A Most Personal Property (Ganymede Quartet Book 1) (3 page)

Mother had been asleep during Cora’s entire visit, but Pearl was able to rouse her so that she might receive Cora’s kiss on her cheek.

“Goodnight,” Henry said, kissing her forehead. “Sleep tight.”

After Cora left with Nurse, Henry slumped sullenly in his chair, uncomfortable in his starched shirtfront. He was torn between wanting his father to notice how unhappy he was, and worrying that his father would interpret his sulking as indicative of immaturity, and as further proof that he didn’t have the wherewithal to manage a companion slave. Finally, long after Henry had become convinced that the slave auction would pass him by, Father rattled his paper, dropped it low, and looked at Henry. He cleared his throat. “Henry. Son.”

“Yes, sir?”

Father looked at him a few moments more, his scrutiny most uncomfortable. “About the auction tomorrow,” he remarked.

“Yes, sir?” Hope surged in Henry’s breast, and he took pains not to seem too eager.

“I believe you’re ready to take on the responsibility of a companion,” Father said.

“Yes, sir.” Henry did his best to contain his excitement but his delight was unmistakable. “I’m in agreement with you, sir.”

“Viewing starts early,” Father said. “You’ll need your sleep.” He turned back to his paper.

Timothy came around from behind Father’s chair and approached Henry. “Shall I help you get ready for bed, Sir?”

“Yes, thank you.”

In his bedroom, Henry stood and let Timothy undress him. As Timothy knelt to untie his boots, Henry had the thought that tomorrow someone else would be providing him this service, some as-yet-unknown boy who would be his own property. The idea was thrilling and overwhelming. Once in bed, Henry felt sure he would never fall asleep, so high was his nervous excitement, and when he did fall to sleep, he had confusing dreams that made him wake blushing.

Wednesday morning, Henry was awakened early and chose his outfit carefully: a bottle-green serge suit, a waistcoat striped in green and black, a crisp white shirt, and a paisley tie anchored with a malachite pin. He stood before the mirror while Timothy helped him to dress, trying on different serious expressions as Timothy fastened his cuffs. He didn’t want to look too eager, or too interested. It wouldn’t do for any potential slave to think him unsophisticated.

He thought he cut a rather fine figure in his green suit: tall and lean and well-proportioned, with olive skin, black hair, and eyes the rich brown of strong coffee. He looked older than his years and was frequently mistaken for an adult, at least until he opened his mouth or was overtaken by one of his unfortunate fits of embarrassment. He had his mother’s fine features, but rendered in a more solid, manly fashion: high cheekbones, straight nose, sculpted lips. His sort of beauty implied a sensitivity that observers often credited as evidence of intelligence, though in truth Henry was no smarter than a gentleman need be.

As Timothy bent to tie his boots, Henry looked down upon the crown of his balding head fondly. Timothy had been such an important part of his upbringing. Today Henry hoped and expected to meet the boy who would become his own Timothy.

Timothy straightened upright with a grimace, his hand supporting his back. He smiled at Henry in the mirror. “It’s a big day for you, Sir.”

“For both of us,” Henry remarked, smoothing the front of his waistcoat over his stomach and turning to look at himself from one side and then the other. “From now on, you won’t have to look after me anymore.”

“I will always look after you, Sir,” Timothy said fondly, patting Henry’s shoulder.

Henry was touched. He forgot sometimes that he and Cora were all the children the Blackwell slaves would ever have. Timothy had been as kind to him as he wished his father would be, stern when necessary, and always fair.

“I guess I
will
still need your help awhile longer,” Henry told him. “Someone will have to teach the new one how to take care of me properly. You know I can’t manage on my own for even a minute.”

“You’re not as hopeless as all that, Sir,” Timothy said, smiling. “But I’ll gladly teach your boy whatever he needs to know. I want you in the surest, most capable hands.”

Henry had stopped telling Timothy he loved him when he was small and although the urge to tell Timothy this again was very strong, it wasn’t proper, so he settled for giving Timothy’s arm an awkward, heartfelt squeeze.

After breakfast, outside in the cool of the morning, waiting for the carriage to be brought around, Henry was full of nervous energy and stood bouncing on his toes. Father looked Henry up and down and frowned; perhaps the green suit had been a bad idea—Father disapproved of what he saw as Henry’s dandyish notions. But nothing was said, and in any event it was too late to change. Jack drove up in the Clarence and Henry climbed in after his father to sit on the rear-facing seat while Timothy sat at Father’s side. Henry’s stomach was in knots and his hands twisted and fidgeted in his lap. Father champed on a cigar and looked sharply at Henry’s twitching fingers until Henry realized what he was doing and forced himself to stop.

As the carriage began to roll, Father cleared his throat in preparation to speak, and Henry sat up self-consciously straight in order to hear him. “About today, Henry…it’s important to choose the right slave for the job, son,” Father began. “Especially important when it comes to the companion slave. It can’t just be a pretty face, you understand.”

Father paused here, a long pause before Henry recognized a response was required and hurriedly said, “Yes, sir.”

“You want a slave who’s clever and shows initiative, of course, but not one who’s going to challenge your authority. He’ll be with you for the rest of your life, so of course he must be someone whose company you’ll enjoy. You’ll necessarily be close, but you must never allow your slave to feel that he is your equal, Henry. You must never allow him to be overly familiar with you or make a joke at your expense.” Again, Father waited for Henry to respond.

Henry cleared his throat. “Of course not, sir.”

“Boys your age…I know there are, er, certain aspects of ownership that you’re particularly interested in,” Father said, reddening and fixing his gaze at a point somewhere beyond Henry’s left ear. “That’s to be expected, but there are limits, and you must work within them. There are…certain intimacies that must be avoided.” Father cleared his throat and looked away. “Kissing is reserved for the marriage bed, no matter how caught up in the moment one may be.”

Henry flushed a horrified red. “Father! I know this!”

But Father had apparently prepared a speech and was going to get through it. “There is nothing improper in a slave deriving pleasure from performing his duties, but a master must never do anything toward satisfying a slave’s needs. It may be an intimate relationship, son, but it is
not
a romantic one.”

“I understand, sir,” Henry mumbled, head down, eyes averted, cheeks burning. He felt he could sink through the floor of the carriage.

Father turned to Timothy, seeming relieved that the uncomfortable portion of his talk was over. “Tell him what you think, Timothy. What should he be looking for today?”

Timothy gave Henry a mild-mannered smile. “Well, Sir, most important, I think, is that we choose a boy who appeals to you. Someone whose looks appeal, someone with similar interests. All of the candidates will be of exceptional quality, well-educated and of good temperament, or they wouldn’t be offered as companions.”

“We’ll go to Ganymede, of course,” Father said. “We’ll have to see what the others are offering, I suppose, but every male slave in our household thus far has come from Ganymede.” Father patted Timothy’s arm. “I have no complaints.” Timothy gave Father a fond smile.

For a long time, Henry had been squeamish about the idea of his father and Timothy being…together. Father was so fat and florid, and Timothy was so proper and mouse-gray, and the few photographs he’d seen of them as younger men didn’t make the idea any more palatable. However, Henry had recently learned that Father didn’t buy Timothy until he was in his twenties, a grown man. Father had been born into poverty, and it wasn’t until he had made a great success of himself that he’d been able to afford to have quality people around him. So it was possible, even likely, that Father and Timothy had never had an intimate physical relationship. Henry did believe, though, that Timothy was his father’s closest friend, despite what everyone said about slaves not being real friends.

As they neared the auction house, the traffic grew heavier. Henry had known there would be a crowd despite the midweek auction date. Almost any man who could afford a companion slave for his son was the sort of man who could take a day off whenever he chose.

All of Henry’s friends would be in attendance, in search of their own companions in the company of their fathers and their fathers’ slaves. Henry did not like to think what could happen if one of his schoolmates set his sights on a slave that Henry wanted—it would all be up to Father and his willingness to bid high. Father could be very generous when he wished, but Henry did not feel confident he could depend upon that generosity. What if Father was in a frugal mood? What if he didn’t approve of Henry’s choice of slave? Henry felt anxiety welling up in his gut and made a conscious effort to breathe calmly to quell his fears.

Henry had been to the auction hall in the past, once to observe while Father and Pearl chose a chambermaid and another time to buy an errand boy, but those had been staid affairs. The companion auction was clearly of another order entirely. Crowds massed on the sidewalk in front of the building, a sea of black bowler hats and dark-jacketed shoulders. There was a boxing ring set up a few yards inside the hall’s tall double doors where a pair of handsome slaves, glistening with sweat, made a show of bare-knuckle fighting. The showrooms for the major slaving concerns were ranked down either side of the vast space and displayed their colors with lavish buntings and flags. Touts for the Houses handed out cigars, colored lapel ribbons, match-safes, and printed paper fans. Slaves stood on daises before each house, bare-chested and barefoot in tight, old-fashioned breeches, slave marks bright on their necks, beckoning and posing, flexing their muscles and running their hands suggestively over their oiled skins. A brass band on the stage at the center of the hall played rousing music, contributing to the circus atmosphere. The glass ceiling of the vast atrium was obscured by a haze of cigar smoke and the hall smelled strongly of sweat, liberally-applied colognes and tobacco.

Even at this early hour, the hall was thronged with fathers, sons and slaves. It seemed that Father knew nearly all the gentlemen in the crowd and Timothy likewise knew their companions. Henry was introduced over and over again, tipping his hat and shaking hands with dozens of the city’s prominent citizens, many of them the fathers of his schoolmates. Henry and his school friends acknowledged each other, of course, but no one was in a mood to talk. Louis and Mr. Briggs stopped to chat and Henry made small talk with his best friend in a somewhat distracted manner. Louis had already been into and out of several showrooms and had a lot to say about the slaves being offered by the different Houses, but Henry had a hard time paying attention. Somewhere in this very building was the boy who would become his own and Henry was anxious to meet him.

They said goodbye to the Briggses and proceeded to make a full circuit of the hall, spending perhaps an hour in simply getting the lay of the land and greeting Mr. Blackwell’s many friends and business associates. The far end of the building was full of the wares of the smaller houses, displaying their merchandise in open booths. The hawkers for these smaller concerns were the loudest and most persistent of all the touts, but Father and Timothy paid them no mind and encouraged Henry to do the same. One of these salesmen grabbed Henry by the elbow as he passed before a red-haired boy leaping about on a dais. “He’d love you like a
brother
!” the tout shouted boldly in Henry’s ear. Father swatted at the man with his walking stick and Henry pulled his arm free, hurrying past.

Even the slaves offered by these minor houses were among the best-looking young men Henry had ever seen, and he struggled to keep from gawking at them like a rube. Appearance hadn’t mattered so much when choosing an errand boy, but a companion slave would be chosen for looks as well as abilities. Henry had scarcely allowed himself to think too closely on his own preferences and desires, but he knew the boy must be fair, or fairer than himself. Tall would be all right, but not big—he didn’t want the boy to be too muscular or heavy-boned. He did like the long hair that had been the fashion for the past few years; the majority of the slaves on offer wore their hair to their shoulders or longer, and everywhere slaves tossed back their manes or ran their fingers through the strands. Father frowned whenever a slave preened before him; Henry knew he thought the long hair foppish and decadent.

They passed by the showrooms for Nereus, Orpheus and Hyperion without so much as looking inside, despite Father’s remarks in the carriage about checking the offerings at competing houses. Instead, they went directly to House Ganymede. Ganymede was the oldest of the Houses and the showroom was suitably impressive, with a massive double door inset with elaborate stained glass panels depicting Ganymede with his chalice. The House colors of sea-blue and cream were everywhere in profusion: banners, bunting, flags. On high plinths to either side of the door stood young boys, blond twins who were old enough to bear their slave marks but too young yet to be salable companions. Dressed in blue-and-cream togas, they greeted customers as they entered, offering bits of blue-and-cream ribbon to pin on their lapels, as well as tiny silver chalices—watch fob trinkets. Henry pocketed a chalice as they passed through the doors.