The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2) (9 page)

Ye gods, he thought, this place is hot enough without having to spend the afternoon beside an open fire, being attacked by boiling fat. With another oath he picked up the first platter and carried it through to the four diners.

‘Come on, Hill, put it here and be quick about it. Our bellies are empty and we need feeding,’ bellowed Samuel Gibbes at the head of the table, sweeping away empty bottles to clear a space for the food. He belched loudly. ‘And bring more wine. We’ll need it in this heat.’ The four diners had already drunk five bottles that afternoon although neither of the guests had taken much. Compared to the Gibbes, Charles Carrington and Adam Lyte were practically abstainers. Thomas wondered how they could bear to dine with the Gibbes, even for the common good. Adam Lyte, a little overweight, fair-haired and red-faced, was, as Patrick had said, a decent man and a proud member of the Assembly. The athletic-looking Carrington, clean-shaven, long black hair tied
neatly back, dark-eyed and skin weathered by the Caribbean sun, was more of a free spirit.

‘Devilish fine law in my opinion,’ said Samuel, as he hacked at the turkey with a heavy knife. ‘We only have to say “Cavalier and Roundhead” and it’s turkey and pork for all.’ Laughing at this excellent joke, he shovelled chunks of leg and breast on to four wooden trenchers.

‘Indeed, Samuel,’ replied Lyte, ‘although we in the Assembly did not reckon on anyone using the words just as an excuse for a good dinner. We meant to promote peace and prosperity on the island by banning them, not the wholesale slaughter of turkeys and pigs. Still, I thank you for inviting me. The favour shall be returned within the month.’

‘I thank you too, Samuel,’ added Carrington. ‘This much meat will keep me alive for a week.’

‘Assembly, my liver,’ muttered John gruffly, scratching at his scarred face, ‘damned fools know nothing. We don’t need laws to tell us what we can and can’t say, any more than we need them to tell us how to grow sugar. We’re the ones who’ve made Barbados rich and we’ll do as we choose. Bell and Walrond, Drax and Middleton, they’re interfering old women. To hell with the lot of them and their meddling laws.’ If this was meant to rile Adam Lyte, it failed. He tactfully said nothing. ‘Where’s that damned shoat, Hill? Bring it here, for the devil’s sake.’

Only the name of Bell meant anything to Thomas, although if the brutes hated them all, they would have his support. As he came through with the pig, he managed to catch Carrington’s eye and shook his head just enough to signal a warning. Carrington raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

‘Now, gentlemen, some pork with your turkey?’ Holding his
knife like a dagger, Samuel thrust it into the pig. Juices spurted out on to his grubby fingers, which he licked with relish.

‘In truth, Samuel, pork has never really agreed with me. I think I’ll settle for this excellent turkey, thank you.’ Carrington had taken Thomas’s hint and with a gentle nudge had passed it on to his friend.

‘I fear I am much the same,’ said Lyte, ‘but if I may, I will take a drop more of your excellent wine with the fowl.’

‘Ah well, all the more for us, eh, John?’ Samuel, not a bit put out, shovelled a huge heap of pork on to his plate and another on to his brother’s.

With the diners provided with more meat and wine than five times their number could possibly consume, Thomas slipped outside with a small plate of turkey and sat on a wooden box he had placed under the bearded fig tree. He called it his listening tree. From there he could not see the diners but he could hear them. It was cooler under the tree and he sipped a cup of plantain juice.

Stretching his aching back, he looked again at the Gibbes’s house, shook his head sadly and thought yet again how utterly revolting it was. How anyone, even these brutes, could live in it was beyond understanding. Not a drop of paint had been employed on the rough timber, the roof leaked and armies of termites had been feasting on the corner posts. Revolting was the word for it. Ramshackle and revolting.

‘Hill, Hill, where are you, man?’ It was John this time, full of meat and claret, and rapidly reaching the point at which he might become dangerous. Thomas roused himself smartly and went back to the house. ‘Ah, there you are, queenie. You are a queenie, aren’t you? I hear all the king’s men are.’ Either he had forgotten that his guests were supporters of the king or he did not care. Probably the
latter. He was always more vicious to Thomas in company. It was his way of showing off.

‘I don’t think so, sir. But is there anything else I can do for you?’ The ‘sir’ stuck in his throat, as it always did, and it was a risky reply. For a horrid moment both Gibbes stared at him and he thought there was going to be trouble until Charles Carrington came to the rescue.

‘Excellent turkey, Thomas,’ he said, adding with a grin, ‘and I daresay the piglet was good too. Eh, Samuel?’

‘What? Yes, yes. A decent pig. Better than your last effort, Hill. More flavour. Now bring us the milk pudding. And we’ll need more wine.’

He fetched the wine and then returned with a large pudding from the kitchen. He had made it with the milk bought at the market, the juice of ten limes and a good deal of stirring. ‘Will the pudding be good, Thomas?’ asked Carrington with a wink.

‘Oh yes, sir. Very good, I should think.’

‘Excellent. Better have some then, eh, Adam?’

While they were tucking into the pudding, Thomas sat outside and listened to the four of them talking about the sugar that had already made them rich, and about the soaring value of land which was making them richer still. When two or more planters were gathered together, even bedfellows as strange as these, he supposed that the conversation would invariably turn to the price of land and the production of sugar. Planters would speak of sugar as churchmen speak of faith – as if there were nothing else.

For all the squalor and debauchery, the Gibbes knew about making money from sugar and could hold their own on anything to do with the intricate processes of planting, harvesting, milling, boiling and curing. Oddly, they became rational and coherent
when discussing business. Before dinner, they had taken their guests to inspect the windmill and had tried to persuade them to form a partnership to build another for their shared use. Lyte and Carrington had wisely asked for time to consider the matter, although Thomas had the impression that had the proposal been made by anyone else they would have jumped at it. Windmills must be expensive to build and would need to be kept busy. A shared one made sense.

The vexed issue of labour got the Gibbes really heated. Thomas had heard it all before. ‘We have fifty acres planted and we need at least thirty men to work them and more to man the mill and the boiling house. We need slaves, and lots of them. A black slave is better suited to the work than an indentured man and he’s a better investment. He’s here for life and if we want him to, he breeds more workers.’

Adam Lyte spoke mildly. ‘You may well be right, Samuel, and of course you know your business best, but Mary and I have mixed views on slavery and we’ve been fortunate with our indentured men. Most of them chose to come here as indentured servants, none of them has been involved in an uprising and, as far as we can tell, none of the convicts was guilty of anything more serious than petty theft or poaching. They know they’re better off here than starving in some prison at home and they’re good workers.’

‘That’s as may be, but indentured men cost a good twelve pounds each and they’re only here for a few years. We’d rather do without them.’

‘What about your man Hill?’ asked Lyte. ‘Where did he come from?’

‘Hill’s our only indentured man. We bought him because he can write and figure and he can cook. He keeps the books and
cooks when we tell him to. We bought him from an agent who got him from Winchester gaol. Can’t stand the prissy little scab myself but he’s useful enough.’

‘I daresay he’s better than the Irish they send us, although that isn’t difficult.’ John Gibbes, half comatose from the drink, stirred himself to join in. ‘They’re coming over in shiploads now, men and women, the women no better than whores, and they’re troublesome pigs. They hate honest Englishmen and don’t mind saying so. Land of papists, Ireland is. Papist pricks and poxed whores. They have a word for being sent here. Barbadosed. Barbadosed, my liver. It’s Hellosed they deserve.’

‘Hellosed. Ha. That’s a good one, brother. Hellosing for the Irish. Fine idea.’ Samuel paused in drunken thought for a moment, then let out another bellow. ‘Hill, Hill, get off your arse and bring us a bottle of that excellent rum we made from the molasses last year. A glass of rum, gentlemen, before you go? Fetch the rum, Hill. Or is it Hell? Ha, fetch the rum, Hell, or to hill with you.’ Now completely drunk, Samuel was delighted at his own wit.

Thomas fetched the rum and four glasses. If that doesn’t finish them off, nothing will, he thought. Sweet Barbados rum was fierce stuff and on top of all that claret must surely bring the dinner to an end within the hour. God willing, it might even bring the brutes to an end.

‘Your sister’s much admired, I do hear, Adam.’ John was slurring his words but could still just about string them together intelligibly. ‘A lovely girl by all accounts. It’s a wonder she’s not married. Queues of young men at the door, eh? There’s taverns-full of them to choose from. What is she, nineteen, twenty? Perfect age for a woman. Fully grown in every department but still fair and
supple. Just the thing to keep a man happy on a hot night.’ Thomas, cringing behind the tree, reckoned that this would break up the party even sooner.

‘Mary will be nineteen in June.’ Adam’s voice was icy. The thought of either uncouth Gibbes so much as thinking of touching his sister must be abhorrent.

‘Expect you’ll be wanting a young wife to warm your bed soon, Charles. Could do worse than Adam’s sister, eh? The Lyte family after all, no paupers, good breeding stock and a fine-looking woman, they say. Might be willing to take her on myself.’

That should do it, thought Thomas, and about time. He risked a look around the tree.

‘I do not have the honour of knowing Miss Lyte at all well,’ replied Charles with quiet force, ‘but on the few occasions that I’ve had the pleasure of her company, I have found her to be a lady of charm and virtue. I believe she merits the respect of all, not lewd suggestions.’

‘Indeed not,’ agreed Adam, ‘but she needs little guidance from me. Mary is an honourable and spirited lady. She would deal swiftly with any unwanted attentions.’

John Gibbes was unabashed. Incapable of embarrassment, he leered suggestively and took another swig of rum.

Charles rose to go. ‘Time for us to take our leave, Adam. I thank you, gentlemen, for your hospitality if not your conversation.’

‘As do I.’ Adam managed, just, to remain civil but he was already on his feet. ‘My thanks for dinner. And kindly thank Hill for his excellent pudding.’ Thomas knew that thanking Hill was not something that either brute would be doing.

The two guests walked briskly to a stand of trees where their
horses were tethered in the shade. Darkness was falling and the tiny frogs had begun their chorus. They stood there for a moment and spoke loudly enough for Thomas to hear. ‘God in heaven, Charles, never again. It may be our duty to do what we can to keep the peace and protect our trade but I for one am not willing to sacrifice myself like that again. If our prosperity breeds animals like those two, better that we are poor.’

‘Fortunately, my friend, there are few in Barbados as evil as the Gibbes but, of course, you’re right. They are gross and despicable. I pity poor Hill; he’s plainly a decent man and well educated. I hope he’s stronger than he looks or the climate and the work may get the better of him. Now enough of them. How’s Mary?’

‘Well, thank you. She sends her compliments.’

‘Please return them,’ said Charles, ‘and if either Gibbes so much as looks at her you will have to be quick to run him through before I do.’

Adam laughed. ‘I know. Let us pray it does not come to that.’

‘Goodbye, Adam,’ said Charles, mounting his horse. ‘Let us meet again soon.’

‘Indeed. Go safely, Charles.’ Behind his listening tree, Thomas kept quiet. There had been no mention of helping him. Perhaps Patrick had not yet had a chance to speak to Adam Lyte.

As soon as his guests were out of earshot, Samuel spat on the floor and swore loudly. ‘What a pair of pomposetting pricks. Royalist piss-pots think they’re too good for us. I’ll wager the girl’s been bedded by half the young men in Holetown. And a few filthy slaves too, I shouldn’t wonder. What was it? Mixed views about slavery? My eye. That’s the last time we give them turkey and pork, by God. And we’ll see about “unwanted attentions”, eh, brother?’

But his brother was past caring. Snoring loudly, his big, red, louse-infested head resting on his arms, he had passed out. Samuel shrugged, left him there and staggered off to his bed.

Thomas slipped off to his hut, expecting to be asleep within seconds. But exhausted though he was after an afternoon in the sweltering kitchen, he found, when he lay on the bed, that his thoughts skipped from one thing to another, as a restless man’s do, and images of people and places flittered in and out of his mind’s eye, returning repeatedly to his home and the horrors of a war as bloody and pointless as any war could be. He tried not to dwell for the hundredth time on his arrest and imprisonment, the sudden separation from his family or on the miserable voyage that had brought him here. It had happened. Now survival was everything. He must hope Patrick could persuade Adam Lyte to help. He must hope.