Caribbee, Page 4

CHAPTER TWO

  Joan Fuller sighed and gently eased herself out of the clammy feather bed, unsure why she felt so oddly listless. Like as not it was the patter of the noonday shower, now in full force, gusting through the open jalousies in its daily drenching of the tavern's rear quarters. A shower was sup­posed to be cooling, so why did she always feel hotter and more miserable afterwards? Even now, threads of sweat lined down between her full breasts, inside the curve of each long leg. She moved quietly to the window and one by one began tilting the louvres upward, hoping to shut out some of the salty mist.

  Day in and day out, the same pattern. First the harsh sun, then the rain, then the sun again. Mind you, it had brought to life all those new rows of sugar cane marshalled down the hillsides, raising hope the planters might eventually settle their accounts in something besides weedy tobacco. But money mattered so little anymore. Time, that's the commod­ity no purse on earth could buy. And the Barbados sun and rain, day after day, were like a heartless cadence marking time's theft of the only thing a woman had truly worth hold­ing on to.

  The tropical sun and salt air would be telling enough on the face of some girl of twenty, but for a woman all but thirty—well, in God's own truth some nine years past—it was ruination. Still, there it was, every morning, like a knife come to etch deeper those telltale lines at the corners of her eyes. And after she’d frayed her plain brown hair coloring it with yellow dye, hoping to bring out a bit of the sparkle in her hazel eyes, she could count on the harsh salt wind to finish turning it to straw. God damn miserable Barbados.

  As if there weren't bother enough, now Hugh was back, the whoremaster, half ready to carry on as though he'd never been gone. When you both knew the past was past.

  But why not just make the most of whatever happens . . . and time be damned.

  She turned and glanced back toward the bed. He was awake now too, propped up on one elbow, groggily watching. For a moment she thought she might have disturbed him getting up—in years past he used to grumble about that—but then she caught the look in his eyes.

  What the pox. In truth it wasn't always so bad, having him back now and again. . . .

  Slowly her focus strayed to the dark hair on his chest, the part not lightened to rust by the sun, and she realized she was the one who wanted him. This minute.

  But she never hinted that to Hugh Winston. She never gave him the least encouragement. She kept the whoreson off bal­ance, else he'd lose interest. After you got to know him the way she did, you realized Hugh fancied the chase. As she started to look away, he smiled and beckoned her over. Just like she'd figured . . .

  She adjusted the other shutters, then took her own sweet time strolling back. Almost as though he weren't even there. Then she casually settled onto the bed, letting him see the fine profile of her breasts, and just happening to drape one long leg where he could manage to touch it.

  But now she was beginning to be of two minds. God's life, it was too damned hot, Hugh or no.

  He ignored her ankle and, for some reason, reached out and silently drew one of his long brown fingers down her cheek. Very slowly. She stifled a shiver, reminding herself she'd had quite enough of men in general, and Hugh Winston in particular, to do a lifetime.

  But, still . . .

  Before she realized it, he'd lifted back her yellow hair and kissed her deeply on the mouth. Suddenly it was all she could manage, keeping her hands on the mattress.

  Then he faltered, mumbled something about the heat, and plopped back onto the sweat-soaked sheet.

  Well, God damn him too.

  She studied his face again, wondering why he seemed so distracted this trip. It wasn't like Hugh to let things get under his skin. Though admittedly affairs were going poorly for him now, mainly because of the damned Civil War in England. Since he didn't trouble about taxes, he'd always undersold English shippers. But after the war had disrupted things so much, the American settlements were wide open to the cut-rate Hollanders, who could sell and ship cheaper than any­body alive. These days the Butterboxes were everywhere; you could look out the window and see a dozen Dutch merchant­men anchored right in Carlisle Bay. Ever since that trip for the Council he'd been busy running whatever he could get between Virginia and some other place he hadn't said—yet he had scarcely a shilling to show for his time. Why else would he have paid that flock of shiftless runaways he called a crew with the last of his savings? She knew it was all he had, and he'd just handed it over for them to drink and whore away. When would he learn?

  And if you're thinking you'll collect on the Council's sight bills, dear heart, you'd best think again. Master Benjamin Briggs and the rest of that shifty lot could hold school for learned scholars on the topic of stalling obligations.

  He was doubtless too proud to own it straight out, but he needn't trouble. She already knew. Hugh Winston, her lover in times past and still the only friend she had worth the bother, was down to his last farthing.

  She sighed, telling herself she knew full well what it was like. God's wounds, did she know what it was like. Back when Hugh Winston was still in his first and only term at Oxford, the son of one Lord Harold Winston, before he'd been apprenticed and then sent packing out to the Caribbees, Joan Fuller was already an orphan. The hardest place you could be one. On the cobblestone streets of Billingsgate, City of London.

  That's where you think you're in luck to hire out in some household for a few pennies a week, with a hag of a mistress who despises you for no more cause than you're young and pretty. Of course you steal a little at first, not too much or she'd see, but then you remember the master, who idles about the place in his greasy nightshirt half the day, and who starts taking notice after you let the gouty old whoremaster know you'd be willing to earn something extra. Finally the mistress starts to suspect—the bloodhounds always do after a while—and soon enough you're back on the cobblestones.

  But you know a lot more now. So if you're half clever you'll take what you've put by and have some proper dresses made up, bright colored with ruffled petticoats, and a few hats with silk ribands. Then you pay down on a furnished lodging in Covent Garden, the first floor even though it's more than all the rest of the house. Soon you've got lots of regulars, and then eventually you make acquaintance of a certain gentleman of means who wants a pert young thing all to himself, on alternate afternoons. It lasts for going on two years, till you decide you're weary to death of the kept life. So you count up what's set by—and realize it's enough to hire passage out to Barbados.

  Which someone once told you was supposed to be par­adise after London, and you, like a fool, believed it. But which you discover quick enough is just a damned sweltering version of hell. You're here now though, so you take what little money's left and find yourself some girls, Irish ones who've served out their time as indentures, despise having to work, and can't wait to take up the old life, same as before they came out.

  And finally you can forget all about what it was like being a penniless orphan. Trouble is, you also realize you're not so young anymore.

  "Would you fancy some Hollander cheese, love? The pur­ser from the Zeelander lifted a tub for me and there's still a bit left. And I'll warrant there's cassava bread in back, still warm from morning." She knew Hugh always called for the local bread, the hard patties baked from the powdered cas­sava root, rather than that from the stale, weevily flour shipped out from London.

  He ran a finger contemplatively across her breasts—now they at least were still round and firm as any strutting Irish wench half her age could boast—then dropped his legs off the side of the bed and began to search for his boots.

  "I could do with a tankard of sack."

  The very brass of him! When he'd come back half drunk in the middle of the night, ranting about floggings or some such and waving a bottle of kill-devil. He'd climbed into bed, had his way, and promptly passed out. So instead of acting like he owned the place, he could bloody well supply an explanation.

  "So how did it go yest
erday?" She held her voice even, a purr. "With that business on the Zeelander?"

  That wasn't the point she actually had in mind. If it hadn't been so damned hot, she'd have nailed him straight out. Something along the lines of "And where in bloody hell were you till all hours?" Or maybe "Why is't you think you can have whatever you want, the minute you want it?" That was the enquiry the situation called for.

  "You missed a fine entertainment." His tone of voice told her he probably meant just the opposite.

  "You're sayin' the sale went well for the Dutchmen?" She watched him shrug, then readied herself to monitor him sharply. "And after that I expect you were off drinking with the Council." She flashed a look of mock disapproval. "Doubtless passing yourself for a fine gentleman, as al­ways?"

  "I am a gentleman." He laughed and swung at her with a muddy boot, just missing as she sprang from the bed. "I just rarely trouble to own it."

  "Aye, you're a gentleman, to be sure. And by that thinking I'm a virgin still, since I was doubtless that once too."

  "So I've heard you claim. But that was back well before my time."

  "You had rare fortune, darlin'. You got the rewards of years of expertise." She reached to pull on her brown linen shift. "And I suppose you'll be telling me next that Master Briggs and the Council can scarcely wait to settle your sight bills."

  "They'll settle them in a fortnight, one way or another, or damned to them." He reached for his breeches, not the fancy ones he wore once in a while around the Council, but the canvas ones he used aboard ship, and the tone of his voice changed. "I just hope things stay on an even keel till then."

  "I don't catch your meaning." She studied him openly, wondering if that meant he was already planning to leave.

  "The planters' new purchase." He'd finished with the trousers and was busy with his belt. "Half of them are Yoru­ba."

  "And, pray, what's that?" She'd thought he was going to explain more on the bit about leaving.

  "I think they're a people from somewhere down around the Niger River delta."

  "The Africans, you mean?" She examined him, still puz­zled. "The slaves?"

  "You've hit on it. The slaves. Like a fool, I didn't see it coming, but it's here, all right. May God curse Ruyters. Now I realize this is what he planned all along, the bastard, when he started telling everybody how they could get rich with cane. Save none of these Puritans knows the first thing about working Africans. He's sold them a powder keg with these Yoruba." He rose and started for the door leading into the front room of the tavern. "And they're doing all they can to spark the fuse."

  "What're you tryin' to say?" She was watching him walk, something that still pleased her after all the years. But she kept on seeming to listen. When Hugh took something in his head, you'd best let him carry on about it for a time.

  "They're proud and I've got a feeling they're not going to take this treatment." He turned back to look at her, finally reading her confusion. "I've seen plenty of Yoruba over the years in Brazil, and I can tell you the Papists have learned to handle them differently. They're fast and they're smart. Some of them even come off the boat already knowing Portugee. I also found out that at least one of those Ruyters sold to Briggs can speak it."

  "Is that such a bad thing? It'd seem to me . . ."

  "What I'm saying is, now that they're here, they've got to be treated like men. You can't starve them and horsewhip them the way you can Irish indentures. I've got a strong feel­ing they'll not abide it for long." He moved restlessly into the front room, a wood-floored space of rickety pine tables and wobbly straight chairs, plopping down by the front door­way, his gaze fixed on the misty outline of the river bridge. "I went on out to Briggs' plantation last night, thinking to talk over a certain little matter, but instead I got treated to a show of how he plans to break in his slaves. The first thing he did was flog one of his new Yoruba when he balked at eating loblolly corn mush. That's going to make for big trou­ble, mark it."

  She studied him now and finally realized how worked up he was. Hugh usually noticed everything, yet he'd walked straight through the room without returning the groggy nods of his men, two French mates and his quartermaster John Mewes—the latter now gaming at three-handed whist with Salt-Beef Peg and Buttock-de-Clink Jenny, her two newest Irish girls.

  She knew for sure Peg had noticed him, and that little six­penny tart bloody well knew better than to breathe a word in front of her mistress.

  "Well, settle down a bit." She opened the cabinet and took out an onion-flask of sack, together with two tankards. "Tell me where you're thinking you'll be going next." She dropped into the chair opposite and began uncorking the bot­tle. "Or am I to expect you and the lads'll be staying a while in Barbados this time?"

  He laughed. "Well now, am I supposed to think it's me you're thinking about? Or is it you're just worried we might ship out while one of the lads still has a shilling left some­where or other?"

  She briefly considered hoisting the bottle she'd just fetched and cracking it over his skull, but instead she shot him a frown and turned toward the bleary-eyed gathering at the whist table. "John, did you ever hear the likes of this one, by my life? He'd have the lot of you drink and play for free."

  John Mewes, a Bristol seaman who had joined Hugh years ago after jumping ship at Nevis Island, stared up groggily from his game, then glanced back at his shrinking pile of coins—shrinking as Salt-Beef Peg's had grown. His weath­ered cheeks were lined from drink, and, as always, his rag­ged hair was matted against his scalp and the jerkin covering his wide belly was stained brown with spilled grog. Inexpli­cably, women doted on him in taverns the length of the Ca­ribbean.

  "Aye, yor ladyship, it may soon have to be. This bawd of yours is near to takin' my last shilling, before she's scarce troubled liftin' her skirts to earn it." He took another swal­low of kill-devil from his tankard, then looked imploringly toward Winston. "On my honor, Cap'n, by the look of it I'm apt to be poor as a country parson by noontide tomorrow.''

  "But you're stayin' all this week with me, John." Peg was around the table and on his lap in an instant, her soft brown eyes aglow. "A promise to a lady always has to be kept. Else you'll lose your luck."

  "Then shall I be havin' your full measure for the coin of love? It's near to all that's left, I'll take an oath on it. My purse's shriveled as the Pope's balls."

  "For love?" Peg rose. "And I suppose I'm to be livin' on this counterfeit you call love. Whilst you're off plyin' your sweet talk to some stinkin' Dutch whore over on the Wild Coast."

  "The damned Hollander wenches are all too sottish by half. They'd swill a man's grog faster'n he can call for it." He took another pull from his tankard and glanced admir­ingly at Peg's bulging, half-laced bodice. "But I say deal the cards, m'lady. Where there's life, there's hope, as I'm a Christian."

  "And what was it you were saying, love?" Joan turned back to Winston and poured another splash into his tankard. "I think it was something to do with the new slaves?"

  "I said I don't like it, and I just might try doing something about it. I just hope there's no trouble here in the meantime." His voice slowly trailed off into the din of the rain.

  This bother about the slaves was not a bit like him, Joan thought. Hugh'd never been out to right all the world's many ills. Besides, what did he expect? God's wounds, the planters were going to squeeze every shilling they could out of these new Africans. Everybody knew the Caribbees and all the Americas were "beyond the line," outside the demarcation on some map somewhere that separated Europe from the New World. Out here the rules were different. Hugh had always understood that better than anybody, so why was he so out of sorts now that the planters had found a replacement for their lazy indentures? Heaven can tell, he had wrongs enough of his own to brood about if he wanted to trouble his mind over life's little misfortunes.

  "What is it really that's occupying your mind so much this trip, love? It can't just be these new slaves. I know you too well for that." She studied him. "
Is't the sight bills?"

  "I've been thinking about an idea I've had for a long, long time. Seeing what's happened now on Barbados, it all fits together somehow.''

  "What're you talking about?"

  "I'm wondering if maybe it's not time I tried changing a few things."

  This was definitely a new Hugh. He never talked like that in the old days. Back then all he ever troubled about was how he was going to manage making a living—a problem he still hadn't worked out, if you want the honest truth.

  She looked at him now, suddenly so changed, and recol­lected the first time she ever saw him. It was a full seven years past, just after she'd opened her tavern and while he was still a seaman on the Zeelander. That Dutch ship had arrived with clapboards and staves from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, needed on Barbados for houses and tobacco casks. While the Zeelander was lading Barbados cotton for the mills in New England, he'd come in one night with the other mem­bers of the Dutch crew, and she'd introduced him to one of the girls. But, later on, it was her he'd bought drinks for, not the plump Irish colleen he'd been with. And then came the questions. How'd she get on, he wanted to know, living by her wits out here in the New World? Where was the money?

  She'd figured, rightly, that Hugh was looking for some­thing, maybe thinking to try and make his own way, as she had.

  After a while he'd finally ordered a tankard for the pouting girl, then disappeared. But there he was again the next eve­ning, and the one after that too. Each time he'd go off with one of the girls, then come back and talk with her. Finally one night he did something unheard of. He bought a full flask of kill-devil and proposed they take a walk down to look at the ship.

  God's life, as though she hadn't seen enough worn-out Dutch frigates. . . .

  Then she realized what was happening. This young English mate with a scar on his cheek desired her, was paying court to her. He even seemed to like her. Didn't he know she no longer entertained the trade herself?

  But Hugh was different. So, like a fool, she lost sight of her better judgment. Later that night, she showed him how a woman differed from a girl.

  And she still found occasion to remind him from time to time, seven years later. . . .

  "I want to show you how I came by the idea I've been working on." He abruptly rose and walked back to the bed­room. When he returned he was carrying his two pistols, their long steel barrels damascened with gold and the stocks fine walnut. He placed them carefully on the table, then dropped back into his chair and reached for his tankard. "Take a look at those."

  "God's blood." She glanced at the guns and gave a tiny snort. "Every time I see you, you've got another pair."

  "I like to keep up with the latest designs."

  "So tell me what's 'latest' about these."

  "A lot of things. In the first place, the firing mechanism's a flintlock. So when you pull the trigger, the piece of flint there in the hammer strikes against the steel wing on the cap of the powder pan, opening it and firing the powder in a single action. Also, the powder pan loads automatically when the barrel's primed. It's faster and better than a matchlock."

  "That's lovely. But flintlocks have been around for some time, or hadn't you heard?" She looked at the guns and took a sip of sack, amused by his endless fascination with pistols. He'd always been that way, but it was to a purpose. You'd be hard pressed to find a marksman in the Caribbees better or faster than Hugh—a little talent left over from his time with the Cow-Killers on Tortuga, though for some reason he'd as soon not talk about those years. She glanced down again. "Is it just my eyes, or do I see two barrels? Now I grant you this is the first time I've come across anything like that. "

  "Congratulations. That's what's new about this design. Watch." He lifted up a gun and carefully touched a second trigger, a smaller one in front of the first. The barrel assem­bly emitted a light click and revolved a half turn, bringing up the second barrel, ready to fire. "See, they're double- barreled. I hear it's called a 'turn-over' mechanism—since when you pull that second trigger, a spring-loaded assembly turns over a new barrel, complete with a primed powder pan." He gripped the muzzle and revolved the barrels back to their initial position. "This design's going to be the com­ing thing, mark it." He laid the pistol back onto the table. "Oh, by the way, there's one other curiosity. Have a look there on the breech. Can you make out the name?"

  She lifted one of the flintlocks and squinted in the half-light. Just in front of the ornate hammer there was a name etched in gold: "Don Francisco de Castilla."

  "That's more'n likely the gunsmith who made them. On a fine pistol you'll usually see the maker's name there. You ought to know that." She looked at him. "I didn't suppose you made them yourself, darlin'. I've never seen that name before, but God knows there're lots of Spanish pistols around the Caribbean. Everybody claims they're the best."

  "That's what I thought the name was too. At first." He lifted his tankard and examined the amber contents. "Tell me. How much do you know about Jamaica?"

  "What's that got to do with these pistols?"

  "One thing at a time. I asked you what you know about Jamaica."

  "No more'n everybody else does. It's a big island some­where to the west of here, that the Spaniards hold. There's supposed to be a harbor and a fortress, and a little settlement they call Villa de la Vega, with maybe a couple of thousand planters. But that's about all, from what I hear, since the Spaniards've never yet found any gold or silver there." She studied him, puzzling. "Why're you asking?"

  "I've been thinking. Maybe I'll go over and poke around a bit." He paused, then lowered his voice. "Maybe see if I can take the fortress."

  " 'Maybe take the fortress,' you say?" She exploded with laughter and reached for the sack. "I reckon I'd best put away this flask. Right now."

  "You don't think I can do it?"

  "I hear the Spaniards've got heavy cannon in that fortress, and a big militia. Even some cavalry. No Englishman's going to take it." She looked at him. "Not wishing to offend, love, but wouldn't you say that's just a trifle out of your depth?"

  "I appreciate your expression of confidence." He settled his tankard on the table. "Then tell me something else. Do you remember Jackson?"

  "The famous 'Captain' Jackson, you mean?"

  "Captain William Jackson."

  "Sure, I recall that lying knave well enough." She snorted. "Who could forget him. He was here for two months once, while you were out, and turned Barbados upside down, re­cruiting men to sail against the Spaniards' settlements on the Main. Claiming he was financed by the Earl of Warwick. He sat drinking every night at this very table, then left me a stack of worthless sight drafts, saying he'd be back in no time to settle them in Spanish gold." She studied him for a moment. "That was four years past. The best I know he was never heard from since. For sure / never heard from him." Suddenly she leaned forward. "Don't tell me you know where he might be?"

  "Not any more. But I learned last year what happened back then. It turns out he got nothing on the Main. The Span­iards would empty any settlement—Maracaibo, Puerto Cabello—he tried to take. They'd just strip their houses and disappear into the jungle."

  "So he went back empty-handed?"

  "Wrong. That's what he wanted everybody to think hap­pened. Especially the Earl of Warwick. He kept on going." Winston lowered his voice again, beyond reach of the men across the room. "I wouldn't believe what he did next if I didn't have these pistols." He picked up one of the guns and yelled toward the whist table. "John."

  "Aye." Mewes was on his feet in an instant, wiping his hand across his mouth.

  "Remember where I got these flintlocks?"

  "I seem to recall it was Virginia. Jamestown." He reached down and lifted his tankard for a sip. Then he wiped his mouth a second time. "An' if you want my thinkin', they was sold to you by the scurviest-lookin' whoreson that ever claim'd he was English, that I'd not trust with tuppence. An' that's the truth."

  "Well . . ." She leaned back in her chair. br />
  "Along with the pistols I also got part of the story of Jackson's expedition. It seems this man had been with them— claimed he was first mate on the flagship—but he'd finally jumped ship when Jackson tried to storm a fortress up on the coast of Spanish Florida, then made his way north to Vir­ginia. He stole these pistols from Jackson's cabin the night he swam ashore."

  "Then I've half a mind to confiscate them here and now as payment for my sight drafts." She inspected the guns. "But I still don't follow what that's got to do with Jamaica."

  He picked up one of the pistols again and traced his finger along the flintlock. "The name. Don Francisco de Castilla. I kept thinking and thinking, and finally I remembered. That's not a pistol maker. That's the name of the Spanish governor of Villa de la Vega. Jamaica. "

  "But then how did Jackson get them? I never saw these pistols when he was here, and I'd have remembered them, you can be sure." She was staring skeptically at the guns.

  "That's what I began to wonder. So I tracked down the seller and found out what really happened." He lowered his voice again. "Jackson got them from de Castilla's personal strongbox. In the fortress. William Jackson took Jamaica. He got the idea the Spaniards'd never be expecting an attack that far from the Main, and he was right. So after Maracaibo, he made way straight for Jamaica. He raised the bay at dawn, brought the fleet together and put in for the harbor. The for­tress, the town, all of it, was his in a morning."

  "But how could he hold the place? As soon as the Span­iards over on the Main got word, they’d be sure to send a . . ."

  "He didn't bother. He delivered the town back in return for provisions and a ransom of twenty thousand pieces of eight. Split the money with his men and swore them to se­crecy. But he kept these pistols." Winston smiled. "Except now they're mine."

  "Hold a minute. I'm afraid I'm beginning to see what you're thinking." She leaned forward, alarm in her eyes. "So let me tell you a few things. About that little expedition of Jackson's. That fast-talking rogue put in here with three armed frigates. He raised over five hundred men and God knows how many muskets. I saw them all off, holding my valuable sight drafts, the day he set sail out of Carlisle Bay."

  "But what if I got more men?"

  "In God's name, who from?"

  "Who do you think?" He ran his fingers through his hair and looked away. "I've been thinking it over for months. Well, now I've made up my mind. What the hell are the Americas for? Slavery?" He looked back. "I'm going to take Jamaica, and keep it. It'll be the one place in the New World where there'll be no indentures. No slaves. Just free men. The way it was on Tortuga."

  "Christ on a cross, you've totally taken leave of sense!" She looked at him dumbfounded. "You'd best stop dreaming about Jamaica and put your deep mind to work on how you're going to collect those sight bills from the Council. You've got to make a living, love."

  "The sight bills are part of my plan. As it happens, I expect to settle that very item next Friday night."

  "Best of luck." She paused, then pushed back from the table. "God's blood, were you invited?"

  He looked up from his tankard. "How do you know where I'm going?"

  "There's only one place it could be. The fancy ball Master Briggs is holdin' for the Council. In his grand new estate house. It's the reason there's not a scrap of taffeta left in the whole of Bridgetown. I was trying to buy some all yesterday for the girls."

  "I have to go. It's the perfect time to see them all to­gether."

  "And I suppose Miss Katherine Bedford'll be there as well?" Her voice had acquired an unmistakable edge. "In her official capacity as 'First Lady'?"

  "Oddly enough, I neglected to enquire on that point."

  "Did you now?" She sniffed. "Aye, her highness'll be in attendance, and probably wearin' half the taffeta I wanted to buy. Not that it'll be made up properly. She'll be there, the strumpet, on my honor. . . ."

  "What if she is? It's no matter to me." He drank again. "I just want my sight bills paid, in coin as agreed, not in bales of their damned worthless tobacco."

  She seemed not to hear. ". . . when she's too busy ridin' that mare of hers to so much as nod her bonnet to an honest woman who might have need to make a living. . . ."

  "All right." He set down his tankard. "I'll take you."

  "Pardon?"

  "I said I'll take you."

  "Now you've gone totally daft." She stared at him, se­cretly overjoyed he'd consider asking. "Can you fancy the scene? Me, in amongst all those dowdy Puritan sluts! Stuffing their fat faces whilst arguing over whether to starve their in­dentures completely to death. Not to mention there'd be gen­eral heart seizure in the ranks of the Council, the half of which keep open accounts here on the sly. Only I'm lucky to get paid in musty tobacco, let alone the coin you 're dreaming of." She laughed. "And I warrant you'll be paid with the same, love. That's assuming you're ever paid at all."

  "As you will." He took a sip of sack. "But since you're so worried about the women, don't forget who else'll prob­ably be there."

  "Who do you mean?"

  "Remember what the Portugals say: 'E a mulata que e Mulher’.”

  "'It's the mulatto who's the real woman.'" She trans­lated the famous Pernambuco expression, then frowned. "I suppose you mean that Portuguese mulatto Master Briggs bought for himself when you took them all down to Brazil. The one named Serina."

  "The very one. I caught a glimpse of her again last night."

  "I know her, you rogue. Probably better than you do. Briggs is always sending her down here for bottles of kill-devil, sayin' he doesn't trust his indentures to get them home. She's a fine-featured woman of the kind, if I say it myself."

  "Finer than Briggs deserves."

  "Did you know that amongst the Council she's known as his 'pumpkin-colored whore'? Those hypocritical Puritan whoremasters. I always ask her to stay a bit when she comes. I think she's probably lonely, poor creature. But I can tell you one thing for certain—she takes no great satisfaction in her new owner. Or in Barbados either, come to that, after the fine plantation she lived on in Brazil." She laughed. "Some­thing not hard to understand. I'm always amazed to remem­ber she's a slave. Probably one of the very first on this island." She looked away reflectively. "Though now she's got much company."

  "Too much."

  "You may be right for once. It's a new day, on my faith, and I don't mind telling you it troubles me a bit. There're apt to be thousands of these Africans here soon. There'll be nothing like it anywhere in the Americas." She sighed. "But the Council's all saying the slaves'll change everything, make them all rich." Her voice quickened as she turned back. "Do you suppose it's true?"

  "Probably. That's why I plan to try and change a few things too." He looked out at the bay, where a line of brown peli­cans glided single file across the tips of waves. The horizon beyond was lost in mist. "My own way."