcely any point in ceremony."

"Then Katherine it is, Miss Bedford." Again scarcely a glimmer of notice as he busied himself coiling the line. But she saw John Mewes raise his heavy eyebrows as he mounted the quarterdeck companionway, his wide belly rolling with each labored step. Winston seemed to ignore the quartermaster as he continued, "Since you've been watching, then I suppose you know what to expect. We're going to tack her out of the harbor, over to the edge of those reefs just off Lookout Point. Then we'll come about and take her up the west side of the island, north all the way up to Speightstown. It's apt to be at least an hour. Don't say you weren't warned."

Perfect, she thought. Just the time I'll need.

"You seem to know these waters well." It was rhetorical, just to keep him talking. Hugh Winston had sailed up the coast every evening for a week, regardless of the wind or state of the sea. He obviously understood the shoreline of Barbados better than anyone on the island. That was one of the reasons she was here. "You sail out every day."

"Part of my final preparations, Miss Bedford... Katherine." He turned to the quartermaster. "John."

"Aye." Mewes had been loitering by the steeringhouse, trying to stay in the shade as he eyed the opened flask of sack. Winston had not offered him a tankard.

"Weigh anchor. I want to close-haul that new main course one more time, then try a starboard tack."

"Aye, as you will." He strode gruffly to the quarterdeck railing and bellowed orders forward to the bow. The quiet was broken by a slow rattle as several shirtless seamen began to haul in the cable with the winch. They chattered in a medley of languages--French, Portuguese, English, Dutch.

She watched as the anchor broke through the waves and was hoisted onto the deck. Next Mewes yelled orders aloft. Moments later the mainsail dropped and began to blossom in the breeze. The Defiance heeled slowly into the wind, then began to edge past the line of Dutch merchantmen anchored along the near shoreline.

Winston studied the sail for a few moments. "What do you think, John? She looks to be holding her luff well enough."

"I never liked it, Cap'n. I've made that plain from the first. So I'm thinkin' the same as always. You've taken a fore-and-aft rigged brigantine, one of the handiest under Christian sail, and turned her into a square-rigger. We'll not have the handling we've got with the running rigging."

Mewes spat toward the railing and shoved past Katherine, still astonished that Winston had allowed her to come aboard, governor's daughter or no. It's ill luck, he told himself. A fair looker, that I'll grant you, but if it's doxies we'd be taking aboard now, I can think of plenty who'd be fitter company. He glanced at the white mare tethered by the shore, wishing she were back astride it and gone. Half the time you see her, the wench is riding like a man, not sidesaddle like a woman was meant to.

"If we're going to make Jamaica harbor without raising the Spaniards' militia, we'll have to keep short sail." Winston calmly dismissed his objections. "That means standing rigging only. No tops'ls or royals."

"Aye, and she'll handle like a gaff-sailed lugger."

"Just for the approach. While we land the men. We'll keep her rigged like always for the voyage over." He maneuvered the whipstaff to start bringing the stern about, sending a groan through the hull. "She seems to work well enough so far. We need to know exactly how many points off the wind we can take her. I'd guess about five, maybe six, but we've got to find out now."

He turned back to Katherine and caught her eyes. They held something--what was it? Almost an invitation? But that's not why she's here, he told himself. This woman's got a purpose in mind, all right. Except it's not you. Whatever it is, though, the looks of her'd almost make you wonder if she's quite so set on marrying some stiff royalist as she thinks she is?

Don't be a fool. The last thing you need to be thinking about now is a woman. Given the news, there's apt to be big trouble ahead here, and soon. You've got to be gone.

"So perhaps you'd care to tell me... Katherine, to what I owe the pleasure of this afternoon's visit. I'd venture you've probably seen the western coast of this island a few hundred times before, entirely without my aid."

"I was wondering if you'd heard what's happened in London?" She held on to the shrouds, the spider-web of ropes that secured the mast, and braced herself against the roll of the ship as the Defiance eased broadside to the sun. Along the curving shoreline a string of Dutch merchantmen were riding at anchor, all three-masted fluyts, their fore and main masts steeped far apart to allow room for a capacious hatch. In the five weeks that had passed since the Zeelander put in with the first cargo of Africans, four more slavers had arrived. They were anchored across the bay now, their round sterns glistening against the water as the afternoon light caught the gilding on their high, narrow after-structure. Riding in the midst of them was the Rotterdam, just put in from London. The sight of that small Dutch merchantman had brought back her fear. It also renewed her resolve.

"You mean about King Charles? I heard, probably before you did." He was watching her tanned face, and secretly admiring her courage. She seemed to be taking the situation calmly. "I was working down here yesterday when the Rotterdam put in."

"Then I'd like your version. What exactly did you hear?"

"Probably what everybody else heard. They brought word England's new 'Rump' Parliament, that mob of bloodthirsty Puritans installed by Cromwell's army, has locked King Charles in the Tower, with full intentions to chop off his head. They also delivered the story that Parliament has declared Barbados a nest of rebels, since your Assembly has never recognized the Commonwealth. Virginia and Bermuda also made that select list of outcasts." He glanced toward the bow, then tested the steering lever. "So, Miss Katherine Bedford, I'd say the Americas are about to see those stormy times we talked about once. Only it's a gale out of England, not here." He turned and yelled forward, "John, reef the foresail as we double the Point. Then prepare to take her hard about to starboard."

She watched as he shoved the steering lever to port, flipping the rudder to maneuver around the reefs at the edge of the bay, then reached for his pewter tankard, its sides dark with grease. And she tried to stifle her renewed disgust with him, his obvious unconcern, as she watched him drink. Maybe it really was all a game to him. Maybe nothing could make him care a damn after all. In the silence that followed, the creaks of the weathered planking along the deck grew louder, more plaintive.

"Given some of that may be true, Captain, what do you think will happen now?"

"Just call me Hugh. I presume I can enjoy my fair share of Barbados' democracy. While it lasts." He shrugged. "Since you asked, I'll tell you. I think it means the end of everything we know about the Americas. Breathe the air of independence while you still can. Maybe you didn't hear the other story going around the harbor here. The Dutchmen are claiming that after Parliament gets around to beheading the king, it plans to take over all the patents granted by the Crown. It's supposedly considering a new law called a 'Navigation Act,' which is going to decree that only English bottoms can trade with the American settlements. No Hollanders. That means the end of free trade. There's even talk in London that a fleet of warships may head this way to enforce it."

"I've heard that too. It sounds like nothing more than a Thames rumor."

"Did you know that right now all the Dutchmen here are lading as fast as they can, hoping they can put to sea before they're blockaded, or sunk, by a score of armed English men-of-war?"

"Nobody in the Assembly thinks Cromwell would go that far."

"Well, the Dutchmen do. Whatever else you might say, a Hollander's about the last man I'd call a fool. I can tell you Carlisle Bay is a convocation of nervous Netherlanders right now." He squinted against the sun. "And I'll pass along something else, Katherine. They're not the only ones. I'd just as soon be at sea myself, with my men."

She examined him, her eyes ironic. "So I take it while you're not afraid to stand up to the Council, men with pistols practically at your head, you're still worried about some navy halfway around the world."

"The difference is that the Council owed me money." He smiled wanly. "With England, it's more like the other way around."

"That's not the real reason, is it?"

"All right, how's this? For all we know, their navy may not be halfway around the world anymore." He glanced at the sun, then checked the sail again. "It's no state secret I'm not Mother England's favorite son. The less I see of the English navy, the happier I'll be."

"What'll you do if a fleet arrives while you're still here?"

"I'll worry about it then." He turned back. "A better question might be what does Barbados plan to do if a fleet arrives to blockade you and force you into line." His voice grew sober. "I'd say this island faces a difficult choice. If Parliament goes ahead and does away with the king, the way some of its hotheads reportedly want to, then there'll no longer be any legal protection for you at all. Word of this new sugar project has already gotten back to London, you can be sure. I'd suspect the Puritans who've taken over Parliament want the American colonies because they'd like a piece of Barbados' sudden new fortune for themselves. New taxes for Commons and new trade for English shippers. Now that you're about to be rich here, your years of being ignored are over." He lifted the tankard and took another drink of sack. "So what are you going to do? Submit? Or declare war on Parliament and fight the English navy?"

"If everybody here pulls together, we can resist them."

"With what?" He turned and pointed toward the small stone fortress atop Lookout Point. The hill stood rocky and remote above the blue Caribbean. "Not with that breastwork, you won't. I doubt a single gun up there's ever been set and fired. What's more, I'd be surprised if there're more than a dozen trained gunners on the whole of the island, since the royalist refugees here were mostly officers back home. The way things stand now, you don't have a chance."

"Then we'll have to learn to fight, won't we?" She tried to catch his eye. "I suppose you know something about gunnery."

"Gunners are most effective when they've got some ordnance to use." He glanced back, then thumbed toward the Point. "What's in place up there?"

"I think there're about a dozen cannon. And there're maybe that many more at the Jamestown breastwork. So the leeward coast is protected. There's also a breastwork at Oistins Bay, on the south." She paused, studying his profile against the sun. An image rose up unbidden of him commanding a battery of guns, her at his side. It was preposterous yet exhilarating. "Those are the places an invasion would come, aren't they?"

"They're the only sections of shoreline where the surf's light enough for a troop ship to put in."

"Then we've got a line of defense. Don't you think it's enough?"

"No." He spoke quietly. "You don't have the heavy ordnance to stop a landing. All you can hope to do without more guns is just try and slow it down a bit."

"But assuming that's true, where would we get more cannon? Especially now?" This was the moment she'd been dreading. Of course their ordnance was inadequate. She already knew everything he'd been saying. There was only one place to get more guns. They both realized where.

"Well, you've got a problem, Katherine." He smiled lightly, just to let her know he was on to her scheme, then looked away, toward the shoreline. On their right now the island was a mantle of deep, seemingly eternal green reaching down almost to the water's edge, and beyond that, up the rise of the first hill, were dull-colored scatterings of plantation houses. The Defiance was making way smoothly now, northward, holding just a few hundred yards off the white, sandy shore. "You know, I'm always struck by what a puny little place Barbados is." He pointed toward a small cluster of clapboard houses half hidden among the palms along the shore. "If you put to sea, like we are now, you can practically see the whole island, north to south."

She glanced at the palm-lined coast, then back. "What are you trying to say?"

"That gathering of shacks we're passing over there is the grand city of Jamestown." He seemed to ignore the question as he thumbed to starboard. "Which I seem to recall is the location of that famous tree everybody here likes to brag about so much."

Jamestown was where stood the massive oak into whose bark had been carved the inscription "James, King of E.," and the date 1625. That was the year an English captain named John Powell accidentally put in at an empty, forested Caribbean island and decided to claim it for his king.

"That tree proclaims this island belongs to the king of England. Well, no more. The king's finished. So tell me, who does it belong to now?"

"I'll tell you who it doesn't belong to. Cromwell and the English Parliament." She watched the passing shoreline, and tried to imagine what it would be like if her dream came true. If Barbados could make the stand that would change the Americas permanently.

When she'd awakened this morning, birds singing and the island sun streaming through the jalousies, she'd suddenly been struck with a grand thought, a revolutionary idea. She had ignored the servants' pleas that she wait for breakfast and ordered Coral saddled immediately. Then she'd headed inland, through the moss-floored forests whose towering ironwood and oak trees still defied the settlers' axes. Amidst the vines and orchids she'd convinced herself the idea was right.

What if all the English in the New World united? Declared their independence?

During her lifetime there had been a vast migration to the Americas, two out of every hundred in England. She had never seen the settlement in "New England," the one at Plymouth on the Massachusetts Bay, but she knew it was an outpost of Puritans who claimed the Anglican Church smacked too much of "popery." The New Englanders had always hated King Charles for his supposed Catholic sympathies, so there was no chance they'd do anything except applaud the fanatics in England who had toppled the monarchy.

But the settlements around the Chesapeake were different. Virginia was founded because of profit, not prayer books. Its planters had formed their own Assembly in 1621, the first in the Americas, and they were a spirited breed who would not give in easily to domination by England's new dictatorship. There was also a settlement on Bermuda, several thousand planters who had their own Assembly too; and word had just come they had voted to banish all Puritans from the island, in retaliation against Cromwell.

Hugh Winston, who thought he knew everything, didn't know that Bermuda had already sent a secret envoy to Dalby Bedford proposing Barbados join with them and form an alliance with Virginia and the other islands of the Caribbees to resist the English Parliament. Bermuda wanted the American colonies to stand firm for the restoration of the monarchy. The Barbados Assembly appeared to be leaning in that direction too, though they still hoped they could somehow avoid a confrontation.

But that was wrong, shed realized this morning. So very wrong. Don't they see what we really should do? This is our chance. We should simply declare the richest settlements in the Americas--Virginia, Barbados, St. Christopher, Nevis, Bermuda--independent of England. A new nation.

It was an idea she'd not yet dared suggest to Dalby Bedford, who would likely consider it close to sedition. And she certainly couldn't tell a royalist like Anthony. He'd only fight for the monarchy. But why, she asked herself, do we need some faraway king here in the Americas? We could, we should, be our own masters.

First, however, we've got to show Cromwell and his illegal Parliament that they can't intimidate the American settlements. If Barbados can stand up to them, then maybe the idea of independence will have a chance.

"I came today to ask if you'd help us stand and fight. If we have to." She listened to her own voice and knew it was strong and firm.

He stood silent for a moment, staring at her. Then he spoke, almost a whisper above the wind. "Who exactly is it wants me to help fight England? The Assembly?"

"No. I do."

"That's what I thought." He shook his head in disbelief, or was it dismay, and turned to check the whipstaff. When he glanced back, his eyes were skeptical. "I'll wager nobody knows you came down here. Am I correct?"

"I didn't exactly make an announcement about it."

"And that low-cut bodice and pretty smile? Is that just part of your negotiations?"

"I thought it mightn't hurt." She looked him squarely in the eye.

"God Almighty. What you'd do for this place! I pity Cromwell and his Roundheads." He sobered. "I don't mind telling you I'm glad at least one person here realizes this island can't defend itself as things stand now. You'd damned sure better start trying to do something." He examined her, puzzled. "But why come to me?"

She knew the answer. Hugh Winston was the only person she knew who hated England enough to declare independence. He already had. "You seem to know a lot about guns and gunnery." She moved closer and noticed absently that he smelled strongly of seawater, leather, and sweat. "Did I hear you say you had an idea where we could get more cannon, to help strengthen our breastworks?"

"So we're back to business. I might have expected." He rubbed petulantly at his scar. "No, I didn't say, though we both know where you might. From those Dutchmen in the harbor. Every merchantman in Carlisle Bay has guns. You could offer to buy them. Or just take them. But whatever you do, don't dally too long. One sighting of English sail and they'll put to sea like those flying fish around the island."

"How about the cannon on the Defiance? How many do you have?"

"I have a few." He laughed, then reflected with pride on his first-class gun deck. Twenty-two demi-culverin, nine- pounders and all brass so they wouldn't overheat. He'd trained his gunners personally, every man, and he'd shot his way out of more than one harbor over the past five years. His ordnance could be run out in a matter of minutes, primed and ready. "Naturally you're welcome to them. All you'll have to do is kill me first."

"I hope it doesn't come to that."

"So do I." He studied the position of the waning sun for a moment, then yelled forward for the men to hoist the staysail. Next he gestured toward Mewes. "John, take the whipstaff a while and tell me what you think of the feel of her. I'd guess the best we can do is six points off the wind, the way I said."

"Aye." Mewes hadn't understood what all the talk had been about, but he hoped the captain was getting the best of the doxy. "I can tell you right now this new rigging of yours makes a handy little frigate work like a damn'd five-hundred- ton galleon."

"Just try taking her about." He glanced at the shoreline. They were coming in sight of Speightstown, the settlement at the north tip of the island. "Let's see if we can tack around back south and make it into the bay."

"But would you at least help us if we were blockaded?" She realized she was praying he would say yes.

"Katherine, what's this island ever done for me? Besides, right now I've got all I can manage just trying to get the hell out of here. I can't afford to get caught up in your little quarrel with the Commonwealth." He looked at her. "Every time I've done an errand for Barbados, it's always come back to plague me."

"So you don't care what happens here." She felt her disappointment surge. It had all been for nothing, and damned to him. "I suppose I had a somewhat higher opinion of you, Captain Winston. I see I was wrong."

"I've got my own plan for the Caribbean. And that means a lot more to me than who rules Barbados and its slaves."

"Then I'm sorry I bothered asking at all."

"I've got a suggestion for you though." Winston's voice suddenly flooded with anger. "Why don't you ask your gentleman fiance, Anthony Walrond, to help? From what I hear, he was the royalist hero of the Civil War."

"He doesn't have a gun deck full of cannon." She wanted to spit in Winston's smug face.

"But he's got you, Katherine, doesn't he?" He felt an unwanted pang at the realization. He was beginning to like this woman more than he wanted to. She had brass. "Though as long as you're here anyway, why don't we at least toast the sunset? And the free Americas that're about to vanish into history." He abruptly kissed heron the cheek, watched as she flushed in anger, then turned and yelled to a seaman just entering the companionway aft, "Fetch up another flask of sack."

Benjamin Briggs stood in the open doorway of the curing- house, listening to the "sweee" call of the long-tailed flycatchers as they flitted through the groves of macaw palms. The long silence of dusk was settling over the sugarworks as the indentures and the slaves trudged wearily toward their thatched huts for the evening dish of loblolly mush. Down the hill, toward the shore, vagrant bats had begun to dart through the shadows.

In the west the setting sun had become a fiery disk at the edge of the sea's far horizon. He watched with interest as a single sail cut across the sun's lower rim. It was Hugh Winston's Defiance, rigged in a curious new mode. He studied it a moment, puzzling, then turned back to examine the darkening interior of the curing house.

Long racks, holding wooden cones of curing sugar, extended the length of one wall. He thought about the cones for a time, watching the slow drip of molasses into the tray beneath and wondering if it mightn't pay to start making them from clay, which would be cheaper and easier to shape. Though the Africans seemed to understand working clay-- they'd been using it for their huts--he knew that only whites could be allowed to make the cones. The skilled trades on Barbados must always be forbidden to blacks, whose tasks had to be forever kept repetitive, mind-numbing. The Africans could never be allowed to perfect a craft. It could well lead to economic leverage and, potentially, resistance to slavery and the end of cheap labor.

He glanced back toward the darkening horizon, but now Winston's frigate had passed from view, behind the trees. Winston was no better than a thieving rogue, bred for gallows-bait, but you had to admire him a trifle nonetheless. He was one of the few men around who truly understood the need for risk here in the Americas. The man who never chanced what he had gained in order to realize more would never prosper. In the Americas a natural aristocracy was rising up, one not of birth but of boldness.

Boldness would be called for tonight, but he was ready. He had done what had to be done all his life.

The first time was when he was thirty-one, a tobacco importer in Bristol with an auburn-haired wife named Mary and two blue-eyed daughters, a man pleased with himself and with life. Then one chance-filled afternoon he had discovered, in a quick succession of surprise and confession, that Mary had a lover. The matter of another man would not have vexed him unduly, but the fact that her gallant was his own business partner did.

The next day he sold his share of the firm, settled with his creditors, and hired a coach for London. He had never seen Bristol again. Or Mary and his daughters.

In London there was talk that a syndicate of investors led by Sir William Courteen was recruiting a band of pioneers to try and establish a new settlement on an empty island in the Caribbees, for which they had just received a proprietary patent from the king. Though Benjamin Briggs had never heard of Barbados, he joined the expedition. He had no family connections, no position, and only a few hundred pounds. But he had the boldness to go where no Englishman had ever ventured.

Eighty of them arrived in the spring of 1627, on the William and John, with scarcely any tools, only to discover that the entire island was a rain forest, thick and overgrown. Nor had anyone expected the harsh sunshine, day in and day out. They all would have starved from inexperience had not the Dutch helped them procure a band of Arawak Indians from Surinam, who brought along seeds to grow plantains and corn, and cassava root for bread. The Indians also taught the cultivation of cotton and tobacco, cash crops. Perhaps just as importantly, they showed the new adventurers from London how to make a suspended bed they called a hammock, in order to sleep up above the island's biting ants, and how to use smoky fires to drive off the swarms of mosquitoes that appeared each night. Yet, help notwithstanding, many of those first English settlers died from exposure and disease by the end of the year. Benjamin Briggs was one of the survivors. Later, he had vowed never to forget those years, and never to taste defeat.

The sun was almost gone now, throwing its last, long shadows through the open thatchwork of the curing-house walls, laying a pattern against the hard earthen floor. He looked down at his calloused hands, the speckle of light and shade against the weathered skin, and thought of all the labors he had set them to.

The first three years those hands had wielded an axe, clearing land, and then they had shaped themselves to the handle of a hoe, as he and his five new indentures set about planting indigo. And those hands had stayed penniless when his indigo crops were washed away two years running by the autumn storms the Carib Indians called huracan. Next he had set them to cotton. In five years he had recouped the losses from the indigo and acquired more land, but he was still at the edge of starvation, in a cabin of split logs almost a decade after coming out to the Caribbees.

He looked again at his hands, thinking how they had borrowed heavily from lenders in London, the money just enough to finance a switch from cotton to tobacco. It fared a trifle better, but still scarcely recovered its costs.

Though he had managed to accumulate more and more acres of island land over the years, from neighbors less prudent, he now had only a moderate fortune to show for all his labor. He'd actually considered giving up on the Americas and returning to London, to resume the import trade. But always he remembered his vow, so instead he borrowed again, this time from the Dutchmen, and risked it all one last time. On sugar.

He scraped a layer from the top of one of the molds and rubbed the tan granules between his fingers, telling himself that now, at last, his hands had something to show for the two long decades of callouses, blisters, emptiness.

He tasted the rich sweetness on a horned thumb and its savor was that of the Americas. The New World where every man started as an equal.

Now a new spirit had swept England. The king was dethroned, the hereditary House of Lords abolished. The people had risen up... and, though you'd never have expected it, new risk had risen up with them. The American settlements were suddenly flooded with the men England had repudiated. Banished aristocrats like the Walronds, who'd bought their way into Barbados and who would doubtless like nothing better than to reforge the chains of class privilege in the New World.

Most ironic of all, these men had at their disposal the new democratic institutions of the Americas. They would clamor in the Assembly of Barbados for the island to reject the governance of the English Parliament, hoping thereby to hasten its downfall and lead to the restoration of the monarchy. Worse, the Assembly, that reed in the winds of rhetoric, would doubtless acquiesce.

Regardless of what you thought of Cromwell, to resist Parliament now would be to swim against the tide. And to invite war. The needful business of consolidating the small tracts on Barbados and setting the island wholesale to sugar would be disrupted and forestalled, perhaps forever.

Why had it come down to this, he asked himself again. Now, of all times. When the fruits of long labor seemed almost in hand. When you could finally taste the comforts of life--a proper house, rich food, a woman to ease the nights.

He had never considered taking another wife. Once had been enough. But he had always arranged to have a comely Irish girl about the house, to save the trouble and expense of visiting Bridgetown for an evening.

A prudent man bought an indentured wench with the same careful eye hed acquire a breeding mare. A lusty-looking one might cost a few shillings more, but it was money well invested, your one compensation for all the misery.

The first was years ago, when he bought a red-headed one straight off a ship from London, not guessing till he got her home that he'd been swindled; she had a sure case of the pox, the French disease. Her previous career, it then came out, included Bridewell Prison and the taverns of Turnbull Street. He sent her straight to the fields and three months later carefully bought another, this one Irish and seventeen. She had served out her time, five years, and then gone to work at a tavern in Bridgetown. He had never seen her since, and didn't care to, but after that he always kept one about, sending her on to the fields and buying a replacement when he wearied of her.

That was before the voyage down to Pernambuco. Brazil had been an education, in more ways than one. You had to grant the Papists knew a thing or so about the good life. They had bred up a sensuous Latin creation: the mulata. He tried one at a tavern, and immediately decided the time had come to acquire the best. He had worked hard, he told himself; he had earned it.

There was no such thing as a mulata indenture in Pernambuco, so he'd paid the extra cost for a slave. And he was still cursing himself for his poor judgment. Haughtiness in a servant was nothing new. In the past he'd learned you could easily thrash it out of them, even the Irish ones. This mulata, though, somehow had the idea she was gifted by God to a special station, complete with high-born Latin airs. The plan to be finally rid of her was already in motion.

She had come from Pernambuco with the first cane, and she would be sold in Bridgetown with the first sugar. He already had a prospective buyer, with an opening offer of eighty pounds.

He'd even hinted to Hugh Winston that she could be taken as part payment for the sight drafts, but Winston had refused the bait. It was men and provisions, he insisted, nothing else.

Winston. May God damn his eyes....

Footsteps sounded along the gravel pathway and he turned to examine the line of planters approaching through the dusk, all wearing dark hats and colorless doublets. As he watched them puffing up the rise of the hill, he found himself calculating how much of the arable land on the island was now controlled by himself and these eleven other members of the Council. Tom Lancaster owned twelve hundred acres of the rolling acres in St. George's parish; Nicholas Whittington had over a thousand of the best land in Christ's Church parish; Edward Bayes, who had ridden down from his new plantation house on the northern tip of the island, owned over nine hundred acres; John lynes had amassed a third of the arable coastal land on the eastern, windward side of the island. The holdings of the others were smaller, but together they easily owned the major share of the good cane land on Barbados. What they needed now was the rest.

"Your servant, sir." The planters nodded in chorus as they filed into the darkened curing house. Every man had ridden alone, and Briggs had ordered his own servants to keep clear of the curing house for the evening.

"God in heaven, this much already." Bayes emitted a low whistle and rubbed his jowls as he surveyed the long rows of sugar molds. "You've got a fortune in this very room, sir. If this all turns out to be sugar, and not just pots of molasses like before."

"It'll be white sugar or I'll answer for it, and it'll be fine as any Portugal could make." Briggs walked to the corner of the room, returning with two flasks of kill-devil and a tray of tankards. "The question now, gentlemen, is whether we'll ever see it sold."

"I don't follow you, sir." Whittington reached for a brown flask and began pouring himself a tankard. "As soon as we've all got a batch cured, we'll market it to the Dutchmen. Or we'll ship it to London ourselves."

"I suppose you've heard the rumor working now amongst the Dutchmen? That there might be an embargo?"

"Aye, but it's no more than a rumor. There'll be no embargo, I promise you. It'd be too costly."

"It's not just a rumor. There was a letter from my London broker in the mail packet that came yesterday on the Rotterdam. He saw fit to include this." Briggs produced a thin roll of paper. "It's a copy he had made of the Act prepared in the Council of State, ready to be sent straight to Commons for a vote." He passed the paper to Whittington, who un-scrolled it and squinted through the half-light. Briggs paused a moment, then continued, "The Act would embargo all shipping into and out of Barbados till our Assembly has moved to recognize the Commonwealth. Cromwell was so sure it'd be passed he was already pulling together a fleet of warships to send out and enforce it. Word has't the fleet will be headed by the Rainbowe, which was the king's flagship before Cromwell took it. Fifty guns."

A disbelieving silence enveloped the darkened room.

"And you say this Act was set to pass in Parliament?" Whittington looked up and recovered his voice.

"It'd already been reported from the Council of State. And the letter was four weeks old. More'n likely it's already law. The Rainbowe could well be sailing at the head of a fleet right now as we talk."

"If Cromwell does that, we're as good as on our knees." Tynes rubbed his neck and took a sip from his tankard. "What do you propose we can do?"

"As I see it, there're but two choices." Briggs motioned for the men to sit on a row of empty kegs he had provided. "The first is to lie back and do nothing, in which case the royalists will probably see to it that the Assembly here votes to defy Commons and declare for Charles II."

"Which means we'll be at war with England, God help us." Lancaster removed his hat to wipe his dusty brow.

"Aye. A war, incidentally, which would force Cromwell to send the army to subdue the island, if he hasn't already. He'd probably post troops to try and invade us, like some people are saying. Which means the Assembly would doubtless call up every able-bodied man on the island to fight. All the militia, and the indentures. Letting the cane rot in the fields, if it's not burned to cinders by then."

"Good Jesus." Whittington's face seemed increasingly haggard in the waning light. "That could well set us back years."

"Aye, and who knows what would happen with the indentures and the slaves? Who'll be able to watch over them? If we have to put the island on a war footing, it could endanger the lives of every free man here. God knows we're outnumbered by all the Irish Papists and the Africans."

"Aye, the more indentures and slaves you've got, the more precarious your situation." Lancaster's glazed eyes passed down the row of sugar molds as he thought about the feeble security of his own clapboard house. He also remembered ruefully that he owned only three usable muskets.

"Well, gentlemen, our other choice is to face up to the situation and come to terms with Parliament. It's a bitter draught, I'll grant you, but it'll save us from anarchy, and maybe an uprising."

"The Assembly'll never declare for the Commonwealth. The royalist sympathizers hold a majority." Whittington's face darkened. "Which means there's nothing to be done save ready for war."

"There's still a hope. We can do something about the Assembly." Briggs turned to Tynes, a small, tanned planter with hard eyes. "How many men do you have in your regiment?"

"There're thirty officers, and maybe two hundred men."

"How long to raise them?"

"Raise them, sir?" He looked at Briggs, uncomprehending. "To what purpose? They're militia, to defend us against attack by the Spaniards."

"It's not the Spaniards we've to worry about now. I think we can agree there's a clear and present danger nearer to hand." Briggs looked around him. "I say the standing Assembly of Barbados no longer represents the best interests of this island. For any number of reasons."

"Is there a limit on their term?" Lancaster looked at him questioningly. "I don't remember the law."

"We're not adjudicating law now, gentlemen. We're discussing the future of the island. We're facing war. But beyond that, it's time we talked about running Barbados the way it should be, along economic principles. There'll be prosperity, you can count on it, but only if we've got a free hand to make some changes." He took a drink, then set down his tankard.

"What do you mean?" Lancaster looked at him.

"Well sir, the main problem now is that we've got an Assembly here that's sympathetic to the small freeholders. Not surprisingly, since thanks to Dalby Bedford every man here with five acres can vote. Our good governor saw to that when he drew up the voting parishes. Five acres. They're not the kind who should be in charge of governing this settlement now. I know it and so does every man in this room."

"All the same, they were elected."

"That was before sugar. Think about it. These small freeholders on the Assembly don't understand this island wasn't settled just so we'd have a batch of five-acre gardens. God's blood, I cleared a thousand acres myself. I figured that someday I'd know why I was doing it. Well, now I do."

"What are you driving at?" Bayes squinted past the rows of sugar cones.

"Well, examine the situation. This island could be the finest sugar plantation in the world. The Dutchmen already claim it's better than Brazil. But the land here's got to be assembled and put to efficient use. If we can consolidate the holdings of these small freeholders, we can make this island the richest spot on earth. The Assembly doesn't understand that. They'd go to war rather than try and make some prosperity here."

"What are you proposing we do about it?" Lancaster interjected warily.

"What if we took action, in the interests of the island?" Briggs lowered his voice. "We can't let the Assembly vote against the Commonwealth and call down the navy on our heads. They've got to be stopped."

"But how do we manage it?" Tynes' voice was uneasy.

"We take preventive action." He looked around the room. "Gentlemen, I say it'd be to the benefit of all the free Englishmen on Barbados if we took the governor under our protection for the time being, which would serve to close down the Assembly while we try and talk sense with Parliament."

"We'd be taking the law into our own hands." Tynes shifted uncomfortably.

"It's a question of whose law you mean. According to the thinking of the English Parliament, this Assembly has no legal standing anyway, since they've yet to recognize the rule of Commons. We'd just be implementing what's already been decided."

"I grant you this island would be wise not to antagonize Cromwell and Parliament just now." Whittington searched the faces around him. "And if the Assembly won't take a prudent course, then..."

"What we're talking about here amounts to overturning the sitting governor, and closing down the Assembly." Lancaster's voice came through the gloom. "We've not the actual authority, even if Parliament has..."

"We've got something more, sir." Briggs met his troubled gaze. "An obligation. To protect the future of the island."

What we need now, he told himself, is responsible leadership. If the Council can deliver up the island, the quid pro quo from Cromwell will have to be acting authority to govern Barbados. Parliament has no brief for the Assembly here, which fits nicely with the need to be done with it anyway.

The irony of it! Only if Barbados surrenders do we have a chance to realize some prosperity. If we stand and fight, we're sure to lose eventually, and then none of us will have any say in what comes after.

And in the long run it'll be best for every man here, rich and poor. When there's wealth--as there's sure to be if we can start evicting these freeholders and convert the island over to efficient sugar plantations--everybody benefits. The wealth will trickle down, like the molasses out of these sugar cones, even to the undeserving. It's the way things have to be in the Americas if we're ever to make a go of it.

But one step at a time. First we square the matter of Bedford and the Assembly.

"But have we got the men?" Lancaster settled his tankard on a keg and looked up hesitantly.

"With the militia we already have under our command, I'd say we've got sympathetic officers, since they're all men with sizable sugar acreage. On the other hand, it'd probably not be wise to try calling up any of the small freeholders and freemen. So to get the numbers we'll be wanting, I'd say we'll just have to use our indentures as the need arises."

"You've named a difficulty there." Whittington took a deep breath. "Remember the transfer over to Winston takes place day after tomorrow. That's going to leave every man here short. After that I'll have no more than half a dozen Christians on my plantation. All the rest are Africans."

"Aye, he'll have the pick of my indentures as well," Lancaster added, his voice troubled.

"He'll just have to wait." Briggs emptied his tankard and reached for the flask. "We'll postpone the transfer till this thing's settled. And let Winston try to do about it what he will."

Chapter Six

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Her name was Dara."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you think you'll do?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean, sir?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's in it for me?"

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

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

"You can name it, sir."

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

"You don't mean Vargas?"

"Armando Vargas, that's the one."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inside were the sight bills, just visible in the flickering light of the lantern, and next to them was a stack of shipping invoices. Finally there was the letter, its outside smeared with grease and the red wax of its seal cracked and half missing. He slipped it out and unfolded it along the creases, feeling his anger well up as he settled to read it one more time.

Sir (I shall never again have the pleasure to address you as my obedient son),

After many years of my thinking you perished, there has late come word you are abroad in the Caribbees, a matter long known to certain others but until this day Shielded from me, for reasons I now fully Comprehend. The Reputation I find you have acquired brings me no little pain, being that (so I am now advis'd) of a Smuggler and Brigand.

He paused to glance out the stern window once again, remembering how the letter had arrived in the mail packet just delivered by the Rotterdam. It was dated two months past, and it had been deposited at Joan's tavern along with several others intended for seamen known to make port in Barbados.

Though I had these many long years thought you dead by the hands of the Spaniard, yet I prayed unceasing to God it should not be so. Now, upon hearing News of what you have become, I am constrained to question God's will. In that you have brought Ignominy to my name, and to the name of those other two sons of mine, both Dutiful, I can find no room for solace, nor can they.

He found his mind going back to memories of William and James, both older. He'd never cared much for either of them, and they'd returned his sentiment in full measure. William was the first--heavy set and slow of wit, with a noticeable weakness for sherry. Since the eldest son inherited everything, he had by now doubtless taken charge of the two thousand acres that was Winston Manor, becoming a country squire who lived off rents from his tenants. And what of James, that nervous image of Lord Harold Winston and no less ambitious and unyielding? Probably by now he was a rich barrister, the profession he'd announced for himself sometime about age ten. Or maybe he'd stood for Parliament, there to uphold the now-ended cause of King Charles.

That a son of mine should become celebrated in the Americas for his contempt of Law brings me distress beyond the telling of it. Though I reared you with utmost care and patience, I oft had cause to ponder if you should ever come to any good end, being always of dissolute and unruly inclination. Now I find your Profession has been to defraud the English crown, to which you should be on your knees in Reverence, and to injure the cause of honest Merchants, who are the lifeblood of this Christian nation. I am told your name has even reached the ears of His Majesty, causing him no small Dismay, and adding to his distresses at a time when the very throne of England is in peril from those who would, as you, set personal gain above loyalty and obedience....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter Seven

The jagged peninsula known as Lookout Point projected off the southwestern tip of Barbados, separating the windy Atlantic on the south from the calm of the leeward coast on the west. At its farthest tip, situated on a stone cliff that rose some hundred feet above the entrance to Carlisle Bay, were the breastwork and gun emplacements. Intended for harbor defense only, its few projecting cannon all pointed out toward the channel leading into the bay, past the line of coral reefs that sheltered the harbor on its southern side.

From the deck of the Defiance, at anchor near the river mouth and across the bay from the peninsula, the gunfire seemed to be coming from the direction of the new Assembly Room, a thatched-roof stone building up the hill beyond the breastwork. Constructed under the authority of Governor Dalby Bedford, it housed the General Assembly of Barbados, which consisted of two representatives elected from each of the eleven parishes on the island. All free men in possession of five acres or more could vote, ballots being cast at the parish churches.

While Winston unlocked the gun racks in the fo'c'sle and began issuing the muskets and the bandoliers of powder and shot, John Mewes ordered the two longboats lashed amidships readied and launched. The seamen lined up single file at the doorway of the fo'c'sle to receive their muskets, then swung down the rope ladders and into the boats. Winston took his place in one and gave command of the other to John Mewes.

As the men strained against the oars and headed across the bay, he studied the row of cannon projecting out over the moonlit sea from the top of the breastwork. They've never been used, he thought wryly, except maybe for ceremonial salutes. That's what they call harbor defenses! It's a mercy of God the island's so far windward from the Main that the Spaniards've never troubled to burn the place out.

He sat on the prow of the longboat, collecting his thoughts while he tasted the air and the scent of the sea. The whitecaps of the bay slipped past in the moonlight as they steered to leeward of the line of Dutch merchantmen anchored near the shore. He then noticed a bob of lanterns on the southeast horizon and realized it was an arriving merchantman, with a heading that would bring it directly into the harbor. He watched the lights awhile, marveling at the Dutch trading zeal that would cause a captain to steer past the reefs into the harbor in the hours after midnight. He congratulated himself he'd long ago given up trying to compete head-on with the Hollanders. They practically owned the English settlements in the Americas. Scarce wonder Cromwell's first order of business was to be rid of them.

The sound of the tide lapping against the beach as the two longboats neared the shore beneath the breastwork brought his attention back. When they scraped into the shallows, he dropped off the prow and waded through the knee-high surf that chased up the sand in wave after wave. Ahead the beach glistened white, till it gave way to the rocks at the base of the Point.

John Mewes puffed along close at his heels, and after him came the first mate, Dick Hawkins, unshaven but alert, musket at the ready. Close behind strode tall Edwin Spune, master's mate, a musket in each hand, followed by the rest. In all, some twenty of Winston's men had crossed the bay with him. He ordered the longboats beached, then called the men together and motioned for quiet.

"Are all muskets primed?"

"Aye." Spurre stepped forward, holding his two muskets up as though for inspection. "An' every man's got an extra bandolier of powder an' shot. We're ready for whatever the whoresons try." He glanced up the rise, puzzled, still not understanding why the captain had assembled them. But Hugh Winston liked having his orders obeyed.

"Good." Winston walked down the line. "Spread out along the shore and wait. I'm going up to see what the shooting's about. Just stand ready till you hear from me. But if you see me fire a pistol shot, you be up that hill like Jack-be-nimble. Is that clear?"

"You mean us against all that bleedin' lot up there?" John Mewes squinted toward the dark rise. "There's apt to be half their militia up there, Cap'n, from the sound of it."

"Did I hear you question an order, John? You know ship's rules. They go for officers too." He turned to the other men. "Should we call a vote right here?"

"God's life." Mewes pushed forward, remembering Winston's formula for discipline on the Defiance. He didn't even own a cat-o'nine-tails, the lash used by most ship captains for punishment. He never touched an offender. He always just put trial and punishment to a show of hands by the men--whose favorite entertainment was keelhauling any seaman who disobeyed Captain's orders, lashing a line to his waist and ducking him under the hull till he was half drowned. "I wasn't doin' no questioning. Not for a minute. I must've just been mumbling in my sleep."

"Then try and stay awake. I'm going up there now, alone. But if I need you, you'd better be there, John. With the men. That's an order."

"Aye." Mewes performed what passed for a salute, then cocked his musket with a flourish.

Winston loosened the pistols in his belt, checked the packet containing the sight bills and the other papers he had brought, then headed directly up the rise. The approach to Lookout Point was deserted, but up the hill, behind a new stack of logs, he could see the shadowy outline of a crowd. The barricade, no more than fifty yards from the Assembly Room, was in the final stages of construction, as men with torches dragged logs forward. Others, militia officers, were stationed behind the logs with muskets and were returning pistol fire from the half-open doorway of the Assembly Room.

Above the din he could hear the occasional shouts of Benjamin Briggs, who appeared to be in charge. Together with him were the members of the Council and officers from their regiments. The command of the militia was restricted to major landholders: a field officer had to own at least a hundred acres, a captain fifty, a lieutenant twenty-five, and even an ensign had to have fifteen.

On the barricade were straw-hatted indentures belonging to members of the Council, armed only with pikes since the planters did not trust them with muskets. Winston recognized among them many whom he had agreed to take.

The firing was sputtering to a lull as he approached. Then Briggs spotted him and yelled out. "You'd best be gone, sir. Before someone in the Assembly Room gets a mind to put a round of pistol shot in your breeches."

"I'm not part of your little war."

"That you're decidedly not, sir. So we'll not be requiring your services here tonight."

"What's the difficulty?" Winston was still walking directly toward them.

"It's a matter of the safety of Barbados. I've said it doesn't concern you."

"Those indentures concern me. I don't want them shot."

"Tell that to the Assembly, sir. We came here tonight offering to take Dalby Bedford under our care, peacefully. To protect him from elements on the island who're set to disown Parliament. But some of the hotheads in there mistook our peaceful purpose and opened fire on us."

"Maybe they think they can 'protect' him better than you can." Another round of fire sounded from the doorway of the Assembly Room and thudded into the log barricade. When two of the planters cursed and fired back, the door was abruptly slammed shut.

"It's the Assembly that's usurped rightful rule here, sir, as tonight should amply show. When they no longer represent the true interests of Barbados." Briggs glared at him. "We're restoring proper authority to this island, long overdue."

"You and the Council can restore whatever you like. I'm just here to take care of my indentures, before you manage to have some of them killed."

"They're not yours yet, sir. The situation's changed. We're not letting them go whilst the island's unsettled."

"The only unsettling thing I see here are all those muskets." He reached into the pocket of his jerkin and lifted out the leather packet containing the sight drafts. "So we're going to make that transfer, right now.''

"Well, I'm damned if you'll have a single man. This is not the time agreed." Briggs looked around at the other members of the Council. Behind them the crowd of indentures had stopped work to listen.

"The sight bills are payable on demand. We've settled the terms, and I'm officially calling them in." Winston passed over the packet. "You've got plenty of witnesses. Here're the sight bills. As of now, the indentures are mine." He pulled a sheaf of papers from the other pocket of his jerkin. ' 'You're welcome to look over the drafts while I start checking off the men."

Briggs seized the leather packet and flung it to the ground. Then he lifted his musket. "These indentures are still under our authority. Until we say, no man's going to take them. Not even..."

A series of musket shots erupted from the window of the Assembly Room, causing Briggs and the other planters to duck down behind the log barricade. Winston remained standing as he called out the first name on the sheet.

"Timothy Farrell."

The red-faced Irishman climbed around Briggs and moved forward, his face puzzled. He remained behind the pile of logs as he hunkered down, still holding his half-pike.

"That's my name, Yor Worship. But Master Briggs..."

"Farrell, here's the indenture contract we drew up for your transfer." Winston held out the first paper from the sheaf. "I've marked it paid and had it stamped. Come and get it and you're free to go."

"What's this, Yor Worship?" He gingerly reached up for the paper and stared at it in the torchlight, uncomprehending. "I heard you was like to be buying out my contract. By my reckoning there's two more year left on it."

"I did just buy it. It's there in your hand. You're a free man."

Farrell sat staring at the paper, examining the stamped wax seal and attempting to decipher the writing. A sudden silence enveloped the crowd, punctuated by another round of musket fire from the Assembly Room. After it died away, Winston continued, "Now Farrell, if you'd care to be part of an expedition of mine that'll be leaving Barbados in a few days' time, that's your privilege. Starting tonight, your pay'll be five shillings a week."

"Beggin' Yor Worship's pardon, I reckon I'm not understandin' what you've said. You've bought this contract? An' you've already marked it paid?"

"With those sight bills." He pointed to the packet on the ground beside Briggs.

Farrell glanced at the leather bundle skeptically. Then he looked back at Winston. "An' now you're sayin' I'm free?"

"It's stamped on that contract. Have somebody read it if you care to."

"An' I can serve Yor Worship for wage if I like?" His voice began to rise.

"Five shillings a week for now. Maybe more later, if you..."

"Holy Mother Mary an' all the Saints! I'm free!" He crumpled the paper into his pocket, then leaped up as he flung his straw hat into the air. "Free! I ne'er thought I'd stay breathin' long enough to hear the word." He glanced quickly at the Assembly Room, then dismissed the danger as he began to dance beside the logs.

"At the dirty end o' Dirty Lane,

Liv'd a dirty cobbler, Dick Maclane..."

"That man still belongs to me." Briggs half cocked his musket as he rose.

Farrell whirled and brandished his half-pike at the planter. "You can fry in hell, you pox-rotted bastard. I've lived on your corn mush an' water for three years, till I'm scarce able to stand. An' sweated sunup to sundown in your blazin' fields, hoein' your damn'd tobacco, and now your God-cursed cane. With not a farthing o' me own to show for it, or a change o' breeches. But His Worship says he's paid me out. An' his paper says I'm free. That means free as you are, by God. I'll be puttin' this pike in your belly--by God I will--or any man here, who says another word against His Worship. I'll serve him as long as I'm standin', or pray God to strike me dead." He gave another whoop. "Good Jesus, who's got a thirst! I'm free!"

"Jim Carroll." Winston's voice continued mechanically, sounding above the din that swept through the indentures.

"Present an' most humbly at Yor Worship's service." A second man elbowed his way forward through the cluster of Briggs' indentures, shoving several others out of his path.

"Here's your contract, Carroll. It's been stamped paid and you're free to go. Or you can serve under me if you choose. You've heard the terms."

"I'd serve you for a ha'penny a year, Yor Worship." He seized the paper and gave a Gaelic cheer, a tear lining down one cheek. "I've naught to show for four years in the fields but aches an' an empty belly. I'll die right here under your command before I'd serve another minute under that whoreson."

"God damn you, Winston." Briggs full-cocked his musket with an ominous click. "If you think I'll..."

Carroll whirled and thrust his pike into Briggs' face. "It's free I am, by God. An' it's me you'll be killin' before you harm a hair o' His Worship, if I don't gut you first."

Briggs backed away from the pike, still clutching his musket. The other members of the Council had formed a circle and cocked their guns.

"You don't own these damned indentures yet," Nicholas Whittington shouted. "We've not agreed to a transfer now."

"You've got your sight drafts. Those were the terms. If you want these men to stay, tell it to them." He checked the sheaf of papers and yelled out the next name: "Tom Darcy." As a haggard man in a shabby straw hat pushed forward, Winston turned back to the huddle that was the Council. "You're welcome to offer them a wage and see if they'd want to stay on. Since their contracts are all stamped paid, I don't have any say in it anymore."

"Well, I have a say in it, sir." Whittington lifted his musket. "I plan to have an end to this knavery right now, before it gets out of hand. One more word from you, and it'll be your..."

Winston looked up and yelled to the crowd of indentures. "I gather you've heard who's on the list. If those men'll come up, you can have your papers. Your contracts are paid, and you're free to go. Any man who chooses to serve under me can join me here now.''

Whittington was knocked sprawling by the surge of the crowd, as straw hats were flung into the air. A milling mob of indentures waving half-pikes pressed forward.

Papers from the sheaf in Winston's hand were passed eagerly through the ranks. The Council and the officers of their militia had drawn together for protection, still grasping their muskets.

In the confusion no one noticed the shaft of light from the doorway of the Assembly Room that cut across the open space separating it from the barricade. One by one the members of the Assembly gingerly emerged to watch. Leading them was Anthony Walrond, wearing a brocade doublet and holding a long flintlock pistol, puzzlement in his face.

Briggs finally saw them and whirled to cover the Assemblymen with his musket. "We say deliver up Bedford or there'll be hell to pay, I swear it!"

"Put down that musket, you whoreson." Farrell gave a yell and threw himself across the barrel of the gun, seizing the muzzle and shoving it in to the dirt. There was a loud report as it discharged, exploding at the breech and spewing burning powder into the night.

"Christ Almighty." Walrond moved out into the night and several men from the Assembly trailed after him, dressed in plain doublets and carrying pistols. "What the devil's this about?"

"Nothing that concerns you." Winston dropped a hand to one of the guns in his belt. "I'd advise you all to go back inside till I'm finished."

"We were just concluding a meeting of the Assembly, sir." Walrond examined Winston icily, then glanced toward the men of the Council. "When these rogues tried to commandeer the room, claiming they'd come to seize the governor, to 'protect' him. I take it you're part of this conspiracy."

"I'm here to protect my interests. Which gives me as much right as you have to be here. I don't recall that you're elected to this body.''

"I'm here tonight in an advisory capacity, Captain, not that it's any of your concern." Walrond glanced back at the others, all warily holding pistols. "To offer my views regarding the situation in England." As he spoke Dalby Bedford emerged from the crowd. Walking behind him was Katherine.

Winston turned to watch, thinking she was even more beautiful than he had realized before. Her face was radiant, self- assured as she moved through the dim torchlight in a glistening skirt and full sleeves. She smiled and pushed toward him.

"Captain Winston, are you to be thanked for all this confusion?"

"Only a part of it, Miss Bedford. I merely stopped by to enquire about my indentures, since I got the idea some of your Assemblymen were shooting at them."

Anthony Walrond stared at Katherine. "May I take it you know this man? It does you no credit, madam, I warrant you." Then he turned and moved down the path, directly toward Briggs and the members of the Council. "And I can tell all of you this night is far from finished. There'll be an accounting here, sirs, you may depend on it. Laws have been violated."

"You, sir, should know that best of all." Briggs stepped forward and dropped his hand to the pistol still in his belt. "Since you and this pack of royalist agitators that calls itself an Assembly would unlawfully steer this island to ruin. The Council of Barbados holds that this body deserves to be dissolved forthwith, and new elections held, to represent the interests of the island against those who'd lead us into a fool's war with the Commonwealth of England."

"You, sir, speak now in the very same voice as the rebels there. I presume you'd have this island bow to the criminals in Parliament who're now threatening to behead our lawful king."

"Gentlemen, please." Dalby Bedford moved between them and raised his hand. "I won't stand for this wrangling. We all have to try to settle our differences like Englishmen. I, for one, would have no objection to inviting the Council to sit with us in the Assembly, have a joint session, and try to reason out what's the wisest course now."

"I see no reason this body need share a table with a crowd of rebels who'll not bend a knee to the rightful sovereign of England." Walrond turned back to the members of the Assembly. "I say you should this very night draw up a loyalty oath for Barbados. Any man who refuses to swear fealty to His Majesty should be deported back to England, to join the traitors who would unlawfully destroy the monarchy.''

"No!" Katherine abruptly pushed in front of him. "This island stayed neutral all through the Civil War. We never took a part, either for king or Parliament. Why should we take sides now, with the war over and finished?"

Walrond looked down at her, startled. "Because the time has come to stand and be counted, Katherine. Why do you suppose? The rebels may have seized England for now, but that's no reason we in the Americas have to turn our back on the king."

"But there's another choice." She drew a deep breath. Winston saw determination in her eyes as she turned to face the men of the Assembly. "Think about it. We never belonged to England; we belonged to the Crown. But the monarchy's been abolished and the king's patents invalidated. I say we should join with the other English settlements and declare the Americas a new nation. Barbados should lead the way and declare our own independence."

"That's the damnedest idea I've ever heard." Briggs moved forward, shaking away the indentures who still crowded around him menacingly. "If we did that, there'd be war for sure. We've got to stay English, or Cromwell'll send the army to burn us out." He turned to Walrond. "Rebel or no, Cromwell represents the might of England. We'd be fools to try to stand against him. Either for king or for some fool dream of independence." He looked back at Katherine. "Where'd you get such an idea, girl? It'd be the end of our hopes for prosperity if we tried going to war with England. There'd be no room to negotiate."

"You, sir, have no say in this. You're apt to be on trial for treason before the week's out." Walrond waved his pistol at Briggs, then turned back to Katherine. "What are you talking about? England is beholden to her king, madam, much the way, I might remind you, a wife is to her husband. Or don't you yet understand that? It's our place to revere and serve the monarchy."

"As far as I'm concerned, the king's only a man. And so's a husband, sir."

"A wife takes an oath in marriage, madam, to obey her husband. You'd best remember that." He turned and motioned the members of the Assembly to gather around him as he stepped over to a large log and mounted it. "On the subject of obedience, I say again an oath of loyalty to His Majesty King Charles should be voted in the Barbados Assembly this very morning. We need to know where this island stands." He stared back at Dalby Bedford. "Much as a husband would do well to know what he can expect when he takes a wife."

"You've got no authority to call a vote by the Assembly," Briggs sputtered. "You're not elected to it." He looked at Walrond, then at Bedford. "This, by God, was the very thing we came here tonight to head off."

"You, sir, have no authority to interfere in the lawful processes of this body." Walrond turned back to the Assembly members, now huddled in conference.

Winston looked at Katherine and found himself admiring her idealism--and her brass, openly defying the man she was supposed to marry. She wanted independence for the Americas, he now realized, while all Anthony Walrond wanted was to turn Barbados into a government in exile for the king, maybe to someday restore his fortune in England. She was an independent woman herself too, make no mistaking. Sir Anthony Walrond was going to have himself a handful in the future, with the Commonwealth and with her.

Come to think of it, though, independence wasn't all that bad an idea. Why the hell not? Damned to England.

"I think there've been enough high-handed attempts to take over this island for one night.'' He moved to confront Walrond.

"You have your brass, Captain, to even show your face here." He inspected Winston with his good eye. "When you pillaged a ship of mine off Nevis Island, broadcloth and muskets, no more than two years past."

"Now that you've brought it up, what I did was save the lives of some fifty men who were about to drown for want of a seaworthy longboat. Since you saved so much money on equipage, I figured you could afford to compensate me for my pains."

"It was theft, sir, by any law."

"Then the law be hanged."

"Hardly a surprising sentiment, coming from you." Walrond shifted his pistol toward Winston's direction. "You should be on Tortuga, with the other rogues of your own stripe, rather than here on Barbados amongst honest men. Your profession, Captain, has trained you best for the end of a rope."

"What's yours trained you for?" He stood unmoving. "Get yourself elected to the Assembly, then make your speeches. I'm tired of hearing about your king. In truth, I never had a very high opinion of him myself."

"Back off, sirrah. I warn you now." Walrond pointed his long pistol. "You're speaking your impertinences to an officer of the king's army. I've dealt with a few thieves and smugglers in years past, and I just may decide to mete out some more long-overdue justice here and now."

Dalby Bedford cleared his throat and stepped between them. "Gentlemen, I think there's been more heat here tonight than need be, all around. It could be well if we cooled off a day or so. I trust the Assembly would second my motion for adjournment of this session, till we've had time to reflect on what's the best course for us. This is scarcely a light matter. We could be heading into war with England."

"A prospect that does not deter certain of us from acting on principle, sir." Walrond's voice welled up again. "I demand this Assembly take a vote right now on..."

"You'll vote on nothing, by God," Briggs yelled, then drew his own pistol. Suddenly a fistfight erupted between two members of the Assembly, one for and the other opposing the monarchy. Then others joined in. In the excitement, several pistols were discharged in the fray.

Good God, Winston thought, Barbados' famous Assembly has been reduced to this. He noticed absently that the first gray coloring of dawn was already beginning to appear in the east. It'd been a long night. What'll happen when day finally comes and news of all this reaches the rest of the island? Where will it end...

"Belay there! Cool down your ordnance!" Above the shouts and bedlam, a voice sounded from the direction of the shore.

Winston turned to see the light of a swinging sea lantern approaching up the rise. He recognized the ragged outline of Johan Ruyters, still in the clothes he had worn earlier that night, puffing up the hill.

Ruyters topped the rise and surveyed the confusion. His presence seemed to immediately dampen the melee, as several Assemblymen paused in embarrassment to stare. The Dutchman walked directly up to Dalby Bedford and tipped his wide-brimmed hat. "Your servant, sir." Then he gazed around. "Your most obedient servant, gentlemen, one and all." He nodded to the crowd before turning back to address Bedford. "Though it's never been my practice to intrude in your solemn English convocations, I thought it would be well for you to hear what I just learned." He drew a deep breath and settled his lantern onto the grass. "The Kostverloren, bound from Amsterdam, has just dropped anchor in the bay, and Captain Liebergen called us all together in a rare sweat. He says when dark caught him last evening he was no more than three leagues ahead of an English fleet."

"Great God help us." Walrond sucked in his breath.

"Aye, that was my thinking as well." Ruyters glanced back. "If I had to guess, I'd say your English Parliament's sent the navy, gentlemen. So we may all have to be giving God a hand if we're not to have the harbor taken by daylight. For once a rumor's proved all too true."

"God's life, how many were sailing?" Bedford whirled to squint toward the dim horizon.

"His maintopman thinks he may've counted some fifteen sail. Half of them looked to be merchantmen, but the rest were clearly men-of-war, maybe thirty guns apiece. We're all readying to weigh anchor and hoist sail at first light, but it's apt to be too late now. I'd say with the guns they've got, and the canvas, they'll have the harbor in a bottle by daybreak."

"I don't believe you." Walrond gazed skeptically toward the east.

"As you will, sir." Ruyters smiled. "But if you'd be pleased to send a man up to the top of the hill, right over there, I'd wager he just might be able to spy their tops'ls for himself."

Winston felt the life suddenly flow out of him. It was the end of his plans. With the harbor blockaded, he'd never be able to sail with the indentures. He might never sail at all.

"God Almighty, you don't have to send anybody." Bedford was pointing toward the horizon. "Don't you see it?"

Just beneath the gray cloudbank was an unmistakable string of flickering pinpoints, mast lights. The crowd gathered to stare in dismay. Finally Bedford's voice came, hard and determined. "We've got to meet them. The question is, what're their damned intentions?"

Ruyters picked up his lantern and extinguished it. "By my thinking the first thing you'd best do is man those guns down there on the Point, and then make your enquiries. You can't let them into the bay. We've got shipping there, sir. And a fortune in cargo. There'll be hell to pay, I promise you, if I lose so much as a florin in goods."

Bedford gazed down the hill, toward the gun emplacements at the ocean cliff. "Aye, but we don't yet know why the fleet's come. We've only had rumors."

"At least one of those rumors was based on fact, sir." Briggs had moved beside them. "I have it on authority, from my broker in London, that an Act was reported from the Council of State four weeks past to embargo our shipping till the Assembly votes recognition of the Commonwealth. He even sent me a copy. And this fleet was already being pulled together at the time. I don't know how many men-o'-war they've sent, but I heard the flagship was to be the Rainbowe. Fifty guns." He looked back at the Assembly. "And the surest way to put an end to our prosperity now would be to resist."

He was rudely shouted down by several Assemblymen, royalists cursing the Commonwealth. The air came alive with calls for Defiance.

"Well, we're going to find out what they're about before we do anything, one way or the other." Bedford looked around him. "We've got guns down there in the breastwork. I'd say we can at least keep them out of the bay for now."

"Not without gunners, you won't." Ruyters' voice was somber. "Who've you got here? Show me a man who's ever handled a linstock, and I'll give you leave to hang me. And I'll not be lending you my lads, though I'd dearly love to. It'd be a clear act of war."

Winston was staring down at the shore, toward his own waiting seamen. If the English navy entered Carlisle Bay, the first vessel they'd confiscate would be the Defiance.

"God help me." He paused a moment longer, then walked to the edge of the hill and drew a pistol. The shot echoed through the morning silence.

The report brought a chorus of yells from the shore. Suddenly a band of seamen were charging up the hill, muskets at the ready, led by John Mewes. Winston waited till they topped the rise, then he gestured them forward. "All gunnery mates report to duty at the breastwork down there at the Point, on the double." He pointed toward the row of rusty cannon overlooking the bay. "Master Gunner Tom Canninge's in charge."

Several of the men gave a loose salute and turned to hurry down the hill. Winston watched them go, then looked back at Bedford. "How much powder do you have?"

"Powder? I'm not sure anybody knows. We'll have to check the magazine over there." Bedford gestured toward a low building situated well behind the breastwork, surrounded by its own stone fortification. "I'd say there's likely a dozen barrels or so."

Winston glanced at Mewes. "Go check it, John. See if it's usable."

"Aye." Mewes passed his musket to one of the French seamen and was gone.

"And that rusty pile of round shot I see down there by the breastwork? Is that the best you've got?"

"That's all we have on the Point. There's more shot at Jamestown and over at Oistins."

"No time." He motioned to Ruyters. "Remember our agreement last night?"

"Aye, and I suppose there's no choice. I couldn't make open sea in time now anyway." The Dutchman's eyes were rueful. "I'll have some round shot sent up first, and then start offloading my nine-pound demi-culverin."

"All we need now is enough shot to make them think we've got a decent battery up here. We can bring up more ordnance later."

"May I remind you," Bedford interjected, "we're not planning to start an all-out war. We just need time to try and talk reason with Parliament, to try and keep what we've got here."

Winston noticed Briggs and several members of the Council had convened in solemn conference. If an attack comes, he found himself wondering, which of them will be the first to side with Parliament's forces and betray the island?

"There's twenty budge-barrels, Cap'n." Mewes was returning. "I gave it a taste an' I'll wager it's dry and usable."

Winston nodded, then motioned toward Edwin Spurre. "Have the men here carry five barrels on down to the Point, so the gunnery mates can start priming the culverin. Be sure they check all the touch holes for rust."

"Aye." Spurre signaled four of the seamen to follow him as he started off toward the powder magazine. Suddenly he was surrounded and halted by a group of Irish indentures.

Timothy Farrell approached Winston and bowed. "So please Yor Worship, we'd like to be doin' any carryin' you need here. An' we'd like to be the ones meetin' them on the beaches."

"You don't have to involve yourself, Farrell. I'd say you've got little enough here to risk your life for."

"Aye, Yor Worship, that's as it may be. But are we to understand that fleet out there's been sent by that whoreson archfiend Oliver Cromwell?"

"That's what we think now."

"Then beggin' Yor Worship's pardon, we'd like to be the men to gut every scum on board. Has Yor Worship heard what he did at Drogheda?"

"I heard he sent the army."

"Aye. When Ireland refused to bow to his Parliament, he claimed we were Papists who had no rights. He led his Puritan troops to Irish soil, Yor Worship, and laid siege to our garrison- city of Drogheda. Then he let his soldiers slaughter our people. Three thousand men, women, and children. An' for it, he was praised from the Puritan pulpits in England." Farrell paused to collect himself. "My cousin died there, Yor Worship, wi' his Meggie. An' one of Cromwell's brave Puritan soldiers used their little daughter as a shield when he helped storm an' burn the church, so they could murder the priests. Maybe that heretic bastard thinks we've not heard about it here." He bowed again. "We don't know enough about primin' and firin' cannon, but wi' Yor Worship's leave, we'd like to be the ones carryin' all the powder and shot for you."

"Permission granted." Winston thumbed them in the direction of Spurre.

The armada of sails was clearly visible on the horizon now, and rapidly swelling. As the first streaks of dawn showed across the waters, English colors could be seen on the flagship. It was dark brown and massive, with wide cream-colored sails. Now it had put on extra canvas, pulling away from the fleet, bearing down on the harbor.

Winston studied the man-of-war, marveling at its majesty and size. How ironic, he thought. England's never sent a decent warship against the Spaniards in the New World, even after they burned out helpless settlements. But now they send the pick of the navy, against their own people.

"Damned to them, that is the Rainbowe. " Bedford squinted at the ship. "She's a first-rank man-of-war, fifty guns. She was King Charles' royal ship of war. She'll transport a good two hundred infantry."

Winston felt his stomach tighten. Could it be there'd be more than a blockade? Had Parliament really sent the English army to invade the island?

"I'm going down to the breastwork." He glanced quickly at Katherine, then turned and began to make his way toward the gun emplacements. Edwin Spurre and the indentures were moving slowly through the early half-light, carrying kegs of powder.

"I think we can manage with these guns, Cap'n." Canninge was standing by the first cannon, his long hair matted against the sweat on his forehead. "I've cleaned out the touch holes and checked the charge delivered by the powder ladle we found. They're eighteen-pounders, culverin, and there's some shot here that ought to serve."

"Then prime and load them. On the double."

"Aye."

Using a long-handled ladle, he and the men began to shove precisely measured charges of powder, twenty pounds, into the muzzle of each cannon. The indentures were heaving round shot onto their shoulders and stacking piles beside the guns.

Winston watched the approaching sail, wondering how and why it had suddenly all come to this. Was he about to be the first man in the Americas to fire a shot declaring war against England? He looked around to see Dalby Bedford standing behind him, with Katherine at his side.

"You know what it means if we open fire on the Rainbowe? I'd guess it's Cromwell's flagship now."

"I do indeed. It'd be war. I pray it'll not come to that. I'd like to try and talk with them first, if we can keep them out of the bay." The governor's face was grim. "Try once across her bow. Just a warning. Maybe she'll strike sail and let us know her business."

"Care to hold one last vote in the Assembly about this, before we fire the first shot? Something tells me it's not likely to be the last."

"We've just talked. There's no need for a vote. No man here, royalist or no, is going to stand by and just hand over this place.

We'll negotiate, but we'll not throw up our hands and surrender. There's too much at stake."

Winston nodded and turned to Canninge. "They're pulling close to range. When you're ready, lay a round across her bow. Then hold for orders."

"Aye." Canninge smiled and pointed toward a small gun at the end of the row, its dark brass glistening in the early light. "I'll use that little six-pounder. We'll save the eighteen-pounders for the work to come.

"Have you got range yet?"

"Give me a minute to set her, and I'll wager I can lay a round shot two hundred yards in front of the bow." He turned and barked an order. Seamen hauled the tackles, rolling the gun into position. Then they levered the breech slightly upward to lower the muzzle, jamming a wooden wedge between the gun and the wooden truck to set it in position.

Winston took a deep breath, then glanced back at Bedford. "This may be the most damn foolhardy thing that's ever been done."

Bedford's voice was grave. "It's on my authority."

He turned back to Canninge. "Fire when ready."

The words were swallowed in the roar as the gunner touched a piece of burning matchrope to the cannon's firing hole. Dark smoke boiled up from the muzzle, acrid in the fresh morning air. Moments later a plume erupted off the bow of the English man-of-war.

Almost as though the ship had been waiting, it veered suddenly to port. Winston realized the guns had already been run out. They'd been prepared. Puffs of black smoke blossomed out of the upper gun deck, and moments later a line of plumes shot up along the surf just below the Point.

"They fired when they dipped into a swell." Canninge laughed. "English gunnery still disappoints me."

A fearful hush dropped over the crowd, and Winston stood listening as the sound of the guns echoed over the Point. "They probably don't suspect we've got any trained gunners up here this morning. Otherwise they'd never have opened fire when they're right under our ordnance." He glanced at Bedford. "You've got their reply. What's yours?"

"I suppose there's only one answer." The governor looked back and surveyed the waiting members of the Assembly. Several men removed their hats and began to confer together. Moments later they looked up and nodded. He turned back. "What can you do to her?"

"Is that authority to fire?"

"Full authority."

"Then get everybody back up the hill. Now." He watched as Bedford gave the order and the crowd began to quickly melt away. The Irish indentures waited behind Winston, refusing to move. He gestured a few of the men forward, to help set the guns, then turned back to Canninge.

"Is there range?"

"Aye, just give me a minute to set the rest of these culverin."

Winston heard a rustle of skirts by his side and knew Katherine was standing next to him. He reached out and caught her arm. "You've got a war now, Katherine, whether you wanted it or not. It'll be the first time a settlement in the Americas has ever fired on an English ship. I guess that's the price you're going to have to pay for staying your own master. But I doubt you'll manage it."

"We just might." She reached and touched the hand on her arm. Then she turned and looked out to sea. "We have to try."

Winston glanced toward the guns. Canninge and the men had finished turning them on the Rainbowe, using long wooden handspikes. Now they were adjusting the wooden wedge at the breech of each gun to set the altitude. "How does it look?"

"I know these eighteen-pounders, Cap'n, like I was born to one. At this range I could line-of-sight these whoresons any place you like."

'' How about just under the lower gun deck? At the water line? The first round better count."

"Aye, that's what I've set them for." He grinned and reached for a burning linstock. "I didn't figure we was up here to send a salute."