"I don't want to hear any more about Miss Bedford." Heslipped 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 aftermidnight, 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 Yorubababalawo?She had heard the verses for the cowries once before, years ago inBrazil. 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 truebabalawo, 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 Portuguesedonna'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 inBrazil, 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 thebrancoand their priests.She remembered those early years best. Her mother would rise before dawn, then wake the old, gnarledAshantislave 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 beautifulmulatadaughter'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 thebranconow. And only thebrancocould 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 theAshantipeople. "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 inBrazil. He was thesenhor 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 thebrancowould be made free. And she had chosen a Yoruba name for her.Thesenhor de engenhohad 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 SousaCarvalho 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 theDefianceof Atiba stirred her. He was bold. And handsome, even though apreto. 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 apreto. 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 theNew 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 thebranco. She had seen it all before inBrazil. 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.Thepretofools.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 theNew World.Africawas finished for them. They weren't Yoruba warriors now. Here they were just morepretoslaves, 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 inBrazilthink of these thatched hovels? She knew. They would laugh and ridicule the backwardness of these saltwaterpreto, 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 inBrazil. 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 ofBrazil, nights when she had slipped away to the slave quarters and sat at the feet of a powerful oldbabalawo, 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 amulatadid not associate with blackpreto, that amulataoccupied 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 nkoYou are learning to be a fool.O ko ko ogbonYou 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 withDefiance—amulataneed never be intimidated by apreto. 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."Abrancowoman 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.""Abrancowoman 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 apreto. Perhaps you still don't know what that means. Thebrancorule this island. They always will. And they own you.""You truly are abranco. 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 thebranco. ""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 thebrancokills 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 FiveKatherine 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 theDefiance, 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 fromLondonis true, thenBarbadosis 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 ofCarlisleBayspreading 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 missEngland, 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 rememberEnglandless 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. "TheAmericasare my home now, for better or worse.Englanddoesn'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 toBermuda, 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 ofEnglandmuch anymore. I feel I'm a part of theAmericasnow 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 seeEnglandagain.""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 ofBarbadosbetter 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. TheDefianceheeled 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 makeJamaicaharbor 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 inLondon?" 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 theDefianceeased 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 theZeelanderput 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 theRotterdam, just put in fromLondon. 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 theRotterdamput 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 ofBarbados' democracy. While it lasts." He shrugged. "Since you asked, I'll tell you. I think it means the end of everything we know about theAmericas. 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 inLondonthat a fleet of warships may head this way to enforce it.""I've heard that too. It sounds like nothing more than aThamesrumor.""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 thatfar.""Well, the Dutchmen do. Whatever else you might say, a Hollander's about the last man I'd call a fool. I can tell youCarlisleBayis 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. "WithEngland, 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 doesBarbadosplan 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 toLondon, you can be sure. I'd suspect the Puritans who've taken over Parliament want the American colonies because they'd like a piece ofBarbados' sudden new fortune for themselves. New taxes for Commons and new trade for English shippers. Now thatyou'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 blueCaribbean. "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 theJamestownbreastwork. So the leeward coast is protected. There's also a breastwork atOistinsBay, 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. TheDefiancewas 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 placeBarbadosis." 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."Jamestownwas 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, forestedCaribbeanisland and decided to claim it for his king."That tree proclaims this island belongs to the king ofEngland. 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. IfBarbadoscould make the stand that would change theAmericaspermanently.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 theNew Worldunited? Declared their independence?During her lifetime there had been a vast migration to theAmericas, two out of every hundred inEngland. 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 inEnglandwho had toppled the monarchy.But the settlements around theChesapeakewere different.Virginiawas founded because of profit, not prayer books. Its planters had formed their own Assembly in 1621, the first in theAmericas, and they were a spirited breed who would not give in easily to domination byEngland's new dictatorship. There was also a settlement onBermuda, 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 thatBermudahad already sent a secret envoy to Dalby Bedford proposingBarbadosjoin with them and form an alliance withVirginiaand the other islands of the Caribbees to resist the English Parliament.Bermudawanted 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 theAmericas—Virginia,Barbados, St. Christopher,Nevis,Bermuda—independent ofEngland. 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 theAmericas? 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. IfBarbadoscan 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 fightEngland? 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 hatedEnglandenough 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 inCarlisleBayhas 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 theDefiance? 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 hadbeen 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 forBarbados, 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 theCaribbean. And that means a lot more to me than who rulesBarbadosand 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 freeAmericasthat'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'sDefiance, 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 onBarbadosmust 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 theAmericas. The man who never chanced what he had gained in order to realize more would never prosper. In theAmericasa 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 inBristolwith 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 forLondon. He had never seenBristolagain. Or Mary and his daughters.
"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 aftermidnight, 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 Yorubababalawo?
She had heard the verses for the cowries once before, years ago inBrazil. 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 truebabalawo, 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 Portuguesedonna'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 inBrazil, 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 thebrancoand their priests.
She remembered those early years best. Her mother would rise before dawn, then wake the old, gnarledAshantislave 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 beautifulmulatadaughter'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 thebranconow. And only thebrancocould 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 theAshantipeople. "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 inBrazil. He was thesenhor 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 thebrancowould be made free. And she had chosen a Yoruba name for her.
Thesenhor de engenhohad 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 theDefianceof Atiba stirred her. He was bold. And handsome, even though apreto. 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 apreto. 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 theNew 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 thebranco. She had seen it all before inBrazil. 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.
Thepretofools.
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 theNew World.Africawas finished for them. They weren't Yoruba warriors now. Here they were just morepretoslaves, 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 inBrazilthink of these thatched hovels? She knew. They would laugh and ridicule the backwardness of these saltwaterpreto, 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 inBrazil. 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 ofBrazil, nights when she had slipped away to the slave quarters and sat at the feet of a powerful oldbabalawo, 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 amulatadid not associate with blackpreto, that amulataoccupied 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.
You are learning to be a fool.
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 withDefiance—amulataneed never be intimidated by apreto. 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.
"Abrancowoman 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."
"Abrancowoman 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 apreto. Perhaps you still don't know what that means. Thebrancorule this island. They always will. And they own you."
"You truly are abranco. 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 thebranco. "
"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 thebrancokills 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."
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 theDefiance, 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 fromLondonis true, thenBarbadosis 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 ofCarlisleBayspreading 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 missEngland, 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 rememberEnglandless 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. "TheAmericasare my home now, for better or worse.Englanddoesn'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 toBermuda, 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 ofEnglandmuch anymore. I feel I'm a part of theAmericasnow 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 seeEnglandagain."
"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 ofBarbadosbetter 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. TheDefianceheeled 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 makeJamaicaharbor 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 inLondon?" 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 theDefianceeased 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 theZeelanderput 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 theRotterdam, just put in fromLondon. 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 theRotterdamput 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 ofBarbados' democracy. While it lasts." He shrugged. "Since you asked, I'll tell you. I think it means the end of everything we know about theAmericas. 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 inLondonthat a fleet of warships may head this way to enforce it."
"I've heard that too. It sounds like nothing more than aThamesrumor."
"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 youCarlisleBayis 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. "WithEngland, 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 doesBarbadosplan 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 toLondon, you can be sure. I'd suspect the Puritans who've taken over Parliament want the American colonies because they'd like a piece ofBarbados' 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 blueCaribbean. "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 theJamestownbreastwork. So the leeward coast is protected. There's also a breastwork atOistinsBay, 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. TheDefiancewas 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 placeBarbadosis." 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."
Jamestownwas 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, forestedCaribbeanisland and decided to claim it for his king.
"That tree proclaims this island belongs to the king ofEngland. 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. IfBarbadoscould make the stand that would change theAmericaspermanently.
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 theNew Worldunited? Declared their independence?
During her lifetime there had been a vast migration to theAmericas, two out of every hundred inEngland. 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 inEnglandwho had toppled the monarchy.
But the settlements around theChesapeakewere different.Virginiawas founded because of profit, not prayer books. Its planters had formed their own Assembly in 1621, the first in theAmericas, and they were a spirited breed who would not give in easily to domination byEngland's new dictatorship. There was also a settlement onBermuda, 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 thatBermudahad already sent a secret envoy to Dalby Bedford proposingBarbadosjoin with them and form an alliance withVirginiaand the other islands of the Caribbees to resist the English Parliament.Bermudawanted 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 theAmericas—Virginia,Barbados, St. Christopher,Nevis,Bermuda—independent ofEngland. 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 theAmericas? 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. IfBarbadoscan 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 fightEngland? 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 hatedEnglandenough 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 inCarlisleBayhas 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 theDefiance? 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 forBarbados, 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 theCaribbean. And that means a lot more to me than who rulesBarbadosand 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 freeAmericasthat'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'sDefiance, 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 onBarbadosmust 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 theAmericas. The man who never chanced what he had gained in order to realize more would never prosper. In theAmericasa 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 inBristolwith 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 forLondon. He had never seenBristolagain. Or Mary and his daughters.