The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  “I am no longer an Ahatchwhoop,” Billy muttered. “Had I wished to succeed my father I’d not have abandoned him. Nor do I see the virtue of trading the lives of your friends for those of all the white men in the Province.”

  “The war will come in any case,” the poet insisted, “only Chicamec will have no hand in waging it. ’Tis not my object to deliver him a good general, but to prevent the war itself.”

  To this Billy replied, more sullenly yet, that for all he was a deserter, he had not sunk to the level of treason against his people.

  “ ’Tis not treason I have in mind,” Ebenezer protested, not at all pleased with the way things were going. “My plan is not to betray the Ahatchwhoops, but to save them—”

  Billy bristled. “Do you think your wretched militia is a match for Quassapelagh and Drepacca? By summer the Governor’s scalp will hang from my father’s ridgepole!”

  “Please, sir, hear me out! If Drepacca makes his treaty with Monsieur Casteene and the Naked Indians, the English will be harried out of America, and ’twill be no chore to drive the French out after them; I grant that. But ’tis not the English case I plead: ’tis the case of humankind, of Civilization versus the Abyss of salvagery. Only think, sir: what you’ve acquired in less than a fortnight wanted two thousand years and more a-building; ’tis a most sweet liquor, is’t not? Yet the mash whence man distilled it is two dozen centuries of toil and misery! What, will you drink your fill and throw away the flask, when your people hath such thirst? I grant the English have used you ill, but to drive them out is to drive yourself back into darkness.”

  Billy did not reply.

  “All well, here is my plan,” Ebenezer said resignedly. “Whilst I was in your father’s town I marked a great rivalry betwixt Quassapelagh and Drepacca; they regard Chicamec as no more than a valuable figurehead, as’t were, and vie with each other to dominate the triumvirate. But the fact is, neither hath the whole requirement of an emperor, do you think? Quassapelagh hath the loyalty of the Indians, but for all his virtues he falls short in cleverness and diplomacy; Drepacca is a brilliant fellow, but as yet hath little strength…”

  “Thou’rt a shrewd observer,” Billy admitted. “ ’Tis well for them the Tayac Chicamec is old, for he hath both wit and numbers in his favor.”

  “Precisely!” the poet exclaimed. “But he is old, and there’s our opportunity! Thou’rt his son, and heir to both his genius and his influence; if he should abdicate in your favor, ’twould be no chore for you to play Quassapelagh and Drepacca against each other. Thou’rt the only one of the three who can rule alone. And i’faith, Billy, what blessing you could bring to your people! The power to make war would still be yours, and in the plain and public face of’t any governor in his senses will put an end to oppressing you; violence will give way to honest negotiation, and our two peoples may borrow each the best of the other’s culture—”

  “Why do you not apply to your good friend Burlingame instead?” Billy interrupted. “Belike your sister could hit on some subtle means of persuading him.”

  “Ah, dear Billy!” Anna cried. “I’ve had no chance yet to explain—”

  “Apply to Burlingame I shall,” Ebenezer broke in, “but not to go to Chicamec. In the first place he is English by nurture and appearance, a stranger to your people, and ne’er could win their trust; in the second, he is close to Governor Nicholson and hath great influence in the provinces; he can do your cause more good in Anne Arundel Town than on Bloodsworth Island.” He searched his mind desperately for additional arguments. “ ’Sheart, Billy, ’tis not as if you must live there forever! When your position is secure there’ll be no need for your people to hide; you can rule just as well from here and live as you live now. As for Anna, she hath declared already—”

  “Enough,” Billy commanded, and rose from the bench. “The house belongs to Harvey Russecks, not to me; and the woman, as I gather, belongs to my brother.”

  “Go to!” pleaded Anna. “I shan’t leave you!”

  “Then follow me to the town of Chicamec,” Billy said coldly. “The Ahatchwhoop women will tear you to pieces.” He made a bow to Ebenezer. “I congratulate you, sir, on achieving both of your objectives: your sister now understands that she is no Indian, and I that I am no Englishman. I shall go back to Bloodsworth Island in a very few days.”

  Anna burst into tears. “Nay, if thou’rt English no more, then you must own me for thy lawful wife!”

  “On that point, Miss Cooke, the code of the Ahatchwhoops is quite clear: the Tayac may take as many outland concubines as he pleases, but the blood of his wife should be untainted. Good night.”

  Ebenezer entreated him not to leave, but Billy (who now demanded that they call him Cohunkowprets) was adamant. “ ’Tis near dawn now, and we’ve yet to sleep,” he said. “I shall spend today putting my friend’s property in order; tomorrow we’ll return to Church Creek and thence to Bloodsworth Island.”

  Forbidding Anna to follow him, he left the cabin, whereupon Anna fell into a fit of weeping and cursing her inadvertence. Ebenezer’s own feelings were mixed: on the one hand he was genuinely sorry that Billy’s pride had been so injured, and concerned lest his stratagem misfire on that account; overbalancing these considerations, however, were his joy at finding and in a sense rescuing his sister, as well as succeeding, so it appeared, in his mission to save the lives of his companions. It was no easy matter to calm Anna’s distress, but he was assisted by their mutual fatigue; after what seemed like hours of soothing talk he put an end to her tears, and when the first grey light appeared she was asleep on the bench.

  17

  Having Discovered One Unexpected Relative Already, the Poet Hears the Tale of the Invulnerable Castle and Acquires Another

  THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON and evening both Ebenezer and his sister did their best to regain Billy’s friendship, but though his bitterness seemed to have passed, he held steadfastly to his position and virtually ignored their presence as he worked about the cabin. His taciturnity was not the only change in Billy: overnight, as it were, he had discarded his mufti and become an Indian again. His English clothes he had exchanged for matchcoat and buckskin breeches (just as Anna, when she awoke, had exchanged her ragged shift for a proper English costume); his movements were those of a woodsman rather than a planter; even his skin seemed magically to have darkened, as Anna’s had quite literally lightened under her diligent scouring. It was a difficult day, and Ebenezer welcomed the coming of nightfall, when Billy again retired to the barn and he and Anna talked for hours between their separate pallets in the dark, much as they had done in childhood. Next morning Billy closed the cabin and outbuildings, hitched up the team, and drove them silently to Church Creek. He would not enter the little settlement himself, but stopped a quarter of a mile from the inn.

  “I’ll wait here for one hour by the sun,” he announced—the first words he’d spoken in two days. “Stay with your sister and send your companion to me if you want the hostages to live.”

  In vain Ebenezer protested that he had promised Chicamec to return in person; that Anna would be perfectly safe with Mrs. Russecks if the miller was not entirely recovered; that to send McEvoy in his place would make him look and feel a coward.

  “One minute of your hour is spent,” Billy observed, and turned away; to Anna’s farewell he made no reply at all.

  It was Ebenezer’s intention to approach the village with caution, lest Harry Russecks be up and about his business, but upon reaching the inn he saw McEvoy and a considerable number of others gathered in plain sight in the nearby churchyard. Anna drew a scarf about her face to avoid being recognized as the Church Creek Virgin, and they went over to the gathering.

  “Eben!” McEvoy cried upon recognizing him. “Dear Christ, but it’s good to see ye back! I feared the salvage had done ye to death for stealing his bride!” He noticed Anna and went pale. “Is’t you, Joan?” he whispered.

  Ebenezer smiled. “ ’Twas a more eventful journey than I�
�d supposed, John: his bride was not Joan Toast but my sister Anna, who is his bride no longer.”

  “What in Heav’n!”

  “There’s no time to explain now.” Ebenezer glanced at the activity around the church door. “Since thou’rt not in hiding, I gather that Sir Harry is still bedridden.”

  “Nay, Eben, no longer,” McEvoy said seriously. “Thou’rt just in time to attend his funeral!” The miller, he declared, had never recovered from his comatose state and had expired during the night after his fall. Mrs. Russecks was no longer hysterical, but seemed indifferent to the point of numbness; one was not certain that she quite understood what had happened. Henrietta was of course subdued by her mother’s reaction, but the villagers were openly relieved to be rid of the tyrant.

  “I share their sentiments,” Anna declared with feeling. “He was a beast! But I feel sorry for Mrs. Russecks and Henrietta, who were so kind to me. Where are they now, Mr. McEvoy?”

  McEvoy answered that they were inside the church, where the funeral was about to commence, and suggested that the three of them go in also.

  “You should go,” Ebenezer said to Anna, “but you and I have more urgent business, John: Billy Rumbly waits for us round yonder bend, to go to Bloodsworth Island. We daren’t detain him.”

  Anna excused herself to comply with her brother’s suggestion, and Ebenezer explained the situation to McEvoy as rapidly as possible. “We can only pray that Billy will do his best to prevent the war,” he said at the end, “but in the meantime we must rescue Bertrand and the Captain.”

  “Aye, but when then, Eben? Whither do we go from there?”

  “Anna swears that Henry Burlingame is a lieutenant of Governor Nicholson’s,” the poet replied. “Whether he is or not, methinks we should go to Anne Arundel Town with all haste and apprise the Governor of the coming insurrection. Beyond that I cannot see.” He hesitated, uncertain how to broach the subject of Billy’s ultimatum; but McEvoy took the matter out of his hands.

  “ ’Twere best only one of us went, Eben, and the other stay here. We heard rumors yesterday that a famous pirate fellow called Every, or Avery, is passing through on his way to the head o’ the Bay and hath been foraging for provisions along his route. ’Tis not likely he’d come so far from open water, but the folk are up in arms, and the ladies will want some protection. Besides, ye’ll want to be with your sister, will ye not?”

  “Ah, John—”

  “Nay, not a word, now! Ye know how it burthens me to owe my life to ye, Eben; give me this chance to remit a little on account.”

  Ebenezer sighed and confessed that he was not in a position to protest, inasmuch as Billy seemed to bear him a grudge. He promised to look after Henrietta and vowed that if the hostages had not arrived safely in four days he would bring the Maryland militia to Bloodsworth Island. McEvoy decided to leave without more ado; Ebenezer went with him to Billy’s wagon, full of misgivings, saw him off, and returned to the churchyard.

  For all the villagers’ excitement, the next few days were happy and almost tranquil for Ebenezer and Anna. Indeed, the pirate-scare (based on Governor Nicholson’s announcement that “Long Ben” Avery’s ship Phansie and Captain Day’s brigantine Josiah had been sighted in Maryland waters) turned out to be a blessing in disguise. For one thing, the rumor of foraging privateers kept everyone indoors much of the time and thus, together with the diversion of Harry Russecks’s death, spared Anna no end of embarrassment; by the same token it made it unnecessary for Ebenezer either to maintain the imposture of Sir Benjamin Oliver or to disclose his true identity. For another, although Henrietta, distressed as she was at the news of McEvoy’s dangerous errand, was delighted to see “Miss Bromly” again and soon became fast friends with her, and although Anna and Mary Mungummory (who was also a houseguest) got on splendidly together, Mrs. Russecks seemed still much disturbed by the presence of the twins; Ebenezer sensed that she would probably not have taken them in as guests had not the other women insisted on male protection.

  ^^Her manner was strange and contradictory: in their company she was reserved, even slightly hostile, but whenever they ventured outside she seemed anxious for their safety and was clearly relieved when they returned uncaptured by pirates. There appeared to be little basis for Ebenezer’s original fear that she abhorred him for his part in the miller’s downfall; she accepted their condolence for her loss but admitted readily that all concerned, herself included, were better off for Sir Harry’s demise, and insisted that neither Ebenezer nor McEvoy were in the least responsible for it. On the other hand, she would listen almost with irritation to the poet’s account of his peregrinations since April last, and once when he was voicing his joy at being reunited with his sister, she left the room.

  “I cannot fathom it,” Anna said on that occasion. “She was so gracious before, and now—’tis as if the sight of us gives her pain!”

  “Nay, child,” Mary Mungummory chuckled, “I’ve long since given up Roxie as a mystery. None but the good Lord knows how Harry’s death hath touched her—she hath yet to tell me clearly why she married the brute to begin with!”

  “We must be patient,” Henrietta said. “Try to forgive her, Anna.”

  “La, ’tis we must be forgiven,” Ebenezer protested. “Your mother’s a judicious soul, and whate’er the affront we’ve given her, ’tis plainly no trifle.”

  Henrietta smiled. “Since we agree ’tis a mystery, let’s alter the maxim to suit the case: Rien comprendre c’est pardonner—n’est-ce pas?”

  And there the matter rested, though the poet saw a troubling ambiguity in the proverb.

  By way of posthumous retribution for his boorishness, the villagers resolved that Sir Harry’s grave remain forever anonymous; with the consent of Mrs. Russecks, who declared her intention, of removing to Anne Arundel Town in the near future, they dismantled the machinery of the tide-mill and, in lieu of inscribed granite, marked his resting place head and foot with the unadorned millstones. Henrietta, though she made no secret of her joy at being delivered from her father’s despotism, visited the grave dutifully every day during this period, often accompanied by the twins. Mrs. Russecks would not go with them, pleading fear of the pirates; to get out of the house they were obliged to unbar the door, which she then barred behind them, and to re-enter they knocked three times and offered a password. Similar precautions were taken by most of the other villagers as well, on whom Sir Harry had been wont to press stories of his abuse at the hands of Captain Pound; on the way home from the churchyard one saw houses with every window boarded, and Henrietta declared that some people had nailed fast every door in their houses except one, which was kept heavily barred.

  Now Ebenezer could scarcely believe that pirates would come so far upriver from the Chesapeake, nor had he ever heard of their assaulting a whole village in the English provinces; nevertheless, the responsibility for a houseful of women weighed heavily upon him—the more since he had no weapons except Sir Harry’s old cutlass—and the general mood of alarm was contagious. On the third day of their visit, therefore, while taking tea with Anna, Henrietta, and Mary Mungummory, he suggested that they follow the example of the neighbors.

  “After all, we’re but one man with one sword; if the pirates really should come hither, they could have at us through two doors and a dozen windows.”

  For some reason this proposal amused Henrietta. “ ’Twould make our house an invulnerable castle, would it not?”

  “Very nearly, if you choose to think of’t thus. Really, Henrietta, is’t so humorous that I’m concerned for your safety?”

  “Nay, Eben, ’tis not that at all. The fact is, our family hath had unhappy dealings with invulnerable castles in the past; otherwise my mother would be no orphan, and belike we’d not be named Russecks at all.”

  Everyone’s curiosity was aroused by this remark; they demanded to hear the story.

  “Ah, now, I’ve sworn not to speak of my family to Eben and Anna—” She smiled mischievously and whis
pered, “But if Mother’s asleep I’ll forswear myself—’tis a marvelous tale!”

  She tiptoed upstairs to Mrs. Russecks’s chamber and returned with the news that her mother was still napping soundly. “Now I’ve no idea why all this hath suddenly become such a dark secret, but when Eben left us to ride out to Billy Rumbly’s, Mother made me swear to say naught of her family in his presence. Since I’d not dream of going counter to her wishes, you must swear to me you’ll keep her secret. Do you swear?”

  They did, much amused by her casuistry, and Henrietta, assuming the manner of a storyteller, began what she called The Tale of the Invulnerable Castle, as follows:

  “Once on a time there lived in Paris a certain Count named Cecile Edouard, who had the bad judgment to be born into a family of Huguenots…”

  Ebenezer suddenly frowned. “I say, Henrietta, have you e’er heard tell—”

  “Ah, ah, ah!” the girl scolded. “Marry, Eben, thou’rt Laureate of this wretched province, and you know very well ’tis only a boor will interrupt a story!”

  The poet laughed and withdrew his question, but his expression remained thoughtful.

  “I was getting to the family scandal,” Henrietta said with relish. “Maman wouldn’t mind your knowing this; I’ve heard her tell it to others often enough, to mortify Papa when he bragged of her nobility. The fact is, albeit we know Monsieur Edouard was a bona fide count, his ancestry is lost to history, and there was a scandalous story among the workmen and servants at Edouardine—”

  “Dear God, I was right!” Ebenezer cried. He half rose from his chair with excitement and then sat down again, his features dancing. “Tell me, Henrietta, was this man your—let me see—your grandfather? And was this Castle Edouardine here in Dorset County, not far from Cooke’s Point?”

  Henrietta feigned exasperation. “I declare, Anna, your brother must be taken in hand! What matter if you’ve heard the plot already?” she demanded of Ebenezer. “Dido knew the tale of Troy, but she had manners enough to hear’t twice from Aeneas, nor e’er broke in with niggling questions.”