There was general applause around the room. He waited till it died away, then continued, in a more moderate tone."I presume the ladies will prefer to retire above stairs rather than chance the night air. There's feather beds and hammocks ready, and the servants'll bring the candles and chamber pots."Winston listened in mock attentiveness, then leaned over toward Katherine."Then I must bid you farewell, Miss Bedford. And lose you to more worthy companions."She looked at him dumbly, her blood still pumping from the dance. The exhilaration and release were the very thing she'd been needing."I have no intention of missing the grand start-up." Shetried to catch her breath. "It's to be history in the making, don't you recall?""That it truly will be." He shrugged. "But are you sure the sugar-works is any place for a woman?""As much as a man." She glared back at him. "There's a woman there already, Captain. Briggs' mulatto. I heard him say she's in the boiling house tonight, showing one of the new Africans how to heat the sap. She supposedly ran one once inBrazil.""Maybe she just told him that to avoid the dance." He turned and watched the planters begin filing out through the wide rear door. "Shall we join them, then?"As they walked out into the courtyard, the cool night air felt delicious against her face and sweltering bodice. At the back of the compound Briggs was opening a heavy wooden gate in the middle of the ten-foot-high stone wall that circled his house."These Africans'll make all the difference, on my faith. It's already plain as can be." He cast a withering glance at Katherine as she and Winston passed, then he followed them through, ordering the servants to secure the gate. The planters were assembled in a huddle now, surrounded by several of Briggs' indentures holding candle-lanterns. He took up his place at the front of the crowd and began leading them down the muddy road toward the torch-lit sugarworks lying to the left of the plantation house.Along the road were the thatched cabins of the indentured servants, and beyond these was a cluster of half-finished reed and clay huts, scarcely head high, that the Africans had begun constructing for themselves."They're sound workers, for all their peculiar ways." Briggs paused and pointed to a large drum resting in front of one of the larger huts. It was shaped like an hourglass, and separate goatskins had been stretched over each mouth and laced together, end to end. "What do you make of that contrivance? The first thing they did was start making this drum. And all this morning, before sunup, they were pounding on it. Damnedest racket this side of hell.""Aye, mine did the very same,"Lancastervolunteered. "I heard them drumming all over the island."Briggs walked on. "They gathered 'round that Yoruba called Atiba, who's shaking some little seashells on a tray and chanting some of their gabble. After a time he'd say something to one of them and then there'd be more drumming." He shook his head in amazement. "Idolatry worse'n the Papists.""I've a mind to put a stop to it," Whittington interjected. "The indentures are already complaining.""It's a bother, I grant you. But I see no harm in their customs, long as they put in a day's work. The place I drew the line was when they started trying to bathe in my pond every night, when any Christian knows baths are a threat to health. But for it all, one of them will cut more cane than three Irishmen." He cast a contemptuous glance backward at Timothy Farrell, who was following at a distance, holding several bottles of kill-devil. "From sunup to sundown. Good workers, to the man. So if they choose to beat on drums, I say let them. It's nothing from my pocket."Katherine watched Winston shake his head in dismay as he paused to pick up the drum, turning it in his hands."You seem troubled about their drumming, Captain. Why's that?"He looked up at her, almost as though he hadn't heard. "You've never been toBrazil, have you, Miss Bedford?""I have not.""Then you probably wouldn't believe me, even if I told you." He looked back at the huts and seemed to be talking to himself. "God damn these Englishmen. They're fools.""It's surely some kind of their African music.""Obviously." His voice had a sarcastic cut, which she didn't particularly like. But before she could reply to him in kind, he had set down the drum and moved on, seeming to have forgotten all about whatever it was that had so distressed him the moment before. Then he turned back to her. "May I enquire if you yourself play an instrument, Miss Bedford?""I once played the spinet." She reached down and picked up a small land crab wandering across their path. She examined it, then flung it aside, its claws flailing. "But I don't bother anymore."He watched the crab bemusedly, then turned back. "Then you do know something about music?""We're not without some rudiments of education here onBarbados, Captain.""And languages? Have you ever listened to these Yoruba talk? Theirs is a language of tones, you know. Same as their drums.""Some of these new Africans have a curious-sounding speech, I grant you."He stared at her a moment, as though preoccupied. "God help us all."He might have said more, but then he glanced after the crowd, now moving down the road. Ahead of them a gang of blacks could be seen through the torchlight, carrying bundles of cane in from the field and stacking them in piles near the new mill, situated atop a slight rise. A group of white indentured workers was also moving cane toward the mill from somewhere beyond the range of the torchlight, whipping forward a team of oxen pulling a large two-wheeled cart stacked with bundles. She noticed Winston seemed in no great hurry, and instead appeared to be listening absently to the planters."Would you believe this is the very same cane we brought fromBrazil?" Briggs was pointing toward a half-cut field adjacent to the road. "I planted October a year ago, just before the autumn rains. It's been sixteen months almost to the day, just like the Dutchmen said." He turned back to the crowd of planters. "The indentures weeded and dunged it, but I figured the Africans would be best for cutting it, and I was right. Born field workers. They'll be a godsend if they can be trained to run the sugarworks." He lowered his voice. "This is the last we'll need of these idling white indentures."They were now approaching the mill, which was situated inside a new thatched-roof building. Intended for crushing the cane and extracting the juice, it would be powered by two large white oxen shipped down specially fromRhode Island.The mill was a mechanism of three vertical brass rollers, each approximately a foot in diameter, that were cogged together with teeth around their top and bottom. A large round beam was secured through the middle of the central roller and attached to two long sweeps that extended outward to a circular pathway intended for the draft animals. When the sweeps were moved, the beam would rotate and with it the rollers."We just finished installing the rollers tonight. There was no chance to test it. But I explained the operation to the indentures. We'll see if they can remember."An ox had been harnessed to each of the two sweeps; as Briggs approached he signaled the servants to whip them forward. The men nodded and lashed out at the animals, who snorted, tossed their heads, then began to trudge in a circular path around the mill. Immediately the central roller began to turn, rotating the outer rollers against it by way of its cogs. As the rollers groaned into movement, several of the indentures backed away and studied them nervously."Well, what are you waiting for?" Briggs yelled at the two men standing nearest the mill, holding the first bundles of cane. "Go ahead and try feeding it through."One of the men moved gingerly toward the grinding rollers and reached out, at arm's length, to feed a small bundle consisting of a half dozen stalks of cane into the side rotating away from him. There was a loud crackle as the bundle began to gradually disappear between the rollers. As the crushed cane stalks emerged on the rear side of the mill, a second indenture seized the flattened bundle and fed it back through the pair of rollers turning in the opposite direction. In moments a trickle of pale sap began sliding down the sides of the rollers and dripping into a narrow trough that led through the wall and down the incline toward the boiling house.Briggs walked over to the trough and examined the running sap in silence. Then he dipped in a finger and took it to his lips. He savored it for a moment, looked up, triumph in his eyes, and motioned the other men forward."Have a taste. It's the sweetest nectar there could ever be." As the planters gathered around the trough sampling the first cane juice, indentures continued feeding a steady progression of cane bundles between the rollers. While the planters stood watching, the trough began to flow."It works, by Christ." Marlott emitted a whoop and dipped in for a second taste. "The first English sugar mill in all the world.""We've just witnessed that grand historic moment, Miss Bedford." Winston turned back to her, his voice sardonic. "In a little more time, these wonderful sugarmills will probably coverBarbados. Together with the slaves needed to cut the cane for them. I'd wager that in a few years' time there'll be more Africans here than English. What we've just witnessed is not the beginning of the great English Caribbees, but the first step toward what'll one day be the great African Caribbees. I suggest we take time to savor it well."His voice was drowned in the cheer rising up from the cluster of planters around Briggs. They had moved on down the incline now and were standing next to the boiling house, watching as the sap began to collect in a tank. Briggs scrutinized the tank a moment longer, then turned to the group. "This is where the sap's tempered with wet ashes just before it's boiled. That's how thePortugalsdo it. From here it runs through that trough,"—he indicated a second flow, now starting—"directly into the first kettle in the boiling house." He paused and gestured Farrell to bring the flasks forward. "I propose we take time to fortify ourselves against the heat before going in.""Shall we proceed?" Winston was pointing down the hill. Then he laughed. "Or would you like some liquor first?""Please." She pushed past him and headed down the incline. They reached the door of the boiling house well before the planters, who were lingering at the tank, passing the flask. Winston ducked his head at the doorway and they passed through a wide archway and into a thatched-roof enclosure containing a long, waist-high furnace of Dutch brick. In the back, visible only from the light of the open furnace door, were two figures: Briggs' new Yoruba slave Atiba and his Portuguese mistress, Serina.Katherine, who had almost forgotten how beautiful the mulatto was, found herself slightly relieved that Serina was dressed in perfect modesty. She wore a full-length white shift, against which her flawless olive skin fairly glowed in the torchlight. As they entered, she was speaking animatedly with Atiba while bending over to demonstrate how to feed dry cane tops into the small openings along the side of the furnace. When she spotted them, however, she pulled suddenly erect and fell silent, halting in mid-sentence.The heat in the room momentarily took away Katherine's breath, causing her to stand in startled disorientation. It was only then that she realized Hugh Winston was pulling at her sleeve. Something in the scene apparently had taken him completely by surprise.Then she realized what it was. Serina had been speaking to the tall, loincloth-clad Yoruba in an alien language that sounded almost like a blend of musical tones and stops.Now the planters began barging through the opening, congratulating Briggs as they clustered around the string of copper cauldrons cemented into the top of the long furnace. Then, as the crowd watched expectantly, a trickle of cane sap flowed down from the holding tank and spattered into the first red-hot cauldron.The men erupted with a cheer and whipped their hats into the air. Again the brown flask of kill-devil was passed appreciatively. After taking a long swallow, Briggs turned to Serina, gesturing toward Atiba as he addressed her in pidgin Portuguese, intended to add an international flavor to the evening.“Ele compreendo? ''"Sim. Compreendo. " She nodded, reached for a ladle, and began to skim the first gathering of froth off the top of the boiling liquid. Then she dumped the foam into a clay pot beside the furnace."She's supposed to know how fast to feed the furnaces to keep the temperature right. And when to ladle the liquor into the next cauldron down the row." He stepped back from the furnace, fanning himself with his hat, and turned to the men. "According to the way the Portugals do it in Brazil, the clarified liquor from the last cauldron in the line here is moved to a cistern to cool for a time, then it's filled into wooden pots and moved to the curing house.""Is that ready too?" A husky voice came from somewhere in the crowd."Aye, and I've already had enough pots made to get started. We let the molasses drain out and the sugar cure for three or four months, then we move the pots to the knocking house, where we turn them over and tap out a block of sugar. The top and bottom are brown sugar, what thePortugalscallmuscavado, and the center is pure white." He reached again for the bottle and took a deep swallow. "Twenty pence a pound inLondon, when our tobacco used to clear three farthings.""To be sure, the mill and the boiling house are the key. We'll have to start building these all over the island." Thomas Lancaster removed his black hat to wipe his brow, then pulled it firmly back on his head. "And start training the Africans in their operation. No white man could stand this heat.""She should have this one trained in a day or so." Briggsthumbed toward Atiba, now standing opposite the door examining the planters. "Then we can have him train more.""I'll venture you'd do well to watch that one particularly close." Edward Bayes lowered his voice, speaking into his beard. "There's a look about him.""Aye, he's cantankerous, I'll grant you, but he's quick. He just needs to be tamed. I've already had to flog him once, ten lashes, the first night here, when he balked at eating loblolly mush.""Ten, you say?" Dalby Bedford did not bother to disguise the astonishment in his voice. "Would you not have done better to start with five?""Are you lecturing me now on how to best break in my Africans?" Briggs glared. "I paid for them, sir. They're my property, to manage as I best see fit."Nicholas Whittington murmured his assent, and others concurred."As you say, gentlemen. But you've got three more Dutch slavers due within a fortnight. I understand they're supposed to be shippingBarbadosa full three thousand this year alone."Bedfordlooked about the room with a concerned expression. "That'll be just a start, if sugar production expands the way it seems it will. It might be well if we had the Assembly pass Acts for ordering and governing these slaves.""Damn your Assembly. We already have laws for property onBarbados."Again the other planters voiced their agreement.Bedfordstood listening, then lifted his hand for quiet. Katherine found herself wishing he would be as blunt with them as Winston had been. Sometimes the governor's good manners got in the way, something that hardly seemed to trouble Hugh Winston."I tell you this is no light matter. No man in this room knows how to manage all these Africans. What Englishman has ever been responsible for twenty, thirty, nay perhaps even a hundred slaves? They've to be clothed in some manner, fed, paired for offspring. And religion, sir? Some of the Quakers we've let settle inBridgetownare already starting to say your blacks should be baptized and taught Christianity.""You can't be suggesting it? If we let them be made Christians, where would it end?" Briggs examined him in disbelief. "You'd have laws, sir, Acts of your Assembly. Well there's the place to start. I hold the first law should be to fine and set in the stocks any of these so-called Quakers caught trying to teach our blacks Christianity. We'll not stand for it."Katherine saw Serina's features tense and her eyes harden, but she said nothing, merely continued to skim the foam from the boiling surface of the cauldron."The Spaniards andPortugalsteach the Catholic faith to their Negroes,"Bedfordcontinued evenly."And there you have the difference. They're not English. They're Papists." Briggs paused as he studied the flow of cane sap entering the cauldron from the holding tank, still dripping slowly from the lead spout. "By the looks of it, it could be flowing faster." He studied it a moment longer, then turned toward the door. "The mill. Maybe that's the answer. What if we doubled the size of the cane bundles?"Katherine watched the planters trail after Briggs, out the doorway and into the night, still passing the flask of kill-devil."What do you think, Captain? Should an African be made a Christian?""Theology's not my specialty, Miss Bedford." He walked past her. "Tell me first if you think a Puritan's one." He was moving toward Serina, who stood silently skimming the top of the first cauldron, now a vigorous boil. She glanced up once and examined him, then returned her eyes to the froth. Katherine just managed to catch a few words as he began speaking to her quietly in fluent Portuguese, as though to guard against any of the planters accidentally overhearing."Senhora, how is it you know the language of the Africans?"She looked up for a moment without speaking, her eyes disdainful. "I'm a slave too, as you well know, senhor." Then she turned and continued with the ladle."But you're aPortugal.""And never forget that. I am not one of thesepreto. " She spat out the Portuguese word for Negro.Atiba continued methodically shoving cane tops into the roaring mouth of the furnace."But you were speaking to him just now in his own language. I recognized it.""He asked a question, and I answered him, that's all.""Then you do know his language? How?""I know many things." She fixed his eyes, continuing in Portuguese. "Perhaps it surprises you Ingles that amulatacan speak at all. I also know how to read, something half thebrancorubbish who were in this room tonight probably cannot do."Katherine knew only a smattering of Portuguese, but she caught the part about some of thebranco, the whites, not being able to read. She smiled to think there was probably much truth in that. Certainly almost none of the white indentures could. Further, she suspected that many of the planters had never bothered to learn either."I know you were educated inBrazil." Winston was pressing Serina relentlessly. "I was trying to ask you how you know the language of this African?"She paused, her face a blend of haughtiness and regret. She started to speak, then stopped herself."Won't you tell me?"She turned back, as though speaking to the cauldron. "My mother was Yoruba.""Is that how you learned?" His voice was skeptical."I was taught also by ababalawo, a Yoruba priest, inBrazil.""What's she saying?" Katherine moved next to him, shielding her eyes from the heat."Desculpe, senhora, excuse me." Winston quickly moved forward, continuing in Portuguese as he motioned toward Katherine. "This is . . .""I know perfectly well who Miss Bedford is." Serina interrupted him, still in Portuguese.Katherine stared at her, not catching the foreign words. "Is she talking about me?""She said her mother was a Yoruba." Winston moved between them. "And she said something about a priest.""Is she some sort of priest? Is that what she said?""No." Serina's English answer was quick and curt, then she said something else to Winston, in Portuguese."She said she was not, though the women of her mother's family have practiced divination for many generations.""Divination?" Katherine studied him, puzzled. Then she turned back to Serina,"What do you mean by that?"Serina was looking at her now, for the first time. "Divination is the way the Yoruba people ask their gods to tell the future.""How exactly do they go about doing such a thing?""Many ways." She turned back to the cauldron.Winston stood in the silence for a moment, then turned to Katherine. "I think one of the ways is with shells. InBrazilI once saw a Yoruba diviner shaking a tray with small sea-shells in it."Serina glanced back, now speaking English. "I see you are an Ingles who bothers to try and understand other peoples. One of the few I've ever met.Felicitacao, senhor, my compliments. Yes, that is one of the ways, and the most sacred to a Yoruba. It's called the divination of the sixteen cowrie shells. A Yoruba diviner foretells the will of the gods from how the shells lie in a tray after it has been shaken—by how many lie with the slotted side up. It's the way the gods talk to him.""Who are these gods they speak to?" Katherine found herself challenged by the mulatto's haughtiness.Serina continued to stir the cauldron. "You'd not know them, senhora.""But I would be pleased to hear of them." Katherine's voice was sharp, but then she caught herself and softened it. "Are they something like the Christian God?"Serina paused, examining Katherine for a moment, and then her eyes assumed a distant expression. "I do not know much about them. I know there is one god like the Christian God. He is the high god, who never shows his powers on earth. But there are many other gods who do. The one the Yoruba call on most is Shango, the god of thunder and lightning, and of fire. His symbol is the double-headed axe. There also is Ogun, who is the god of iron." She hesitated. "And the god of war.''Katherine studied her. "Do you believe in all these African deities yourself?""Who can say what's really true, senhora?" Her smooth skin glistened from the heat. She brushed the hair from her eyes in a graceful motion, as though she were in a drawing room, while her voice retreated again into formality. "The Yoruba even believe that many different things can be true at once. Something no European can ever understand.""There's something you may not understand, senhora," Winston interjected, speaking now in English. "And I think you well should. The Yoruba in this room also knows the language of thePortugals. Take care what you say.""It's not possible." She glanced at Atiba contemptuously, continuing loudly in Portuguese. "He's a saltwaterpreto. "Before Winston could respond, there was an eruption of shouts and curses from the direction of the mill. They all turned to watch as Benjamin Briggs shoved through the doorway, pointing at Atiba."Get that one out here. I warrant he can make them understand." The sweltering room seemed frozen in time, except for Briggs, now motioning at Serina. "Tell him to come out here." He revolved to Winston. "I've a mind to flog all of them.""What's wrong?""The damned mill. I doubled the size of the bundles, the very thing I should’ve done in the first place, but now the oxen can't turn it properly. I want to try hooking both oxen to one of the sweeps and a pair of Africans on the other. I've harnessed them up, but I can't get them to move." He motioned again for Atiba to accompany him. "This one's got more wit than all the rest together. Maybe I can show him what I want."Serina gestured toward Atiba, who followed Briggs out the door, into the fresh night air. Katherine stared after him for a moment, then turned back. Winston was speaking to Serina again in Portuguese, but too rapidly to follow."Will you tell me one thing more?""As you wish, senhor." She did not look up from the cauldron."What was going on last night? With the drums?"She hesitated slightly. "I don't know what you mean."Winston was towering over her now. "I think you know very well what I mean, senhora. Now tell me, damn it. What were they saying?"She seemed not to hear him. Through the silence that filled the room, there suddenly came a burst of shouts from the direction of the mill.Katherine felt fear sweep over her, and she found herself seizing Winston's arm, pulling him toward the doorway. Outside, the planters were milling about in confusion, vague shadows against the torchlight. Then she realized Atiba was trying to wrench off the harness from the necks of the two blacks tied to the sweeps of the mill, while yelling at Briggs in his African language.She gripped Winston's arm tighter as she watched William Marlott, brandishing a heavy-bladed cane machete, move on Atiba. Then several other planters leapt out of the shadows,grabbed his powerful shoulders, and wrestled him to the ground."You'd best flog him here and now." Marlott looked up, sweat running down his face. "It'll be a proper lesson to all the rest."Briggs nodded toward several of the white indentures and in moments a rope was lashed to Atiba's wrists. Then he was yanked against the mill, his face between the wet rollers. One of the indentures brought forward a braided leather horsewhip.Katherine turned her face away, back toward the boiling house, not wanting to see.Serina was standing in the doorway now, staring out blankly, a shimmering moistness in her eyes.Chapter FourFor almost a month now, any night he could manage, Atiba had slipped unseen from the compound and explored the southern coast of the island, the shore and the upland hills. Now he was sure they could survive after the island became theirs. Thebranco, the white English, were savages, who destroyed all they touched, but there were still traces of what once had been. Between the fields of sterile cane he had found and tasted the fruits of the sacred earth.There were groves of wild figs, their dark fruit luscious and astringent, and plump coconuts, their tender core as rich as any in Yorubaland. Along the shore were stands of sea-grape trees, with a sweet purple fruit biting to the tongue. He had also found palm-like trees clustered with the tender papaya, and farther inland there were groves of banana and plantain. He had discovered other trees with large oranges, plump with yellow nectar, as well as pomegranates and tamarind just like those he had known in Ife, his home city. The soil itself gave forth moist melons, wild cucumbers, and the red apples of the prickly cactus. There also were calabash, the hard, round gourds the Ingles had already learned could be hollowed out for cups and basins. The only thing wanting was that staple of the Yoruba people, the yam.But they would not have to survive from the soil alone. In thethickets he had heard the grunts and squeals of the wild hogs, fat sows foraging nuts, leading their litters. Along the shore he had seen flocks of feeding egrets in the dawn light, ready to be snared and roasted, and at his feet there had been hundreds of land crabs, night prowlers as big as two hands, ripe for boiling as they scurried back to their sand burrows along the shore.He could not understand why thebrancoslaves who worked alongside the Yoruba allowed themselves to be fed on boiled corn mush. A natural bounty lay within arm's reach.The Orisa, those forces in nature that work closest with man, were still present on the island. He could sense them, waiting in the wood of the trees. This ravished place had once been a great forest, like the one north ofIfe, and it could be again. If the hand of the Ingles was taken from it, and the spirit of the Orisa, its rightful protectors, freed once more.The first cooing of the wood dove sounded through the thatched hut, above the chorus of whistling frogs from the pond, signaling the approach of day. Atiba sat motionless in the graying light, crosslegged, at the edge of the mud seat nearest the door, and studied the sixteen cowrie shells as they spun across the reed tray that lay before him. As he watched, eight of the small ovals came to rest mouth up, in a wide crescent, the remainder facing down.The tiny room was crowded with the men of the Yoruba, their cotton loincloths already drenched with sweat from the early heat. Now all eyes narrowed in apprehension, waiting for thisbabalawo, the priest of the Yoruba, to speak and interpret the verses that revealed the message in the cowries.Bi a ko jiya ti o kun agbonIf we do not bear suffering that will fill a basket,A ko le jore to kun inu ahaWe will not receive kindness that will fill a cup.He paused and signaled the tall, bearded drummer waiting by the door. The man's name was Obewole, and he had once been, many rains ago, the strongest drummer in the entire city ofIfe. He nodded and shifted the large drum—the Yorubaiya ilu—that hung at his waist, suspended from a wide shoulder strap. Abruptly the small wooden mallet he held began to dance across the taut goatskin. The verses Atiba had just spoken were repeated exactly, the drum's tone changing in pitch and timbre as Obewole squeezed the cords down its hourglass waist between his arm and his side. Moments later there came the sound of more drums along the length of the southern coast, transmitting his verses inland. In less than a minute all the Yoruba onBarbadoshad heard theirbabalawo'sexact words.Then he said something more and shook the tray again. This time five cowries lay open, set as a star. Again he spoke, his eyes far away.A se'gi oko ma we okoThe tree that swims like a canoe,A s’agada ja'ri erinThe sword that will cut iron.Once more the drum sent the words over the morning quiet of the island.Atiba waited a few moments longer, then slowly looked up and surveyed the expectant faces around him. The shells had spoken, true enough, but the message of the gods was perplexing. Seemingly Shango had counseled endurance, while Ogun foretold war.He alone was priest, and he alone could interpret this contradictory reading. He knew in his heart what the gods wanted, what they surely must want. Still, the realization brought painful memories. He knew too well what war would mean. He had seen it many times—the flash of mirrored steel in the sunlight, the blood of other men on your hands, the deaths of wise fathers and strong sons.The worst had been when he and his warriors had stood shoulder to shoulder defending the ancient royal compound at Ife with their lives, when the Fulani from the north had breached the high walls of the city and approached the very entrance of the ruling Oba's palace, those huge sculptured doors guarded by the two sacred bronze leopards. That day he and his men had lost more strong warriors than there were women to mourn them, but by nightfall they had driven out the worshippers of other gods who would take their lands, pillage their compounds, carry away their seed-yams and their youngest wives.He also knew there could be betrayal. He had seen it during the last season of rains, when the drums had brought news of strangers in the southeastern quarter of the world that was Yorubaland. He and his men had left their compounds and marched all day through the rain. That night, among the trees, they had been fallen upon byBeninslavers, men of black skin who served thebrancoas a woman serves the payer of her bride-price.But the men of the Yoruba would never be made to serve. Their gods were too powerful, their ancestors too proud. The Yoruba were destined to rule. Just as they had governed Yorubaland for a thousand years. Theirs was an ancient and noble people, nothing like the half-civilized Ingles on this island. In the great metropolis of Ife, surrounded by miles of massive concentric walls, the Yoruba had lived for generations in wide family compounds built of white clay, their courtyards open to light and air, walking streets paved with brick and stone, wearing embroidered robes woven of finest cotton, sculpting lost-wax bronzes whose artistry no Ingles could even imagine. They did not swelter in patched-together log huts like the Ingles planters here, or in thatched hovels like the Ingles planters' servants. And they paid reverence to gods whose power was far greater than anybrancohad ever seen."The sky has no shadow. It reaches out in all directions to the edge of the world. In it are the sun, the moon, all that is." He paused, waiting for the drums, then continued. "I have gone out into the dark, the void that is night, and I have returned unharmed. I say the Orisa are here, strong. We must make war on the branco to free them once more." He paused again. "No man's day of death can be postponed. It is already known to all the gods. There is nothing we need fear."After the drums had sent his words across the island, the hut fell quiet. Then there came a voice from a small, wizened man sitting on Atiba's left, a Yoruba older than the rest, with sweat pouring down the wrinkles of his long dark face."You are of royal blood, Atiba. Your father Balogun was one of the sixteen royalbabalawoof the Oba of Ife, one of the great Awoni. It was he who taught you his skills." He cleared his throat, signifying his importance. "Yet I say you now speak as one who has drunk too many horns of palm wine. We are only men. Ogun will not come forth to carry our shields.""Old Tahajo, you who are the oldest and wisest here tonight, you know full well I am but a man." Atiba paused, to demonstrate deference. He was chagrined that this elder who now honored his hut had to sit directly on the mud seat, that there was no buffalo skin to take down off the wall for him as there would have been in a compound atIfe. "Though the gods allow me to read their words in the cowries, I still eat the food a woman cooks.""I know you are a man, son of Balogun, and the finest ever sired inIfe. I knew you even before you grew of age, before you were old enough to tie a cloth between your legs. I was there the day your clan marks were cut in your cheek, those three proud lines that mark you the son of your father. Be his son now, but speak to us today as a man, not asbabalawo. Let us hear your own voice."Atiba nodded and set aside the tray. Then he turned back to the drummer and reached for his gleaming machete. "Since Tahajo wishes it, we will wait for another time to consult more with Ogun and Shango. Now I will hold a sword and speak simply, as a man."Obewole nodded and picked up the mallet."This island was once ruled by the Orisa of the forest. But now there is only cane. Its sweetness is bitter in the mouths of the gods, for it has stolen their home. I say we must destroy it. To do this we will call down the fire of lightning that Shango guards in the sky.""How can we call down Shango's fire?" The old man spoke again. None of the others in the cramped hut dared question Atiba so boldly. "No man here is consecrated to Shango. We are all warriors, men of Ogun. His power is only over the earth, not the skies.""I believe there is one on this island whose lineage is Shango. A woman. Perhaps she no longer even knows it. But through her we will reach him." He turned and signaled Obewole to ready the drum. "Now I will speak. Hear me. Shango's spirit is here, on this island. He will help us take away the strength of the Ingles." He paused for the drums, then continued, "I learned on the ship that before the next new moon there will be many more of us here. The other warriors who were betrayed by theBenintraitors will be with us again. Then we will take out the fire of Shango that the Ingles hold prisoner in the boiling house and release it in the night, among the fields of cane. We will burn the compounds of the Ingles and take their muskets. Then we will free the white slaves. They are too craven to free themselves, but they will not stand with theirbrancomasters."He turned again to Obewole and nodded. "Send the words."Winston shifted uneasily in his sleep, then bolted upright, rubbing the slight ache of his scar as he became aware of thedistant 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 takeJamaica. 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 theNew 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 theAmericas, especially for settlements that wanted to grow money crops for export. But nowBarbadoshad 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 inVirginia. Agricultural slavery had started here, but soon it would doubtless be introduced wholesale intoNorth 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 likeBarbados, had nowhere to go. No escape.Not yet. But come the dayJamaicawas 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 theDefiance. 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 byNevisIsland.""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 inBrazilthe 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 onNevisIsland? 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 takeJamaica. 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."
There was general applause around the room. He waited till it died away, then continued, in a more moderate tone.
"I presume the ladies will prefer to retire above stairs rather than chance the night air. There's feather beds and hammocks ready, and the servants'll bring the candles and chamber pots."
Winston listened in mock attentiveness, then leaned over toward Katherine.
"Then I must bid you farewell, Miss Bedford. And lose you to more worthy companions."
She looked at him dumbly, her blood still pumping from the dance. The exhilaration and release were the very thing she'd been needing.
"I have no intention of missing the grand start-up." She
tried to catch her breath. "It's to be history in the making, don't you recall?"
"That it truly will be." He shrugged. "But are you sure the sugar-works is any place for a woman?"
"As much as a man." She glared back at him. "There's a woman there already, Captain. Briggs' mulatto. I heard him say she's in the boiling house tonight, showing one of the new Africans how to heat the sap. She supposedly ran one once inBrazil."
"Maybe she just told him that to avoid the dance." He turned and watched the planters begin filing out through the wide rear door. "Shall we join them, then?"
As they walked out into the courtyard, the cool night air felt delicious against her face and sweltering bodice. At the back of the compound Briggs was opening a heavy wooden gate in the middle of the ten-foot-high stone wall that circled his house.
"These Africans'll make all the difference, on my faith. It's already plain as can be." He cast a withering glance at Katherine as she and Winston passed, then he followed them through, ordering the servants to secure the gate. The planters were assembled in a huddle now, surrounded by several of Briggs' indentures holding candle-lanterns. He took up his place at the front of the crowd and began leading them down the muddy road toward the torch-lit sugarworks lying to the left of the plantation house.
Along the road were the thatched cabins of the indentured servants, and beyond these was a cluster of half-finished reed and clay huts, scarcely head high, that the Africans had begun constructing for themselves.
"They're sound workers, for all their peculiar ways." Briggs paused and pointed to a large drum resting in front of one of the larger huts. It was shaped like an hourglass, and separate goatskins had been stretched over each mouth and laced together, end to end. "What do you make of that contrivance? The first thing they did was start making this drum. And all this morning, before sunup, they were pounding on it. Damnedest racket this side of hell."
"Aye, mine did the very same,"Lancastervolunteered. "I heard them drumming all over the island."
Briggs walked on. "They gathered 'round that Yoruba called Atiba, who's shaking some little seashells on a tray and chanting some of their gabble. After a time he'd say something to one of them and then there'd be more drumming." He shook his head in amazement. "Idolatry worse'n the Papists."
"I've a mind to put a stop to it," Whittington interjected. "The indentures are already complaining."
"It's a bother, I grant you. But I see no harm in their customs, long as they put in a day's work. The place I drew the line was when they started trying to bathe in my pond every night, when any Christian knows baths are a threat to health. But for it all, one of them will cut more cane than three Irishmen." He cast a contemptuous glance backward at Timothy Farrell, who was following at a distance, holding several bottles of kill-devil. "From sunup to sundown. Good workers, to the man. So if they choose to beat on drums, I say let them. It's nothing from my pocket."
Katherine watched Winston shake his head in dismay as he paused to pick up the drum, turning it in his hands.
"You seem troubled about their drumming, Captain. Why's that?"
He looked up at her, almost as though he hadn't heard. "You've never been toBrazil, have you, Miss Bedford?"
"I have not."
"Then you probably wouldn't believe me, even if I told you." He looked back at the huts and seemed to be talking to himself. "God damn these Englishmen. They're fools."
"It's surely some kind of their African music."
"Obviously." His voice had a sarcastic cut, which she didn't particularly like. But before she could reply to him in kind, he had set down the drum and moved on, seeming to have forgotten all about whatever it was that had so distressed him the moment before. Then he turned back to her. "May I enquire if you yourself play an instrument, Miss Bedford?"
"I once played the spinet." She reached down and picked up a small land crab wandering across their path. She examined it, then flung it aside, its claws flailing. "But I don't bother anymore."
He watched the crab bemusedly, then turned back. "Then you do know something about music?"
"We're not without some rudiments of education here onBarbados, Captain."
"And languages? Have you ever listened to these Yoruba talk? Theirs is a language of tones, you know. Same as their drums."
"Some of these new Africans have a curious-sounding speech, I grant you."
He stared at her a moment, as though preoccupied. "God help us all."
He might have said more, but then he glanced after the crowd, now moving down the road. Ahead of them a gang of blacks could be seen through the torchlight, carrying bundles of cane in from the field and stacking them in piles near the new mill, situated atop a slight rise. A group of white indentured workers was also moving cane toward the mill from somewhere beyond the range of the torchlight, whipping forward a team of oxen pulling a large two-wheeled cart stacked with bundles. She noticed Winston seemed in no great hurry, and instead appeared to be listening absently to the planters.
"Would you believe this is the very same cane we brought fromBrazil?" Briggs was pointing toward a half-cut field adjacent to the road. "I planted October a year ago, just before the autumn rains. It's been sixteen months almost to the day, just like the Dutchmen said." He turned back to the crowd of planters. "The indentures weeded and dunged it, but I figured the Africans would be best for cutting it, and I was right. Born field workers. They'll be a godsend if they can be trained to run the sugarworks." He lowered his voice. "This is the last we'll need of these idling white indentures."
They were now approaching the mill, which was situated inside a new thatched-roof building. Intended for crushing the cane and extracting the juice, it would be powered by two large white oxen shipped down specially fromRhode Island.
The mill was a mechanism of three vertical brass rollers, each approximately a foot in diameter, that were cogged together with teeth around their top and bottom. A large round beam was secured through the middle of the central roller and attached to two long sweeps that extended outward to a circular pathway intended for the draft animals. When the sweeps were moved, the beam would rotate and with it the rollers.
"We just finished installing the rollers tonight. There was no chance to test it. But I explained the operation to the indentures. We'll see if they can remember."
An ox had been harnessed to each of the two sweeps; as Briggs approached he signaled the servants to whip them forward. The men nodded and lashed out at the animals, who snorted, tossed their heads, then began to trudge in a circular path around the mill. Immediately the central roller began to turn, rotating the outer rollers against it by way of its cogs. As the rollers groaned into movement, several of the indentures backed away and studied them nervously.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Briggs yelled at the two men standing nearest the mill, holding the first bundles of cane. "Go ahead and try feeding it through."
One of the men moved gingerly toward the grinding rollers and reached out, at arm's length, to feed a small bundle consisting of a half dozen stalks of cane into the side rotating away from him. There was a loud crackle as the bundle began to gradually disappear between the rollers. As the crushed cane stalks emerged on the rear side of the mill, a second indenture seized the flattened bundle and fed it back through the pair of rollers turning in the opposite direction. In moments a trickle of pale sap began sliding down the sides of the rollers and dripping into a narrow trough that led through the wall and down the incline toward the boiling house.
Briggs walked over to the trough and examined the running sap in silence. Then he dipped in a finger and took it to his lips. He savored it for a moment, looked up, triumph in his eyes, and motioned the other men forward.
"Have a taste. It's the sweetest nectar there could ever be." As the planters gathered around the trough sampling the first cane juice, indentures continued feeding a steady progression of cane bundles between the rollers. While the planters stood watching, the trough began to flow.
"It works, by Christ." Marlott emitted a whoop and dipped in for a second taste. "The first English sugar mill in all the world."
"We've just witnessed that grand historic moment, Miss Bedford." Winston turned back to her, his voice sardonic. "In a little more time, these wonderful sugarmills will probably coverBarbados. Together with the slaves needed to cut the cane for them. I'd wager that in a few years' time there'll be more Africans here than English. What we've just witnessed is not the beginning of the great English Caribbees, but the first step toward what'll one day be the great African Caribbees. I suggest we take time to savor it well."
His voice was drowned in the cheer rising up from the cluster of planters around Briggs. They had moved on down the incline now and were standing next to the boiling house, watching as the sap began to collect in a tank. Briggs scrutinized the tank a moment longer, then turned to the group. "This is where the sap's tempered with wet ashes just before it's boiled. That's how thePortugalsdo it. From here it runs through that trough,"—he indicated a second flow, now starting—"directly into the first kettle in the boiling house." He paused and gestured Farrell to bring the flasks forward. "I propose we take time to fortify ourselves against the heat before going in."
"Shall we proceed?" Winston was pointing down the hill. Then he laughed. "Or would you like some liquor first?"
"Please." She pushed past him and headed down the incline. They reached the door of the boiling house well before the planters, who were lingering at the tank, passing the flask. Winston ducked his head at the doorway and they passed through a wide archway and into a thatched-roof enclosure containing a long, waist-high furnace of Dutch brick. In the back, visible only from the light of the open furnace door, were two figures: Briggs' new Yoruba slave Atiba and his Portuguese mistress, Serina.
Katherine, who had almost forgotten how beautiful the mulatto was, found herself slightly relieved that Serina was dressed in perfect modesty. She wore a full-length white shift, against which her flawless olive skin fairly glowed in the torchlight. As they entered, she was speaking animatedly with Atiba while bending over to demonstrate how to feed dry cane tops into the small openings along the side of the furnace. When she spotted them, however, she pulled suddenly erect and fell silent, halting in mid-sentence.
The heat in the room momentarily took away Katherine's breath, causing her to stand in startled disorientation. It was only then that she realized Hugh Winston was pulling at her sleeve. Something in the scene apparently had taken him completely by surprise.
Then she realized what it was. Serina had been speaking to the tall, loincloth-clad Yoruba in an alien language that sounded almost like a blend of musical tones and stops.
Now the planters began barging through the opening, congratulating Briggs as they clustered around the string of copper cauldrons cemented into the top of the long furnace. Then, as the crowd watched expectantly, a trickle of cane sap flowed down from the holding tank and spattered into the first red-hot cauldron.
The men erupted with a cheer and whipped their hats into the air. Again the brown flask of kill-devil was passed appreciatively. After taking a long swallow, Briggs turned to Serina, gesturing toward Atiba as he addressed her in pidgin Portuguese, intended to add an international flavor to the evening.
“Ele compreendo? ''
"Sim. Compreendo. " She nodded, reached for a ladle, and began to skim the first gathering of froth off the top of the boiling liquid. Then she dumped the foam into a clay pot beside the furnace.
"She's supposed to know how fast to feed the furnaces to keep the temperature right. And when to ladle the liquor into the next cauldron down the row." He stepped back from the furnace, fanning himself with his hat, and turned to the men. "According to the way the Portugals do it in Brazil, the clarified liquor from the last cauldron in the line here is moved to a cistern to cool for a time, then it's filled into wooden pots and moved to the curing house."
"Is that ready too?" A husky voice came from somewhere in the crowd.
"Aye, and I've already had enough pots made to get started. We let the molasses drain out and the sugar cure for three or four months, then we move the pots to the knocking house, where we turn them over and tap out a block of sugar. The top and bottom are brown sugar, what thePortugalscallmuscavado, and the center is pure white." He reached again for the bottle and took a deep swallow. "Twenty pence a pound inLondon, when our tobacco used to clear three farthings."
"To be sure, the mill and the boiling house are the key. We'll have to start building these all over the island." Thomas Lancaster removed his black hat to wipe his brow, then pulled it firmly back on his head. "And start training the Africans in their operation. No white man could stand this heat."
"She should have this one trained in a day or so." Briggs
thumbed toward Atiba, now standing opposite the door examining the planters. "Then we can have him train more."
"I'll venture you'd do well to watch that one particularly close." Edward Bayes lowered his voice, speaking into his beard. "There's a look about him."
"Aye, he's cantankerous, I'll grant you, but he's quick. He just needs to be tamed. I've already had to flog him once, ten lashes, the first night here, when he balked at eating loblolly mush."
"Ten, you say?" Dalby Bedford did not bother to disguise the astonishment in his voice. "Would you not have done better to start with five?"
"Are you lecturing me now on how to best break in my Africans?" Briggs glared. "I paid for them, sir. They're my property, to manage as I best see fit."
Nicholas Whittington murmured his assent, and others concurred.
"As you say, gentlemen. But you've got three more Dutch slavers due within a fortnight. I understand they're supposed to be shippingBarbadosa full three thousand this year alone."Bedfordlooked about the room with a concerned expression. "That'll be just a start, if sugar production expands the way it seems it will. It might be well if we had the Assembly pass Acts for ordering and governing these slaves."
"Damn your Assembly. We already have laws for property onBarbados."
Again the other planters voiced their agreement.Bedfordstood listening, then lifted his hand for quiet. Katherine found herself wishing he would be as blunt with them as Winston had been. Sometimes the governor's good manners got in the way, something that hardly seemed to trouble Hugh Winston.
"I tell you this is no light matter. No man in this room knows how to manage all these Africans. What Englishman has ever been responsible for twenty, thirty, nay perhaps even a hundred slaves? They've to be clothed in some manner, fed, paired for offspring. And religion, sir? Some of the Quakers we've let settle inBridgetownare already starting to say your blacks should be baptized and taught Christianity."
"You can't be suggesting it? If we let them be made Christians, where would it end?" Briggs examined him in disbelief. "You'd have laws, sir, Acts of your Assembly. Well there's the place to start. I hold the first law should be to fine and set in the stocks any of these so-called Quakers caught trying to teach our blacks Christianity. We'll not stand for it."
Katherine saw Serina's features tense and her eyes harden, but she said nothing, merely continued to skim the foam from the boiling surface of the cauldron.
"The Spaniards andPortugalsteach the Catholic faith to their Negroes,"Bedfordcontinued evenly.
"And there you have the difference. They're not English. They're Papists." Briggs paused as he studied the flow of cane sap entering the cauldron from the holding tank, still dripping slowly from the lead spout. "By the looks of it, it could be flowing faster." He studied it a moment longer, then turned toward the door. "The mill. Maybe that's the answer. What if we doubled the size of the cane bundles?"
Katherine watched the planters trail after Briggs, out the doorway and into the night, still passing the flask of kill-devil.
"What do you think, Captain? Should an African be made a Christian?"
"Theology's not my specialty, Miss Bedford." He walked past her. "Tell me first if you think a Puritan's one." He was moving toward Serina, who stood silently skimming the top of the first cauldron, now a vigorous boil. She glanced up once and examined him, then returned her eyes to the froth. Katherine just managed to catch a few words as he began speaking to her quietly in fluent Portuguese, as though to guard against any of the planters accidentally overhearing.
"Senhora, how is it you know the language of the Africans?"
She looked up for a moment without speaking, her eyes disdainful. "I'm a slave too, as you well know, senhor." Then she turned and continued with the ladle.
"But you're aPortugal."
"And never forget that. I am not one of thesepreto. " She spat out the Portuguese word for Negro.
Atiba continued methodically shoving cane tops into the roaring mouth of the furnace.
"But you were speaking to him just now in his own language. I recognized it."
"He asked a question, and I answered him, that's all."
"Then you do know his language? How?"
"I know many things." She fixed his eyes, continuing in Portuguese. "Perhaps it surprises you Ingles that amulatacan speak at all. I also know how to read, something half thebrancorubbish who were in this room tonight probably cannot do."
Katherine knew only a smattering of Portuguese, but she caught the part about some of thebranco, the whites, not being able to read. She smiled to think there was probably much truth in that. Certainly almost none of the white indentures could. Further, she suspected that many of the planters had never bothered to learn either.
"I know you were educated inBrazil." Winston was pressing Serina relentlessly. "I was trying to ask you how you know the language of this African?"
She paused, her face a blend of haughtiness and regret. She started to speak, then stopped herself.
"Won't you tell me?"
She turned back, as though speaking to the cauldron. "My mother was Yoruba."
"Is that how you learned?" His voice was skeptical.
"I was taught also by ababalawo, a Yoruba priest, inBrazil."
"What's she saying?" Katherine moved next to him, shielding her eyes from the heat.
"Desculpe, senhora, excuse me." Winston quickly moved forward, continuing in Portuguese as he motioned toward Katherine. "This is . . ."
"I know perfectly well who Miss Bedford is." Serina interrupted him, still in Portuguese.
Katherine stared at her, not catching the foreign words. "Is she talking about me?"
"She said her mother was a Yoruba." Winston moved between them. "And she said something about a priest."
"Is she some sort of priest? Is that what she said?"
"No." Serina's English answer was quick and curt, then she said something else to Winston, in Portuguese.
"She said she was not, though the women of her mother's family have practiced divination for many generations."
"Divination?" Katherine studied him, puzzled. Then she turned back to Serina,"What do you mean by that?"
Serina was looking at her now, for the first time. "Divination is the way the Yoruba people ask their gods to tell the future."
"How exactly do they go about doing such a thing?"
"Many ways." She turned back to the cauldron.
Winston stood in the silence for a moment, then turned to Katherine. "I think one of the ways is with shells. InBrazilI once saw a Yoruba diviner shaking a tray with small sea-shells in it."
Serina glanced back, now speaking English. "I see you are an Ingles who bothers to try and understand other peoples. One of the few I've ever met.Felicitacao, senhor, my compliments. Yes, that is one of the ways, and the most sacred to a Yoruba. It's called the divination of the sixteen cowrie shells. A Yoruba diviner foretells the will of the gods from how the shells lie in a tray after it has been shaken—by how many lie with the slotted side up. It's the way the gods talk to him."
"Who are these gods they speak to?" Katherine found herself challenged by the mulatto's haughtiness.
Serina continued to stir the cauldron. "You'd not know them, senhora."
"But I would be pleased to hear of them." Katherine's voice was sharp, but then she caught herself and softened it. "Are they something like the Christian God?"
Serina paused, examining Katherine for a moment, and then her eyes assumed a distant expression. "I do not know much about them. I know there is one god like the Christian God. He is the high god, who never shows his powers on earth. But there are many other gods who do. The one the Yoruba call on most is Shango, the god of thunder and lightning, and of fire. His symbol is the double-headed axe. There also is Ogun, who is the god of iron." She hesitated. "And the god of war.''
Katherine studied her. "Do you believe in all these African deities yourself?"
"Who can say what's really true, senhora?" Her smooth skin glistened from the heat. She brushed the hair from her eyes in a graceful motion, as though she were in a drawing room, while her voice retreated again into formality. "The Yoruba even believe that many different things can be true at once. Something no European can ever understand."
"There's something you may not understand, senhora," Winston interjected, speaking now in English. "And I think you well should. The Yoruba in this room also knows the language of thePortugals. Take care what you say."
"It's not possible." She glanced at Atiba contemptuously, continuing loudly in Portuguese. "He's a saltwaterpreto. "
Before Winston could respond, there was an eruption of shouts and curses from the direction of the mill. They all turned to watch as Benjamin Briggs shoved through the doorway, pointing at Atiba.
"Get that one out here. I warrant he can make them understand." The sweltering room seemed frozen in time, except for Briggs, now motioning at Serina. "Tell him to come out here." He revolved to Winston. "I've a mind to flog all of them."
"What's wrong?"
"The damned mill. I doubled the size of the bundles, the very thing I should’ve done in the first place, but now the oxen can't turn it properly. I want to try hooking both oxen to one of the sweeps and a pair of Africans on the other. I've harnessed them up, but I can't get them to move." He motioned again for Atiba to accompany him. "This one's got more wit than all the rest together. Maybe I can show him what I want."
Serina gestured toward Atiba, who followed Briggs out the door, into the fresh night air. Katherine stared after him for a moment, then turned back. Winston was speaking to Serina again in Portuguese, but too rapidly to follow.
"Will you tell me one thing more?"
"As you wish, senhor." She did not look up from the cauldron.
"What was going on last night? With the drums?"
She hesitated slightly. "I don't know what you mean."
Winston was towering over her now. "I think you know very well what I mean, senhora. Now tell me, damn it. What were they saying?"
She seemed not to hear him. Through the silence that filled the room, there suddenly came a burst of shouts from the direction of the mill.
Katherine felt fear sweep over her, and she found herself seizing Winston's arm, pulling him toward the doorway. Outside, the planters were milling about in confusion, vague shadows against the torchlight. Then she realized Atiba was trying to wrench off the harness from the necks of the two blacks tied to the sweeps of the mill, while yelling at Briggs in his African language.
She gripped Winston's arm tighter as she watched William Marlott, brandishing a heavy-bladed cane machete, move on Atiba. Then several other planters leapt out of the shadows,
grabbed his powerful shoulders, and wrestled him to the ground.
"You'd best flog him here and now." Marlott looked up, sweat running down his face. "It'll be a proper lesson to all the rest."
Briggs nodded toward several of the white indentures and in moments a rope was lashed to Atiba's wrists. Then he was yanked against the mill, his face between the wet rollers. One of the indentures brought forward a braided leather horsewhip.
Katherine turned her face away, back toward the boiling house, not wanting to see.
Serina was standing in the doorway now, staring out blankly, a shimmering moistness in her eyes.
For almost a month now, any night he could manage, Atiba had slipped unseen from the compound and explored the southern coast of the island, the shore and the upland hills. Now he was sure they could survive after the island became theirs. Thebranco, the white English, were savages, who destroyed all they touched, but there were still traces of what once had been. Between the fields of sterile cane he had found and tasted the fruits of the sacred earth.
There were groves of wild figs, their dark fruit luscious and astringent, and plump coconuts, their tender core as rich as any in Yorubaland. Along the shore were stands of sea-grape trees, with a sweet purple fruit biting to the tongue. He had also found palm-like trees clustered with the tender papaya, and farther inland there were groves of banana and plantain. He had discovered other trees with large oranges, plump with yellow nectar, as well as pomegranates and tamarind just like those he had known in Ife, his home city. The soil itself gave forth moist melons, wild cucumbers, and the red apples of the prickly cactus. There also were calabash, the hard, round gourds the Ingles had already learned could be hollowed out for cups and basins. The only thing wanting was that staple of the Yoruba people, the yam.
But they would not have to survive from the soil alone. In the
thickets he had heard the grunts and squeals of the wild hogs, fat sows foraging nuts, leading their litters. Along the shore he had seen flocks of feeding egrets in the dawn light, ready to be snared and roasted, and at his feet there had been hundreds of land crabs, night prowlers as big as two hands, ripe for boiling as they scurried back to their sand burrows along the shore.
He could not understand why thebrancoslaves who worked alongside the Yoruba allowed themselves to be fed on boiled corn mush. A natural bounty lay within arm's reach.
The Orisa, those forces in nature that work closest with man, were still present on the island. He could sense them, waiting in the wood of the trees. This ravished place had once been a great forest, like the one north ofIfe, and it could be again. If the hand of the Ingles was taken from it, and the spirit of the Orisa, its rightful protectors, freed once more.
The first cooing of the wood dove sounded through the thatched hut, above the chorus of whistling frogs from the pond, signaling the approach of day. Atiba sat motionless in the graying light, crosslegged, at the edge of the mud seat nearest the door, and studied the sixteen cowrie shells as they spun across the reed tray that lay before him. As he watched, eight of the small ovals came to rest mouth up, in a wide crescent, the remainder facing down.
The tiny room was crowded with the men of the Yoruba, their cotton loincloths already drenched with sweat from the early heat. Now all eyes narrowed in apprehension, waiting for thisbabalawo, the priest of the Yoruba, to speak and interpret the verses that revealed the message in the cowries.
If we do not bear suffering that will fill a basket,
We will not receive kindness that will fill a cup.
He paused and signaled the tall, bearded drummer waiting by the door. The man's name was Obewole, and he had once been, many rains ago, the strongest drummer in the entire city ofIfe. He nodded and shifted the large drum—the Yorubaiya ilu—that hung at his waist, suspended from a wide shoulder strap. Abruptly the small wooden mallet he held began to dance across the taut goatskin. The verses Atiba had just spoken were repeated exactly, the drum's tone changing in pitch and timbre as Obewole squeezed the cords down its hourglass waist between his arm and his side. Moments later there came the sound of more drums along the length of the southern coast, transmitting his verses inland. In less than a minute all the Yoruba onBarbadoshad heard theirbabalawo'sexact words.
Then he said something more and shook the tray again. This time five cowries lay open, set as a star. Again he spoke, his eyes far away.
The tree that swims like a canoe,
The sword that will cut iron.
Once more the drum sent the words over the morning quiet of the island.
Atiba waited a few moments longer, then slowly looked up and surveyed the expectant faces around him. The shells had spoken, true enough, but the message of the gods was perplexing. Seemingly Shango had counseled endurance, while Ogun foretold war.
He alone was priest, and he alone could interpret this contradictory reading. He knew in his heart what the gods wanted, what they surely must want. Still, the realization brought painful memories. He knew too well what war would mean. He had seen it many times—the flash of mirrored steel in the sunlight, the blood of other men on your hands, the deaths of wise fathers and strong sons.
The worst had been when he and his warriors had stood shoulder to shoulder defending the ancient royal compound at Ife with their lives, when the Fulani from the north had breached the high walls of the city and approached the very entrance of the ruling Oba's palace, those huge sculptured doors guarded by the two sacred bronze leopards. That day he and his men had lost more strong warriors than there were women to mourn them, but by nightfall they had driven out the worshippers of other gods who would take their lands, pillage their compounds, carry away their seed-yams and their youngest wives.
He also knew there could be betrayal. He had seen it during the last season of rains, when the drums had brought news of strangers in the southeastern quarter of the world that was Yorubaland. He and his men had left their compounds and marched all day through the rain. That night, among the trees, they had been fallen upon byBeninslavers, men of black skin who served thebrancoas a woman serves the payer of her bride-price.
But the men of the Yoruba would never be made to serve. Their gods were too powerful, their ancestors too proud. The Yoruba were destined to rule. Just as they had governed Yorubaland for a thousand years. Theirs was an ancient and noble people, nothing like the half-civilized Ingles on this island. In the great metropolis of Ife, surrounded by miles of massive concentric walls, the Yoruba had lived for generations in wide family compounds built of white clay, their courtyards open to light and air, walking streets paved with brick and stone, wearing embroidered robes woven of finest cotton, sculpting lost-wax bronzes whose artistry no Ingles could even imagine. They did not swelter in patched-together log huts like the Ingles planters here, or in thatched hovels like the Ingles planters' servants. And they paid reverence to gods whose power was far greater than anybrancohad ever seen.
"The sky has no shadow. It reaches out in all directions to the edge of the world. In it are the sun, the moon, all that is." He paused, waiting for the drums, then continued. "I have gone out into the dark, the void that is night, and I have returned unharmed. I say the Orisa are here, strong. We must make war on the branco to free them once more." He paused again. "No man's day of death can be postponed. It is already known to all the gods. There is nothing we need fear."
After the drums had sent his words across the island, the hut fell quiet. Then there came a voice from a small, wizened man sitting on Atiba's left, a Yoruba older than the rest, with sweat pouring down the wrinkles of his long dark face.
"You are of royal blood, Atiba. Your father Balogun was one of the sixteen royalbabalawoof the Oba of Ife, one of the great Awoni. It was he who taught you his skills." He cleared his throat, signifying his importance. "Yet I say you now speak as one who has drunk too many horns of palm wine. We are only men. Ogun will not come forth to carry our shields."
"Old Tahajo, you who are the oldest and wisest here tonight, you know full well I am but a man." Atiba paused, to demonstrate deference. He was chagrined that this elder who now honored his hut had to sit directly on the mud seat, that there was no buffalo skin to take down off the wall for him as there would have been in a compound atIfe. "Though the gods allow me to read their words in the cowries, I still eat the food a woman cooks."
"I know you are a man, son of Balogun, and the finest ever sired inIfe. I knew you even before you grew of age, before you were old enough to tie a cloth between your legs. I was there the day your clan marks were cut in your cheek, those three proud lines that mark you the son of your father. Be his son now, but speak to us today as a man, not asbabalawo. Let us hear your own voice."
Atiba nodded and set aside the tray. Then he turned back to the drummer and reached for his gleaming machete. "Since Tahajo wishes it, we will wait for another time to consult more with Ogun and Shango. Now I will hold a sword and speak simply, as a man."
Obewole nodded and picked up the mallet.
"This island was once ruled by the Orisa of the forest. But now there is only cane. Its sweetness is bitter in the mouths of the gods, for it has stolen their home. I say we must destroy it. To do this we will call down the fire of lightning that Shango guards in the sky."
"How can we call down Shango's fire?" The old man spoke again. None of the others in the cramped hut dared question Atiba so boldly. "No man here is consecrated to Shango. We are all warriors, men of Ogun. His power is only over the earth, not the skies."
"I believe there is one on this island whose lineage is Shango. A woman. Perhaps she no longer even knows it. But through her we will reach him." He turned and signaled Obewole to ready the drum. "Now I will speak. Hear me. Shango's spirit is here, on this island. He will help us take away the strength of the Ingles." He paused for the drums, then continued, "I learned on the ship that before the next new moon there will be many more of us here. The other warriors who were betrayed by theBenintraitors will be with us again. Then we will take out the fire of Shango that the Ingles hold prisoner in the boiling house and release it in the night, among the fields of cane. We will burn the compounds of the Ingles and take their muskets. Then we will free the white slaves. They are too craven to free themselves, but they will not stand with theirbrancomasters."
He turned again to Obewole and nodded. "Send the words."
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 takeJamaica. 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 theNew 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 theAmericas, especially for settlements that wanted to grow money crops for export. But nowBarbadoshad 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 inVirginia. Agricultural slavery had started here, but soon it would doubtless be introduced wholesale intoNorth 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 likeBarbados, had nowhere to go. No escape.
Not yet. But come the dayJamaicawas 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 theDefiance. 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 byNevisIsland."
"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 inBrazilthe 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 onNevisIsland? 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 takeJamaica. 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."