Birdie also wanted to feed Colin some perino – a drink made from the cassava plant – that had been fermenting in barrels in the cool cistern. It tasted like strong beer, and was Birdie's favorite drink.
"We to feed him papaya," the native woman told Freddy. "It heal."
The sooner Colin could keep down solid food, the better.
As they worked in the steamy kitchen, they kept watch over Una. She was still out of her head with fever, begging her Mam to help her. But occasionally she seemed to rest more easily now. The yellow tint of her face frightened Freddy. Mrs. Pratt had sent for the plantation doctor, for all the slaves who had taken ill with fever and dysentery. The doctor was across the island, but would be here as soon as he could, the housekeeper said.
Colin was sitting up on his pallet, leaning against the wall and waiting for them that night. In the candlelight he was still terribly pale and emaciated, but appeared alert. The rain had let up and was no longer dripping into the hut.
"The doctor is coming soon," Freddy told him, setting down the bowl and jug she'd carried. "Una has also taken ill…"
"Is it the rains that bring on so much illness?" he asked faintly, shaking his head.
The two women sat on the damp dirt floor next to his pallet. Colin grabbed each of them by the hand. "Thank the good Lord for you two, for your friendship and for your health, your strength." His face creased into a wide grin. "…and Freddy here with the bloom of the rose in her cheeks."
She smiled at him, unable to hide the two bright red circles that appeared high on her cheekbones. "Ah, Colin, that sterling tongue tells me you're much improved this night. Thank the good Lord is right, may we all pull through." Freddy touched her own forehead, chest, and shoulders in a rapid Sign of the Cross.
"Drink," Birdie mumbled, leaning forward and handing Colin a coconut bowl that held herbal syrup. "Then mobby."
"Mobby?" Colin grinned again and sipped the medicine. He was sweating, which meant his fever had broken. "I have a terrible thirst."
"We make much mobby, lucky boy." Birdie grinned back.
"How is your stomach?" Freddy asked him.
"Better," he said. "But it still hurts."
"Mmmm." The Indian woman reached over and pressed the palm of her hand into his swollen belly.
"Oww!"
"This." Birdie handed him the ceramic jug of perino.
Colin took a swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Birdie held up the papaya she'd brought.
"I have no appetite—" he began.
"You eat, see?" The native woman cut him off, scooping some papaya with a wooden spoon. "Heal quick."
"God and John the Baptist grant this brave soul long life and happiness," Father Sean murmured in Irish, kneeling at Una's side in the kitchen candlelight. "The strength of St. Brigid to her, in Jesus' name. Amen."
The doctor could not rouse Una. She had been in a deep, still sleep for two days. The yellow coloring of her skin had deepened. Freddy found herself constantly asking God to please, please make Una better. There was so much more that Freddy yearned to know about her. Their time of friendship had been far too short.
Father Sean rose stiffly.
"Mobby, Father?" Freddy held a coconut bowl out to him and filled one for herself. Birdie had gone to Colin's hut alone this time. Freddy was hoping to speak with Father Sean about a matter weighing heavily on her mind. She sat on a stool.
"Bless you." The priest put the bowl on the work table, lowered himself onto the other stool, and sighed.
"To your health and to Una getting better!" Freddy toasted in Irish. They lifted their cups and drank. "There is something I must say…"
"Go on, child."
"There is a Gypsy slave here named Dika. I fear she is in grave danger, like Colin." She dropped her voice to a whisper, even though she was speaking in her native tongue. "Father, how she suffers in the cane…"
Dika sat cross-legged on the dirt floor of the shack, her legs tucked under her shift. Her black eyes gleamed and flickered, reflecting the candle flame. Freddy would not have recognized her from the slave ship, she had lost so much weight. Her hair was pulled straight back into a bun. Her face was now so angular, it made her shadowy eyes huge. She looked like a hungry cat. Freddy wished she had thought to pinch some tidbits of food for the woman.
"Why me?" Dika was asking, shifting her gaze from Freddy to Father Sean. "I am not one of you…"
"That does not matter," Freddy told her. "We can help you, you can help us."
"How?" The suspicious Dika was not the sort to mince words.
"We must swear you to secrecy," Father Sean murmured.
"You have my word." Dika crossed her heart with her right hand.
The priest glanced at Freddy.
"I believe Dika can be trusted, Father."
"Very well," he said in a barely audible whisper. "On the assigned night, somehow you would slip a sleeping potion to Ben in a drink, making certain that he suspects nothing. Whittingham will be away, but the driver must not be about…we have a dinghy ready, for five lads who must get away. Freddy hopes you will join them in running away…"
Dika turned her dark, questioning countenance to the younger girl.
"I, I have seen what Ben does to you," Freddy stammered, embarrassed. She dropped her eyes. "I fear for you."
"I see," the Gypsy woman said, nodding. "Yes, Ben delights in torturing me...and I grow weaker…Running away is dangerous. But staying is also dangerous, perhaps more so. The dinghy is large enough?"
"It will be crowded," Father Sean whispered. "The lads will catch the current to Montserrat."
"Montserrat," Dika repeated slowly, nodding again. "I have heard that things are good there." She paused, sitting very still. "Yes, I will do it. Yes, I will help you, and take my chances in that dinghy on the sea."
Late that night Una silently slipped away, never awakening from the coma. Freddy was suddenly awakened just before dawn by a strange, high-pitched wailing.
It was Birdie. She was squatting in the gloom next to Una's pallet, weeping loudly and rocking back and forth, her hands tightly clasping her knees. On the floor beside her was a knife, and next to it lay several curled locks of Birdie's thick black hair.
Freddy sank to the floor and took one of Birdie's hands. With her other hand Freddy touched Una's cool cheek. It was not possible. Through red-rimmed, aching eyes she searched Una's still face. Freddy was too stunned to weep. People died every day on this muddy, disease-ridden island, but never before someone close to her. How could brave, smart Una be gone? Where was her rebellious spirit now?
In a shocked daze, Freddy looked up through the cookhouse window at the eastern sky, now clear and glowing cobalt blue where the sunrise would soon inflame the horizon. Suddenly a bright, long shooting star streaked diagonally through the indigo. Freddy's jaw dropped.
"Ohhh, Una," she breathed. "Go with God."
CHAPTER 13
November 1653
"These are for you," Freddy whispered, slipping Colin three shiny knives and a gold pocket watch. This night no candle was lit in the hut, as an extra precaution. The sky had cleared to reveal an almost-full moon.
Surprised, Colin held the watch up to examine it in the moonlight that beamed through the open hut window. As he inspected the timepiece, Freddy studied his bare chest. "Where did you—?" he began.
"It's better that you not know." She turned away, flustered, rubbing her upper arms through the thin white muslin of her shift. How could she say good-bye to him? Did he feel anything for her?
"It's time," he said in Irish. After a week of Birdie's nursing, he was so much improved he insisted on walking the mile down to the strand on his own. It was all arranged. The estate night watchman had been taken care of, as had the militia's night patrolmen, Father Sean promised. The runaways would meet on the beach at the appointed hour. Colin had already said a grateful good-bye to Birdie.
"I could walk with you…" Freddy
offered, her voice tight with anxiety. Her back was still turned to him. "What if you weaken?"
"I won't," he answered. "We must say farewell here."
She felt she would burst. There were so many things unsaid, things that needed saying. What if she never saw him again? What if she never felt like this again? She yearned to run off with him, but knew it was not possible. Only those whose lives were in immediate danger were making this perilous escape. Also, she was with child. Father Sean said that there was work for her to do here.
"Look at me," Colin said in a low voice, turning her around and holding her shoulders. The milky shaft of moonlight lit their faces from the side as he gazed intensely into her eyes. In the silver glow Freddy studied his features, trying to memorize his sideburns, the firm line of his mouth, his hairline, the slope of his strong brow, and those deep-set eyes.
"We will see each other again, Freddy O'Brennan," he was saying. "I know it."
She nodded mutely, her luminescent almond eyes filling with tears that glistened in the pale moonbeam. As one tear spilled down, Colin leaned in and pressed his cheek against hers, cupping the back of her head with one hand. They fell into a tight embrace, his other hand pressing her waist to him. Her eyes squeezed shut, Freddy held the back of his neck and the hard muscles of his shoulder, her nose nestled against his throat. As she inhaled his scent, she knew she could stand like this forever.
"I must go," he whispered into her blue-black curls, his voice cracking.
"I know," she answered in a strangled whimper, dropping her arms to her sides.
Colin's hands moved back to her shoulders, and he slowly pulled himself away from her. He reached down for his canvas pouch, put the knives and timepiece in it, strapped it across his chest, and began putting on a black coat. The runaways would be garbed in dark clothing, in the hopes it would help keep them hidden in the night.
With a quick squeeze of her hands, he was gone.
Freddy stood in the doorway, arms tightly folded across her chest, as he made his way across the compound to the edge of a mature cane field that was terraced to the sea. The tall stalks would hide him from view as he crept down to the water. Silent and motionless, she watched him walk into the cane. He turned once to wave. She waved back and he disappeared into the long, inky shadows.
She walked along the narrow track that was crowded on both sides by soaring cane that rustled in the night breeze. Anxiously scanning the fields around her as best she could, her heart aching and hammering, Freddy turned left and climbed out onto a small ridge of unplanted land that separated two large cane fields. There would be no sleep for her this night. She had decided that if caught out here, she would pretend to be disoriented and claim that she must have been sleepwalking.
From the edge of the ridge top, in the shadow of an ironwood pine, there was a clear view of the cane fields that descended like giant stairs to the curving white strand and the shimmering sea. The moon was now higher and brighter. A nearby hedge laden with pink wild roses threw its fragrance into the night and she took a deep breath to calm herself. Several tall fan palms swayed next to a solitary, monumental bearded fig tree with long roots hanging from its branches. Next to the wild roses was an orchid tree abloom with purple flowers that looked gray in the moonlight.
She sat cross-legged in the grass under the pine, turning her eyes to the sea. A sudden movement in the trees made her jump. Springing to her feet and whirling around, she came face to face with a pair of monkeys that stared and blinked at her from their black faces. Holding one hand over her racing heart, she tried to catch her breath. She had heard tales of these mischievous gray creatures. Perhaps she had awakened them from their slumbers in the bearded fig's lower branches. Their black faces were framed by bright white fur that matched their underparts.
"It's only me," Freddy whispered to them.
They just blinked and yawned.
Sitting back down, she studied the sea. That distant line of white would be the surf breaking on the island's coral reef. She faced west and looked slightly north, imagining the island of Montserrat, where Colin and the others hoped to land. Choking back more tears, she made a fervent Sign of the Cross and vowed to follow him there. The island of St. Kitt's, where Aileen had gone, was also to the northwest, she had been told. Would her sister receive the letters Freddy had written and sent with Father Sean? She must find her Aileen someday. She must!
Which direction was her homeland? How many thousands of miles of open sea lay between her and her beloved Éire? None of the Irish she had met here knew of anyone who had made it home. It was too far, the price too dear. Oh, to see her loved ones again! How fine it would be to talk to Mam and ask all the questions swarming in her mind about having a child. Scrutinizing the water below, Freddy leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her belly, thinking of her babe. Mam would hold her hand reassuringly as they talked and talked. A sharp jolt of loneliness stabbed Freddy's chest and again she covered her heart with one hand. She imagined hugging Firewind's sweet neck and tasting Mam's crunchy brown bread fresh from the oven, with melted butter. She realized that her upper body was rocking.
Then she saw it, close in – a dinghy with oars sticking out both sides, bobbing on the silver water. They were on their way then. Even this close, the miniscule vessel was barely more than a dot in the midst of the luminous sea, under the tropical autumn moon. She crossed herself again and prayed for their safe passage, gazing at the dinghy's small wake.
Freddy watched until the boat blended into the distance. Covering her face with her hands, she began to weep. Then she collapsed onto her right side and curled up in the grass, sobbing. It was all too much – Colin leaving, Una dying, Master, Millicent, everything. After several minutes, her sobs faded away into silence. She took deep, halting breaths and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
Freddy sat up, brushed little pieces of grass off her shift, squared her shoulders, and told herself she must trust in what Colin had said. They would see each other again, God willing. In the meantime she would assist Father Sean here.
"Please, God, watch over us all," she breathed.
CHAPTER 14
November 1653
Captain Lacoste studied the choppy water through his spyglass. The Alizé was making good time sailing down the east coast of Saint Lucia and the mate in the crow's nest had just reported a small boat a quarter-mile off the portside. It took a few moments before the captain spotted it – a dirty white dinghy riding precariously low in the waves, with what looked to be six persons huddled together on board.
"Intercept!" he commanded. What the devil were these people doing out here in a speck of a tub like that? It could get swamped any minute. They were a motley crew, he thought as he scrutinized them through the spyglass. One had long black hair pulled back into a low tail; two redheads had curls sticking out from beneath their hats; two more men wore white kerchiefs on their heads; and a small, dark-skinned one had a very long single braid trailing down his back. He was wearing a strange-looking white shirt.
"Oheʹ du bateau! Vous perdu?" the captain hollered as the Alizé drew closer to the dinghy.
"No parlez," Colin yelled back.
Lacoste spoke limited English but understood it well enough. He summoned Ryan, one of his Irish crewmen, to help him find out who these bobbing fools might be. There was something peculiar about that small dark one.
"Ahoy, is it lost ye are?" Ryan asked as the sloop pulled alongside the wee rowboat.
"Not precisely," Colin answered, one hand on the knife that lay on the seat. "We're bound for Montserrat, on the current."
The mate glanced at the captain, who nodded. "We're brethren of the coast and ye're welcome aboard for a friendly drink and a bite, all o'ye," he told them.
"Sounds like manna from heaven," Colin replied, standing to grab the rope ladder Ryan had tossed down the ship's side. "Ye lads go ahead. I'll tie our mighty vessel to the stern, then join ye."
The others began climbing the ladde
r, but Dika sat motionless, staring at Colin with naked panic in her black eyes. They had all heard the stories about what pirates did to female captives.
"Stay by my side, ye'll be safe," Colin told her.
Lacoste gathered from the blue-eyed one named Colin that they'd been in the dinghy for two and a half days, rowing and praying that the current would carry them northwest. They had a limited amount of water and food, he said, adding that they were indentured servants from Barbados. They had earned their freedom, according to Colin. But Lacoste had already seen the red whip welts on their backs, through their torn shirts. He didn't mention it, nor did he point out that they were damned lucky the overloaded dinghy hadn't gone under. This fellow Colin probably already knew that. He seemed a sharp one.
It was no wonder the small dark one had struck him as odd. She was a woman, alone in that inadequate craft with five Irish lads! One never knew what might be floating around out here these days. Her name was Dika. She stayed very close to Colin, but seemed too old to be his woman. She reminded Lacoste of an exotic princess from far-off India, a fairy tale figure. She had not yet uttered a word. The hard look in her dark eyes told him she had seen more than her share of trouble.
The flimsy, torn white gown she wore was attracting too much interest from the crew. He found it distracting as well. When they finished their ale and fish stew, Lacoste beckoned to Colin and Dika and Ryan to follow him to his cabin. Too bad the woman did not understand French. The captain explained through Ryan that he wanted her to wear less revealing clothing, to protect her from unwanted attention on the ship. She and Colin nodded in agreement.
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