Heartfire ttoam-5

by Orson Scott Card

  Peggy laughed, embarrassed. “I haven't, have I? It's kind of you to be willing to see me. And I can assure you that ladies of stature in the United States are not up to their elbows in wash water. Paid servants do the coarser sort of work.”

  “But so much more expensively,” said Lady Ashworth. “They expect their wages in cash. We don't use much money here. It's all seasonal. The French and English buyers come to town, we sell our cotton or tobacco, and then we pay all the tradesmen for the year. We don't carry money with us or keep it around the house. I don't think we'd keep many free servants with such a policy.”

  Peggy sighed inwardly. For Lady Ashworth's heartfire told such a different story. She watered her own plants because the slaves deliberately overwatered the most expensive imports, killing them by degrees. Some imaginary shortage of cash had nothing to do with keeping free servants, for the well-to-do families always had money in the bank. And as for abolition, Lady Ashworth loathed the word as much as any other slaveholder. For that matter, she loathed Peggy herself. But she recognized that some limitation on slavery would have to be achieved in order to placate public opinion in Europe and the United States, and all that Lady Ashworth ever intended to allow Lap-Rip to accomplish was the banning of slavery in certain regions of the Crown Colonies where the land and the economy made slavery unprofitable anyway. Lady Ashworth had always had success in convincing Northerners that she was quite radical on slavery, and expected to do as well with Peggy.

  But Peggy was determined not to be treated with such contempt. It was a simple matter to find in Lady Ashworth's heartfire some of her more recent mistreatment of her slaves. “Perhaps instead of wielding the watering can,” said Peggy, “you might show your commitment to abolition by bringing back the two slaves you have standing stripped in chains without water to drink in the hot sun of the dockyard.”

  Lady Ashworth's face showed nothing, but Peggy saw the rage and fear leap up within her. “Why, Miz Larner, I do believe you have been doing some research.”

  “The names and owners of the slaves are posted for all to see,” said Peggy.

  “Few of our Northern visitors pry into our domestic affairs by visiting our disciplinary park.”

  Too late did Peggy realize that the guards at the disciplinary yard– hardly a “park”– would never have let her inside. Not without a letter of introduction. And Lady Ashworth would inquire who it was who provided a Northern radical like Peggy with such an entree. When she found that there was no such letter and Peggy had made no such visit, she would think– what? That Peggy was secretly a torch? Perhaps. But more likely she would think that one of the household Blacks had talked to Peggy. There would be punishments for the only two Blacks that Peggy had had contact with: Doe and Lion. Peggy looked into the futures she had just created and saw Lady Ashworth hearing Doe's confession, knowing perfectly well that the old woman was lying in order to protect Lion.

  And what would Lady Ashworth do? Lion, refusing to confess, would be whipped and, in the futures in which he survived the whipping, sold west. Doe would be turned out of the house, for even though she had not given Peggy a bit of information, she had proven she was more loyal to a fellow Black than to her mistress. As a free black of advanced age, Doe would be reduced to living from scraps provided by the charity of other slaves, all of whom would be opening themselves to charges of stealing from their masters for every bit of food they gave to Doe.

  Time to lie. “Do you think that you're the only… abolitionist… living in Camelot?” said Peggy. “The difference is that some of the others are sincere.”

  At once Lady Ashworth's heartfire showed different futures. She would now be suspicious of the other ladies in Lap-Rip. Which of them had exposed Lady Ashworth's hypocrisy by speaking to Peggy, or writing to her, about the Ashworth slaves now being disciplined?

  “Did you come to my house to insult me?”

  “No more than I came to be insulted,” said Peggy.

  “What did I do to insult you?” said Lady Ashworth. What she did not say, but what Peggy heard just as clearly as her words, was that it was impossible for Lady Ashworth to insult Peggy, for Peggy was nobody.

  “You dared to claim that you share the goal of abolishing slavery wherever you can, when you know perfectly well that you have no intention of living for even a single day of your life without slavery, and that your entire effort is merely to pacify Northerners like me. You are part of your husband's foreign-relations strategy, and you are as committed to preserving slavery in the New Counties as anyone else in the Crown Colonies.”

  At last the facade of cheerfulness cracked. “How dare you, you priggish little nobody? Do you think I don't know your husband is a common tradesman with the name of Smith? No one ever heard of your family, and you come from a mongrel country that thinks nothing of mixing the races and treats people of quality as if they were the common scum of the street.”

  “At last,” said Peggy, “you have consented to deal with me honestly.”

  “I don't consent to deal with you at all! Get out of my house.”

  Peggy did not budge from her seat. Indeed, she picked up the pitcher of lemonade and poured herself a tall glass. “Lady Ashworth, the need for you to create the illusion of gradual emancipation has not changed. In fact, I think you and I have a lot more to talk about now that we're not lying to each other.”

  It was amusing to watch Lady Ashworth think through the consequences of throwing Peggy out– an event which would undoubtedly get reported all over the north, at least in abolitionist circles.

  “What do you want, Miz Larner?” said Lady Ashworth coldly.

  “I want,” said Peggy, “an audience with the King.”

  Chapter 3 – Painted Birds

  Jean-Jacques Audubon soon forgot the strangeness of painting from a live bird and concentrated on colors and shapes. Arthur and Alvin both sat in the grass behind him, watching the goose come to life on the paper. To Arthur it was a kind of miracle. A dab here, a dab there, a streak, colors blending sometimes, sharp-edged in other places. And from this chaos, a bird.

  From time to time the model grew weary. Arthur jumped up from the grass and spoke to the geese, and soon another took the place of the first, as close a match as he could find. Jean-Jacques cursed under his breath. “They are not the same bird, you know.”

  “But they're alive,” said Arthur. “Look at the eyes.”

  Jean-Jacques only grunted. For the bird did look alive on the paper. Arthur whispered about it to Alvin, but Alvin's reply gave him no satisfaction. “How do you know he didn't make the dead birds look just as alive in his paintings?”

  At last the painting was done. Jean-Jacques busied himself with putting away his colors and brushes, until Arthur called out to him, rather angrily. “Look here, Mr. Audubon!”

  Jean-Jacques looked up. The goose was still there, not posed anymore, but still on the ground, gazing intently at Arthur Stuart. “I'm finish with the goose, you can let it go.” He turned back to his work.

  “No!” Arthur Stuart shouted.

  “Arthur,” said Alvin softly,

  “He's got to watch,” said Arthur.

  Sighing, Jean-Jacques looked up. “What am I watching?”

  The moment Audubon's eyes were on him, Arthur clapped his hands and the goose ran and clumsily staggered into the air. But as soon as its wings were pulling against the air, it changed into a beautiful creature, turning the powerful beats of its wings into soaring flight. The other geese also rose. And Jean-Jacques, his weariness slipping from him, watched them fly over the trees.

  “What grace,” said Jean-Jacques. “No lady ever dances with so much beauty.”

  At that Arthur charged at him, furious. “That's right! Them living birds are prettier than any of your damned old paintings!”

  Alvin caught Arthur by the shoulders, held him, smiled wanly at Jean-Jacques. “I'm sorry. I never seen him act so mad.”

  “Every painting you ever made killed a bird,�
�� said Arthur. “And I don't care how pretty you paint, it ain't worth stopping the life of any of them!”

  Jean-Jacques was embarrassed. “No one say this to me before. Men shoot their guns all the time, birds die every day.”

  “For meat,” said Arthur. “To eat them.”

  “Does he believe this?” Jean-Jacques asked Alvin. “Do you think they are hungry and shoot the birds for food? Maybe they are stuffing it for trophy. Maybe they are shooting for fun, you angry boy.”

  Arthur was unmollified. “So maybe they're no better than you. But I'd rather cut off my hand than kill a bird just to make a picture of it.”

  «All these hours you watch me paint, you admire my painting, no? And now you choose this moment and tout coup you are angry?»

  “Cause I wanted you to see that bird fly. You painted it but it could still fly!”

  “But that was because of your talking to the bird,” said Jean-Jacques. “How can I know such a boy as you exist? I am oughting to wait for some boy to come along and make the bird pose? Until then I draw trees?”

  “Who asked you to paint birds?”

  “Is this the question you wanted to ask me?” said Jean-Jacques.

  Arthur stopped short. “No. Yes. The way you stuffed them birds back in the shop, that showed me you know the birds, you really see them, but then how can you kill them? You ain't hungry.”

  «I am often hungry. I am hungry right now. But it is not the bird I want to eat. Not goose today. What beautiful gooses. You love them flying, and I love them flying, but in France nobody ever sees these birds. Other birds they see, not the birds of America. Scientists write and talk about birds but they see only sketches, bad printing of them. I am not very good painter of people. Most of the people I do not like, and this makes my paintings not pretty to them. My people look like they are dead– etouff‚– avec little glass eyes. But birds. I can paint them to be alive. I can find the colors, I see them there, and put them on the paper. We print, and now the scientist know, they open my book, voil… the American bird they never see. Now they can think about bird and they see them. God lets you to talk to birds, angry boy. He lets me to paint them. I should throw away this gift of God except today, when you are here to help me?»

  “It ain't your gift when it's the bird as dies for it,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “All creatures die,” said Jean-Jacques. “Birds live the lives of birds. All the same. It is a beautiful life, but they live in the shadow of death, afraid, watching, and then, boom! The gun. The talon of the hawk! The paws of the cat. But the bird I kill, I make it into the picture, it will live forever.”

  “Paint on paper ain't a bird,” said Arthur Stuart sullenly.

  Jean-Jacques's hand flashed out and gripped Arthur's arm. “Come here and say that to my picture!” He forced Arthur to stand over the open sketchbook. “You make me look at flying gooses. Now you look!”

  Arthur looked.

  “You see this is beautiful,” said Jean-Jacques. “And it teaches. Knowing is good. I show this bird to the world. In every eye, there is my bird. My goose is Plato's goose. Perfect goose. True goose. Real goose.”

  Alvin chuckled. “We aren't too clear on Plato.”

  Arthur turned scornfully to Alvin. “Miz Larner taught us all about Plato, lessen you was asleep that day.”

  “Was this the question you had for Mr. Audubon?” asked Alvin. “Asking why he thinks it's worth killing birds to paint them? Cause if it was, you sure picked a rude way to ask it.”

  “I'm sorry,” said Arthur Stuart,

  “And I think he gave you a fair answer, Arthur Stuart. If he was shooting birds and selling them to a poulterer you wouldn't think twice cause it's nature's way, killing and eating. It's all right to shoot a bird so some family can buy the carcass and roast it up and eat it gone. But iffen you just paint it, that makes him a killer?”

  “I know,” said Arthur Stuart. “I knowed that right along.”

  “Then what was all this shouting for?” asked Alvin.

  “I don't know,” said Arthur. “I don't know why I got so mad.”

  “I know why,” said Jean-Jacques.

  “You do?” asked Alvin.

  “Of course,” said Jean-Jacques. “The gooses do not like to die. But they cannot speak. They cannot, how you say, complain. So. You are the interpreter for birds.”

  Arthur Stuart had no answer for this. They walked in silence for a while, as the road led them to the outlying buildings and then quickly into the city, the ground turning into a cobbled street under them.

  “I think of a question for you, King Arthur,” said Jean-Jacques at last.

  “What,” said Arthur, sounding far from enthusiastic.

  “The sound you make, no goose ever make this sound. But they understand you.”

  “Wish you could have heard him when he was younger,” said Alvin. “He sounded just like any bird you want.”

  “He lost this when his voice change? Getting low?”

  “Earlier,” said Alvin. He could not explain how he changed Arthur Stuart's body so that the Finders couldn't claim him. Though Jean-Jacques seemed a decent enough fellow, it wouldn't be good to have any witness who could affirm that Arthur really was the runaway slave the Finders had been looking for.

  “But my question,” said Jean-Jacques, “is how you learn this language. You never hear this language, so how to learn it?”

  “I do hear the language,” said Arthur. “I'm talking their language right back to them. I just have a really thick human accent.”

  At this, Jean-Jacques burst out laughing, and so did Alvin. “Human accent,” Jean-Jacques repeated.

  “It ain't like the geese talk in words anyway,” said Arthur. “It's more like, when I talk, I'm making the sound that says, Hi, I'm a goose, and then the rest of it says things like, everything's safe, or, quick let's fly, or, hold still now. Not words. Just… wishes.”

  “But there was a time,” said Alvin, “when I saw you talking to a redbird and it told you all kinds of stuff and it wasn't just wishes, it was complicated.”

  Arthur thought about it. “Oh, that time,” he finally said. “Well, that's cause that redbird wasn't talking redbird talk. He was talking English.”

  “English!” said Alvin, incredulous.

  “With a really thick redbird accent,” said Arthur. And this time all three of them laughed together.

  * * *

  As they neared Mistress Louder's boardinghouse, they could see a burly man bounding out into the street, then returning immediately through the garden gate. “Is that a man or a big rubber ball?” asked Jean-Jacques.

  “It's Mr. Fink,” said Arthur Stuart. “I think he's watching for us.”

  “Or is it Gargantua?” asked Jean-Jacques.

  “More like Pantagruel,” said Arthur Stuart.

  Jean-Jacques stopped cold. Alvin and Arthur turned to look at him. “What's wrong?” asked Alvin.

  “The boy knows Rabelais?” asked Jean-Jacques.

  “Who's that?” asked Alvin.

  “Alvin was asleep that day, too,” said Arthur Stuart.

  Jean-Jacques looked back and forth between them. “You and you have attend to school together?”

  Alvin knew what Audubon must be thinking– that Alvin must be a dunce to have gone to school at the same time as a child. “We had the same teacher,” said Alvin.

  “And she taught us in the same room at the same time,” said Arthur Stuart.

  “Only we didn't always get the same lesson,” said Alvin.

  “Yeah, I got Rabelais and Plato,” said Arthur Stuart, “and Alvin married the schoolteacher.”

  Jean-Jacques laughed out loud. “That is so pleasant! Your wife is a schoolteacher but this slaveboy is the top student!”

  “Reckon so, except one thing,” said Alvin. “The boy is free.”

  “Oh yes, I'm sorry. I mean to say, this Black boy.”

  “Half-Black,” Arthur Stuart corrected him.

  “W
hich make you half-White,” said Jean-Jacques. “But when I look at you, I see only the Black half. Is this not curious?”

  “When Black folks look at me,” said Arthur Stuart, “they see only the White half.”

  “But the secret about you,” said Jean-Jacques, “is that deep in your heart, you know Rabelais!”

  “What does that have to do with Black and White?” asked Alvin.

  “It have to do that all this Black and White just make this boy laugh inside. When you are laughing deep down where no one else can see, Rabelais is there. Yes, Arthur Stuart?”

  “Rabelais,” said Alvin. “Was that the book about the big huge fat guy?”

  “So you did read it?”

  “No,” said Alvin. “I got embarrassed and gave it back to Miz Larner. Margaret, I mean. You can't talk about things like that with a lady!”

  “Ah,” said Jean-Jacques. “Your schoolteacher began as Miz Larner, but now she is Margaret. Next you will call her 'mama,' n'est-ce pas?”

  Alvin got a little tight-lipped at that. “Maybe you French folks like to read nasty books and all, but in America you don't go talking about a man's wife having babies.”

  “Oh, you plan to get them some other way?” Jean-Jacques laughed again. “Look, Pantagruel has seen us! He is coming to crush us!”

  Mike Fink strode angrily toward them. “You know what damn time it is!” he called out.

  People nearby looked at him and glared.

  “Watch your language,” Alvin said. “You want to get fined?”

  “I wanted to get to Trenton before nightfall,” said Mike.

  “How, you got a train ticket?” asked Alvin.

  “Good afternoon, Pantagruel. I am Jean-Jacques Audubon.”

  “Is he talking English?” asked Mike.

  “Mike, this is John James Audubon, a Frenchman who paints birds. Jean-Jacques, this is Mike Fink.”