A Newfound Land (32 page)

“I don’t care. What was I to do? Lie and say let bygones be bygones, when all I want to do is rip his entrails out?”

“That bad, huh?” Alex sank lower into the tub.

“Aye.” He went back to washing himself. “Our Jacob,” he said, scrubbing at his heel with the pumice stone. “If the laddie hadn’t saved himself, he’d have been gone, and we’d never know what had happened to him.”

Alex gulped down on the fear that invaded her at the thought. “You still don’t know if Jones is in on it.”

“Aye, he is; it’s his ship. And do you know what has befallen those lads?”

“No, and nor do you, Matthew.”

“Aye, I do. With some persuasion, the first mate and his bosun became quite voluble. They trade them with the Arab slave traders for black men. The lads end up as unwilling catamites, most of them dead from excessive abuse by the time they turn fifteen.”

“No way, that can’t be true!” Alex suppressed an urge to storm stark naked into her sons’ bedroom and clutch Jacob to her.

“But it is. The
Henriette Marie
does best in staying away from Providence in the future. William Hancock has done a good job of letting people know about its most profitable – and despicable – sideline, so by now there is a long line of aggrieved fathers who will demand justice to be served on that accursed ship.”

Alex sent him a slanting look. “I suppose for now you’ve held back on the information that Jones owns the ship?”

“For now, and as yet he doesn’t know that I know... I would keep it like that, aye?”

Chapter 39

“Be careful,” Alex said to Matthew. “Come back to me safe and sound.” And never take your eyes off Dominic Jones – but she didn’t need to say that out loud.

He kissed her and held her close one more time before turning to say his farewells to the rest of his family.

“We’ll be back in a month,” he said as he sat up on Moses. “By then, I expect you to have finished the new cabin.” He smiled down at his eldest son. “You take care of them, lad.” Ian nodded and placed a protective arm around Alex.

All of them stood silent and watched him ride off with two of the Chisholms. The October day carried a promise of cold nights and rain, and Alex huddled together under her cloak. She hoped he’d make sure to dress warmly and change clothes when he could and... She sighed and ruffled Ruth’s hair. “Come on, let’s get back inside. If you want we can make cinnamon rolls.”

The kitchen smelled of warm rolls and brewing tea when Elizabeth Leslie stormed into the yard on her grey mare, her appointed companion galloping in several minutes later with a harried look on his dark face.

“Now what?” Alex said, not at all liking the thunderous expression on Elizabeth’s face.

“Oh, dear.” Jenny went a bright red.

“What?” Alex asked, but any further investigation into her daughter-in-law’s guilty face was cut short by Elizabeth’s entry into the kitchen.

“This is all your fault!” Elizabeth was spitting with rage, her small eyes narrowed at Alex. “You put him up to this.”

“Put who up to what?”

“Don’t give me that! Look at how you run your household! Your serving maid sits at the table with the rest of you; your children are encouraged to raise their voices and express opinions in the company of their elders...” Elizabeth stopped to draw breath, eyeing Alex with open dislike.

“Get out! Unless you can explain what it is you’re upset about without insulting me, I suggest you leave – now.” Alex turned her back on Elizabeth, served her children tea and rolls, and sat down to nurse Samuel.

“It’s Nathan.” Elizabeth spoke in a controlled tone. “He’s run off to marry that little slut.”

“The mother of his child, you mean,” Alex said acidly, “and the foster mother of his other child.”

“See? This is how I know it is you that have influenced him! The girl should have kept her legs closed!”

Alex was on the verge of telling her that she didn’t think that was an option for a bond servant and that it was common knowledge Peter Leslie sampled his way through a number of the girls in his service, but decided that would be like adding petrol to a fire totally out of control.

“I have at most exchanged ten words in a row with your son,” she said instead, “and the last time I spoke to him at all was at Celia’s funeral.”

Elizabeth collapsed to sit by the table and grabbed a bun.

“By all means, please help yourself.” Alex adjusted Samuel in the crook of her arm.

Jenny deposited Malcolm in his grandmother’s arms and poured her mother a cup of tea.

“Tell us,” Jenny urged her.

Tell us? Alex threw her a look. She’d wager little Miss Jenny knew all about this.

Elizabeth smoothed back Malcolm’s impressive crest of dark hair and exhaled. “He left us a letter, telling us he and Ailish are off to be wed.” She groaned. “Our eldest son, married to a papist!”

Mrs Parson made a sympathetic noise from where she was sitting by the hearth. “Did he take the wee lad with him?” she asked.

“Who? Henry? No, Henry he left behind, but the two girls he took with him.”

“Ah well,” Mrs Parson said, “then he’s planning on coming back, no?”

Elizabeth relaxed, giving Mrs Parson a wobbly smile. “We must hope so.” She helped herself to yet another bun. How could he do this to her, his mother, she moaned to the room at large; where had she gone wrong in the raising of that apple of her eye, her eldest son? She’d indulged him, she chided herself, and she hadn’t been vigilant enough, bringing girls lacking in spiritual rectitude to live amongst them. Nathan was but a man, and what could she expect of him when that girl had flouted herself, thrown herself at him.

“Maybe it was him that threw himself at her,” Alex said. “As I recall, Ailish is very pretty, isn’t she?” A definite one up on poor Celia, at any rate.

“He would never do that. No, it was the girl, gold-digger that she is.”

“Your daughter-in-law,” Alex reminded her, which made Elizabeth go puce. Alex handed Samuel to Agnes and walked over to the door.

“Where are you going?” Elizabeth asked.

“Going? I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to invite your man in from the cold.”

Elizabeth stared at her as if she’d taken complete leave of her senses. The man outside was a slave, a black man.

“That won’t be necessary,” Elizabeth said. “I’m leaving.”

“You don’t really like my mother, do you?” Jenny asked once Elizabeth was gone.

“She’s too quick to judge,” Alex said, “and for all that she professes to be so religious, she seems to miss out on the most important message in the Bible.”

“And that is?” Jenny said.

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. If everyone lived according to that, it would be a very nice world, wouldn’t it?” Alex rather liked the admiring look in Jenny’s eyes.

*

For all that Matthew had told her about running into Philip Burley back in April, Alex had succeeded in convincing herself the Burley brothers were gone from their life, melting back into the obscurity from which they had sprung to never bother them again. Until now, that is, when the three remaining brothers came riding through the forest in the late afternoon. Weak sun gilded the damp hides of the horses, exhalations stood like steam from both beasts and humans – very many humans.

Alex squeezed Daniel’s arm, crouching down behind an ineffectual screen of shrubs. “Go,” she whispered into Daniel’s ear. “Run home and find your brothers.”

Her son nodded, eyes huge in his pale face.

Alex grabbed at him. “Go quietly,” she admonished and let him go. She returned her eyes to the elongated clearing, shifted on her feet, and dug her hand into the slit of her skirt, relaxing somewhat when it closed around the familiar hilt of her knife. Fantastic: one knife against three armed Burley brothers – this was going to be a walk in the park.

Further down the slope, the Burley brothers were herding three dozen or so Indian women and girls, all of them gagged and tied. Bringing up the rear came two unknown men, one of whom looked like an Indian to Alex, despite wearing breeches and a soiled coat, his long hair topped by a slouching hat. Alex’s eyes flew over the captives, wondering if they might be of Qaachow’s tribe. She didn’t recognise any of the women, and she hunched lower in a combination of relief and fear.

From behind her came the sound of snapping twigs, and Alex swivelled, catching a glimpse of Daniel ducking out of sight. Philip Burley had also heard the sound, and here he came, cantering up the incline. In a matter of minutes he’d see her boy, and Alex had no doubts he’d ride him down and carry him off should he consider it necessary. She swallowed and barged out from her hiding place, causing Philip to exclaim and hold in his horse so brutally the animal sank back on its haunches.

“Well done,” she said when Philip remained in the saddle.

“Mrs Graham,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now why doesn’t it surprise me that it’s you?”

“Maybe because you’re on our land. To be quite exact, you’re trespassing.”

“We are?” He looked down at her, eyes an almost white when a shaft of sunlight hit them square on. “And what do you intend to do about it?”

“Nothing. There’s not much I can do, is there?”

“Wise of you,” he said, nodding so that the signatory lock of black hair fell forward over his brow. He looked over to where his brothers seemed to be joining them and shook his head. “Stay with them,” he called. “They’ll run like deer if you give them the opportunity to.”

“So many. What did you do? Stamp out a whole tribe?”

“More or less.” A small smile played over Philip’s mouth.

“And the others?”

“What others?”

“They’re not all women, are they? There must have been men and boys and small children, even babies...” Her voice wound down at the expression on his face. “Oh my God! You killed them!”

“No, no, Mrs Graham, of course we didn’t – well, except for the men. We just left them behind.” He sounded as if he considered this to be to his credit.

“But...” Alex stared at him, shocked to the core. “The babies, how will they live? The little children?”

“What do we care? They have no value to us.”

“They’re human beings!”

“They’re Indians, dispensable and heathen to boot.”

“Heathen?” Her voice squeaked with rage. “And what are you? Devils risen from hell?” She shook her fists at him. “You’ll die for this, one day you’ll pay, and I for one will dance on your grave.”

“That depends on if you’re still alive,” Philip snarled, struggling to control his horse, which was spooked by Alex and her angry arm flapping. “After all, why not take you with us as well? Sell you off as a slave somewhere.”

“You wouldn’t dare! Matthew would—”

Philip laughed. “Not here, is he? And by the time he finds out, you won’t be in a position to care – and he’ll not want you back.” His eyes glinted as he dropped off the horse.

Alex’s instinct was to turn and run, but she suspected that was just what he wanted, because there was no doubt he was faster than her. He took a step towards her. Another, and she backed away, thinking that if he came close enough she’d kick him in the head. These last few years, she’d worked regularly on her sadly forgotten karate skills, and even if she was far from the black belt competences she once had, she had regained some of her agility and body control. She crouched, hand gripping the knife she kept hidden in the folds of her skirt.

Philip gave her a little bow. “You don’t scare easily, Mrs Graham, do you?”

She didn’t trust her voice to reply, so instead she shook her head, planning on where to sink her knife. She’d only get one shot at this, she thought, licking her lips.

There was a commotion down in the clearing, and for an instant Philip’s attention wavered. That was all she needed. She launched herself at him, kicked his legs from under him and bolted, darting like a hare between the shrubs. She ran until she could taste blood in her mouth; she ran until she barged straight into Ian, sending them both to the ground.

“Quick, quick, get up,” she panted, struggling back to her feet. “They’re coming, Ian, run!”

“Who?” Ian said. “There’s no one there.”

“There isn’t?” Alex peeked over her shoulder before sort of melting into the ground, listening with detachment to her own heavy breathing. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, and hid her face against her knees.

*

“Gone,” Ian said when he and Mark returned home. “And from the looks of it, in quite a haste.” He flung himself down in one of the armchairs and extended his legs towards the hearth.

Alex turned from where she was sitting by the little desk, ledgers lying open before her. “Well, they don’t want Matthew on their tail, do they?” She gave herself a hug, rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Those poor people, and the children, the little babies.” Her guts shrivelled with compassion. “Do you think—?”

“No,” Ian said, “I don’t. We’ll never find the village they came from. How can we?”

“Where will they take them?”

“To Virginia, I imagine. There’s always a market for slaves there.”

“It’s wrong! We should—”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know, but to just watch and do nothing... It sticks in my craw.” With a sigh, she returned to her accounts, brows pulled together as she tried to get the shillings and pence to square.

“We have to find more labour for next year,” Ian said, probably to distract her. “We can’t manage one more year with only the three of us.” He nodded over to where an exhausted Mark was half asleep on the floor, Narcissus’ huge head pillowed on his lap.

“I know.” Alex frowned down at the meagre pouch, hefting it to hear the reassuring clonk of the six small ingots left. “Have you thought about Forest Spring? You know, moving there?”

“Aye. Jenny thinks cows – a lot of cows. She’s good at dairy work, and the beasts can be left to pasture among the trees during the summer.”

Alex grunted in agreement. “You do the cows, I’ll do the pigs.” This year as well she’d been very successful with her piggies, and Ian and Matthew had ridden down to the Michaelmas market with two overloaded mules carrying hams and sausages, smoked ribs and jellied trotters that had brought in a sizeable amount of money, most of it immediately spent on cloth and sugar and salt, her precious tea and two new muskets with rifled barrels.

“I’ll write to Minister Walker,” she said.

“The minister?” Ian looked totally lost.

“About the Indians. Maybe he can do something to help them.”

“Maybe.” Ian rose and came over to give her a hug. “Most colonists don’t care, and in particular now they won’t much mind if an Indian village or two are eradicated.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make it any better, does it?”

Ian kissed her on the brow. “My mama,” he said, and she could hear the pride in his voice.

*

“Do you think he’s alright?” Alex asked Mrs Parson a couple of weeks later, indicating with her head the full-blown storm outside the windows. “Will he have somewhere to sleep that is moderately warm and damp free?” Well over six weeks he had been gone, and she worried about everything: if his clean shirts had run out, if she should have sent along more woollen stockings, if he was eating properly, if, if, if. And foremost was the eternal question: if he was still safe and whole or if he’d been wounded and oh, dear God, killed, in an unnecessary skirmish defending those who had been too greedy from the legitimate reprisals of the aggrieved natives. She refused to think about Dominic Jones. Matthew would make sure he kept himself safe from him.

“I told you many years ago, didn’t I?” Mrs Parson replied without lifting her eyes from the rakish striped stockings she was knitting. “You sense him, no?”