The King's Mercy

by Lori Benton

  Joanna had laughed away the exaggeration. She’d be twenty in a six-month.

  Lucy hadn’t shared her mirth. “It’s as though you care if your Negroes like you. They’re slaves, Joanna.”

  She’d stood on the dock while boatmen poled the Woodards away, bewildered that Lucy could so easily dismiss those who served her. From the time their management had been taken from her mother’s lifeless hands and thrust into hers, Joanna had striven for fairness in her dealings with Papa’s slaves. If her domestic managing differed from that of her neighbors, she’d never had opportunity to learn.

  Her next thoughts were no more welcome. In the morning Reverend Pauling would depart for the backcountry, where he would preach through the autumn, then bide the winter in Pennsylvania. It would be spring, at least, before they saw him again.

  She let the petticoat fall to her lap. Why did she retreat into work for solace instead of following her soul to the green pasture where it longed to feed? Perhaps the reverend would afford her an hour of conversation before he sought his bed.

  As she quit the room, a commotion of muffled shouts punctuating a rhythmic pounding shattered that hope. Joanna reached the foot of the stairs as Papa emerged from his study, lunged for the back door, and yanked it open. On the dusky threshold a shadowy figure loomed, huge and humped. Papa stepped back as the figure pushed into the house, resolving into Mister MacKinnon, carrying something across his shoulder that created the illusion of bulk. The something was Reverend Pauling.

  “This way,” Papa said, needing no explanation.

  Though clad in the leather apron that covered him chest to knee, Mister MacKinnon’s shirtsleeves were rolled high. The muscles of his lean arms stood out like ropes as he maneuvered the reverend into the study.

  Azuba met Joanna at the study doorway, quick to grasp what was transpiring. “The shaking started?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Mister MacKinnon had him slung over his shoulder.”

  “Coming up that lane like he carried a feather tick,” Azuba said. “I seen it from a window upstairs. I’ll fetch another quilt.”

  Joanna slipped into the study as Mister MacKinnon lowered Reverend Pauling to the bed he’d occupied during the gathering—those few hours he’d slept. The tall Scotsman and Papa worked over the reverend with barely a word spoken, removing shoes and coat, arranging bedding.

  Joanna approached. “We haven’t any bark left, Papa.”

  The reverend’s eyelids fluttered. “My bags…”

  Joanna edged past Mister MacKinnon and took up the reverend’s hand. He was shivering. She reached for the coverlet folded at the bed’s foot. So did Mister MacKinnon. Their fingers tangled as she grasped its edge. He drew back, giving her place.

  “Even in summer he gets chilled,” she said. “Soon as we get some of the Jesuit bark into him, it will help.”

  “Aye. The taste alone should make him forget his aches.”

  Joanna looked up. “Is it so nasty?”

  “Ye’ll not be forgetting the taste. Though I hope ye never make its acquaintance,” Mister MacKinnon added.

  Joanna grew aware of Papa standing back from the bed, watching. As though he had as well, Mister MacKinnon drew off, leaving her to take charge. Reverend Pauling’s belongings were packed, save what he’d have needed come morning. Joanna found his supply of powdered bark, glancing aside to see Mister MacKinnon gazing at a map on the wall.

  She looked away when Papa addressed him. “What happened?”

  “He’d come to the smithy with the mare needing a shoe.” The rumble of that Scottish voice, its cadence giving lilt to each word, filled the room with a sense of calm that beat back Joanna’s worry for the man shivering in the bed. “Whilst I saw to it, he went in and spoke to Moon. I was still shoeing the mare in the yard when out he came. He stopped to converse, seeming well enough, if worn, but by the time I had the shoe nailed, he’d dropped where he was standing. Has it come upon him so sudden before?”

  “It has,” Joanna began, but Papa spoke over her.

  “I assure you, MacKinnon, we’re acquainted with the particulars of the reverend’s condition. He’ll be well tended. Thank you for your aid. Good night.”

  Joanna frowned at the dismissal as Mister MacKinnon bowed and left the room. As quickly as he left, Azuba arrived, arms laden. While the woman prepared a tincture, Joanna stood back watching, stifling a yawn.

  Azuba spared her a glance. “Go on to bed, Miss Joanna. I’ll tend him.”

  As much dispirited as fatigued, Joanna said, “Charlotte must have been halfway through her bath not to have come downstairs. I best see her to bed.” She bade her stepfather good night and went out into the passage, where she found her sister perched near the top of the stairs, peering through the balustrade with one of the housemaids clutching her shift to keep her there, gazing down at the one person Joanna hadn’t expected to find in the passage—Alex MacKinnon, standing with his back to the stairs, watching the study door.

  “You’re still here,” Joanna said.

  He nodded. “Begging your pardon, Mistress. I’ll leave ye now.”

  “I wasn’t protesting. Would you bide a moment?” He checked, an eyebrow arched in question, but she first strode past him to the stairs. “Please see Charlotte to bed,” she told the maid. “I won’t be long behind.”

  The woman tugged on her sister’s shift, but Charlotte didn’t budge. “Azuba says the reverend’s ill.”

  “To bed,” Joanna said. “If you’re still awake when I come up, I’ll tell you everything then.” Which guaranteed her sister would be wide awake. She faced Mister MacKinnon, feeling the strangeness of his presence in the house. “You look as though you’re feeling better.”

  “I am.” He regarded her before adding, “Was it ye, Mistress, sent the carpenters?”

  “I saw the bed was far too short for you when…I came to see you, before.”

  He bent his head in acknowledgment. “I thank ye, Mistress.”

  “Gideon and his carpenters did the work.”

  Candles in their wall sconces threw shadows across Mister MacKinnon’s face, accentuating high cheekbones, the orbits of his eye, the line of his jaw. “Oh aye. I meant just now to thank ye for coming to me when I lay sick. It was kind of ye, busy as ye’ve been.”

  Joanna thought of him lying in that too-short bed, of touching the wet rag to his lips. Though he still looked much too thin, his skin was golden in the candlelight, his color good. “I didn’t think you would remember.”

  “I dinna, exactly. I’d some verra odd dreams. But it’s a relief to stretch out full in a bed to sleep.” He drew in his bottom lip, studying her, then released it. “I expect ye’re wishing me there now.”

  She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  He took a step nearer. “It’s only that ye look tired, Mistress. But then ye would do, after all the fizz and thrangity.”

  Doubtless it was her fatigue, but she found herself on the verge of giggling. “Fizz and…what?”

  He did laugh, softly. “Sorry. I meant ye’ve had a great bother keeping up with your many guests, aye? Ye’ll be plumb wearit.”

  That crooked smile. Joanna felt the pull of it go deep. Strangely, she no longer felt the weight of her fatigue. Impulse overtook her.

  “Mister MacKinnon, if you’d bide yet a moment more, there’s something I want to show you.” She returned to the study before she could change her mind. Papa was intent on the reverend, talking with his back to her. Azuba, busy mixing the bark powder, glanced her way as she took the big conch shell off Papa’s desk, but she hurried out without explaining.

  Back in the dimly lit passage, she held out the shell, large enough it needed two hands, to Mister MacKinnon. It was bleached a creamy hue, though faint stripes could be seen spiraling around its broad end where thick spikes protruded, while the inner shell
, visible along its flared opening, was a glossy pearlescent pink.

  “I found this at the ocean when I was a girl,” she said, feeling more than a little childish now.

  “Aye. It’s a braw conch. Biggest I’ve seen.” He sounded uncertain what she meant by the offering.

  “Put it to your ear.”

  He hesitated briefly, then did so. She watched his features, studying his expression. That crooked smile came softly, and his eyes grew abstracted, his voice taking on a husky note as he said, “I’d forgot ye could hear the sea’s roaring like that.”

  “I thought you might miss it,” she said, hoping he didn’t ask why she’d thought so.

  Still holding the shell, fingering its spikey protrusions, he took a step toward her, searching her gaze as a slave wouldn’t dare. Possibly as an indentured man oughtn’t. “Ye’ll have enjoyed it, then? All the stir and bustle, people about the place, the preaching?”

  “Not as I’d hoped.” She’d spoken out of pure startlement. No one else had asked her if she’d enjoyed the gathering, but best she say no more on that subject. “And you, Mister MacKinnon? Did you enjoy it?”

  “I didna care for yon man’s preaching,” he said bluntly, nodding toward the study. “This fever, though, it’s a thing ye’ve seen him through before? I think ye started to say as much.”

  “The last time was in autumn.”

  “Aye, well. In that at least he kens of suffering.” Before Joanna could respond to the statement, Alex MacKinnon held out the shell. “I thank ye, Mistress, for this. But I should go. G’night to ye.”

  Miss Joanna, she wanted to remind him, but he was already making for the door, leaving her holding the shell.

  * * *

  The usual creaks of the house settling on a summer night surrounded her, as did the trill of crickets, the throaty chorus of frogs. Absent were the noises of guests packed into her room. No tired whispers of mothers helping offspring to chamber pots. No infant cries muffled by a breast. Joanna yet lay wakeful, her mind teeming.

  Charlotte was a sound sleeper; still, Joanna took care extricating herself from between the linens. She took up a shawl as she left the room, hair in a braid. If Azuba kept vigil over the reverend, she’d send her to bed. No need for them both to be awake.

  Downstairs the candles were snuffed, but the pungent scent of her stepfather’s pipe met her before his voice reached her ears.

  “Sometimes, David, I think it shall hound me to my grave.” Joanna halted at the study door. Papa had sounded more dispirited than she’d heard since her mother’s death. “Now this new disturbance. I suspect it’s proven of substance since Phineas hasn’t returned.”

  He wasn’t speaking of her mother, but of that interminable aggravation they’d inherited. In the early years she’d been too young to understand the many disputes that erupted between Asahel Simcoe and her stepfather—court battles over water rights, timber rights, boundary lines—stemmed from imprecise surveying of the original patents, an all too common occurrence in the colony. The last court ruling had settled the boundary and forced Mister Simcoe to pay remunerations for timber he’d cleared on Severn land.

  “I’d been minded to ride out myself,” Papa said, indecision in his tone.

  “Go. I’m well looked after.” Though the reverend’s reply was thready, clearly his fever had broken. In the silence following, Joanna started to creep away, but Reverend Pauling’s next query stopped her. “Is that all that troubles you, this neighborly strife?”

  “Yes,” her stepfather said. “And no. The weight of it and more has been heavy on me of late—Severn, and what shall become of it. And Elijah. Charlotte. Joanna.”

  “I’ve spoken to Elijah,” Reverend Pauling said. “His road is steep, but the Almighty will see him through.”

  “He’s been the nearest thing to a son to me. Aside from Phineas, of course.”

  “This young Mister Reeves I’ve yet to lay eyes upon. Another of your former cabin boys, and the one you favor for Joanna.”

  “She hasn’t accepted his suit.”

  “Nor rejected it?”

  The night was humid enough that Joanna’s shift clung beneath the shawl. She ought to leave them to their privacy, but she wanted—needed—to know her stepfather’s mind on this matter.

  “There’s no love between them. I hope in time there might be friendship. Joanna is strong, bright, bred to the life, but this estate will need a man when I’m gone. The right man. Phineas has proven his devotion to Severn. He has a head for the business that, for all his admirable qualities, Elijah lacked even before his loss.”

  Reverend Pauling was slow to speak. “What of Joanna? What of the right man for her?”

  Papa made no answer.

  “Edmund, we are friends, you and I?”

  “Of course,” Papa replied gruffly. “And you know as well all that I owe you—my very life.”

  It was true. Had it not been for the reverend, none of them would have survived the year following her mother’s death in childbirth. The baby, a much longed for son, died with her, plunging Papa into a grief so miring he’d been barely aware of his daughters—the stunned twelve-year-old struggling to step into her mother’s shoes, the three-year-old bewildered by her mother’s absence. In the midst of it, Joanna had penned a desperate letter. Though it reached Reverend Pauling at his sister’s home, that troublesome ague had delayed his coming. His return letters, overflowing with encouragement, had sustained Joanna until the man himself had come, in time to pull Papa back from the brink of ultimate despair.

  “Then for the sake of our friendship, hear me in this.” The reverend’s voice had grown hoarse. Joanna strained to hear, leaning closer to the open door. “You are weary under the burden of this life you’ve built on the backs of souls your ledgers claim—quite erroneously—that you own. Can you not see it? The greater the material comfort you accrue, the greater the burden of it will weigh. Joanna isn’t exempt. At Grace’s passing she took up her mother’s yoke with a courage few her age could have showed, though it wasn’t without struggle. By the time you were able to look about you, by sheer dint of will she was bearing it. I dare say she’s borne it so long now, uncomplaining, even she has lost sight of what it stole from her.”

  “Stole from her?” Papa echoed.

  “Joanna lost more than a mother. She lost her childhood, or what remained of it. I won’t compare her lot to that of the souls in your kitchen, shops, and fields, forced to work their lives away for bare subsistence, but can you not see the yoke your stepdaughter has borne…so ill fitted…”

  Joanna leaned into the wall, one hand muffling her mouth. “The greater the material comfort you accrue, the greater the burden of it will weigh.” The words pierced her with their truth.

  Concern tightened her stepfather’s voice. “I was wrong to let you speak of these matters. You need rest.”

  The reverend ignored that. “You keep men in chains, Edmund. But what of…your own?”

  “There are no chains here, David. And Severn cannot exist without slaves.”

  If her stepfather’s reply constricted Joanna’s heart, the reverend’s next words threatened to tear it free of her chest with yearning.

  “Must it exist? What does a man truly need? A roof over his head, land to grow his food, or a place to work for it. You have these blessings many times over, yet maintaining them demands you do the opposite of what the Almighty requires of a man.”

  “And what is that?”

  “To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God. To simplify it, Edmund…love God and love your neighbor.”

  Joanna’s mind cleaved to the words. What did a man truly need? What did she, Joanna, need?

  The answer unfolded with astonishing clarity. A vision of a life that included no vast acres of pine forest needing to be exploited. No crops so abundant they
required gangs of slaves to sow and reap them. No great house needing many hands to maintain it. No dirt-floored cabins filled with souls bound to them in servitude. Instead there was a tidy log house, far from that river that bound them to ships, that bound them to trade, that bound them back again to this place. And there was a man—an honest, hard-working, God-fearing man who loved her. Who would love their children. A man she tried to imagine as Elijah. But he wouldn’t stay brown-haired and stocky of build in her mind. He transformed into a man outlandishly tall, lean-muscled, fair and blue-eyed as a Viking.

  “Miss Joanna? The reverend taken worse?”

  Thrusting the vision from her mind, Joanna turned to see Azuba coming along the passage, candle in hand. “He’s better, actually, but needs rest. Papa should go to bed.”

  Before Azuba could say another word, Joanna brushed past her and headed for the stairs, but when she was again abed, the vision persisted. That last part had been mere folly, imagining Alex MacKinnon in the role of husband. But what of the rest? She couldn’t tear down the house around their ears and put up a log home in its place. She couldn’t set at liberty every slave Papa owned. She couldn’t force him to simplify their lives. Severn owned Papa’s heart, but could she find a way to meet him in the middle, somewhere between her vision for her future and his?

  11

  Phineas Reeves came to the smithy the next morning, trailing Demas, who halted at the door while Reeves strode in, brightening at sight of Alex at the forge. “I feared to find you taken up residence in the burial ground, given the state in which I saw you last. But here you are, hale and hard at work.”

  Caught in a rare moment of solitude—he’d sent Jemma to beg a cider jug from Marigold as a playful trade for the kitchen poker she’d asked him to make—he spared the overseer a nod before striking the nearly finished poker, turning it across the anvil, striking again, until it grew apparent Reeves meant to linger until he paused for conversation. Thrusting the poker into the fire, he stared at the man in his clean suit and riding boots, leather satchel slung at his side—in neat order for one having spent the past week living rough in a pinewood shanty camp. “There’s a burial ground?”