The Blackbirder botc-2

by James L. Nelson

  “Yes, I am Malinke. Was Kabu Malinke, from the House of Mane.” His name? That was not so easy to answer. “Once I was known as Komdaka, prince of the Malinke. Now I am King James.”

  “King James?” Madshaka said, trying the words out, working his tongue around them. “What of the ship’s crew?”

  “Dead. Captain dead, some others dead. The rest sent away.”

  Madshaka looked at him and his eyes grew wide and a look of astonishment, of gratitude and near worship spread over his face. He sank slowly to his knees in front of James, grabbed his hand and kissed it. James felt himself flush, cleared his throat, tried to work out the words in Malinke to tell Madshaka to stand.

  Then Madshaka released his hand and looked up into James’s eyes and spoke, and the words were English.

  “Thank you. Thank you, King James. You set us free from hell.”

  James took a step back. He could not have been more surprised if Madshaka had burst into song. He thought of all those languages the man had called down the hold. African tongues. But how could he speak English?

  Madshaka got to his feet with a fluid thrust of the legs, smiled down at James, spoke again in English. “I was a grumete, a boatman. I am of the Kru of Bassa, the most skilled boatmen. I was a merchant, interpreter. Traveled the whole coast, from Goree to Congo. Carried many people in my boat. Learned many tongues.”

  The two men regarded each other. Madshaka was Kru, from Bassa. King James was Malinke, from Gambia. They had most likely been born within six hundred miles of each other. But now James was a man of the New World, and the gulf between them was as wide and as deep as the Atlantic.

  “Are any aboard Malinke?” James asked. He did not know why. It just seemed like something he should know.

  “No. Ship from Whydah. There are people from many places, all mixed up. Ibo, Yoruba, Awakam, Aja, Bariba, Igbomina, Weme, Za. No Malinke.”

  James nodded. A polyglot group, but all from within the arc of the Bight of Biafra and the Bight of Benin, two thousand miles from where he was born.

  Behind them, more and more people were coming up out of the hold, standing in small clusters, huddled together as if for warmth, men, women, and a few children looking around, pointing, talking in their odd, lyrical voices.

  The Northumberland’s crew were in their own group, looking at the freed slaves with as much curiosity as they themselves were being watched. Cato and Joshua had been born in Virginia, as had Quash and Good Boy.

  James pointed at the gaping hold, the destruction all around. “What happened?” he asked.

  Madshaka looked around, shook his head. He was silent for a moment, as if trying to put the chaotic tale in some order. “We at sea many weeks, many weeks. Very little food, very little water. Sometimes they let us up here, mostly keep down there.

  “Then, a week ago, we attacked. Boo-con-eers. Pirates. They take the ship, steal some of our people. They on ship two, three days. Much drinking, much devilment. When they leave they set us all free. We try to take the ship from that bastard captain but the white slavers, they have guns, swords, and we, nothing. They drive us down again, shoot down into us with cannon. Close up the hole.

  “They afraid to open hole, afraid we fight them again. So for week we sail, they don’t give food, no help to the people hurt in fight. They die, just left down there. Dead men, women, children. They open up a little place, give some food, some water, but only a little. Many die.”

  King James shook his head, tried to imagine the horror. There had been dead enough on his own voyage to the New World, sometimes left for days before their bodies were hurled overboard. He had thought no horror on earth could match that which he had experienced, and here was Madshaka making him realize that he was wrong.

  “Kusi!” Madshaka called across the deck, and then in a language that James thought to be of the Aja territory he addressed the man who turned. The man nodded, hurried away from his cluster, stood by Madshaka’s side.

  “Him Kusi, Fante, from Great Popo. He grumete too. Not so good as Kru. He speak many languages.”

  Kusi nodded. He was a slight man, shorter than James and older by ten years at least. His face was lined and he bore the traces of ritual scarring, but he had an honest look. “I speak English too, and other tongues.”

  “Well,” James began. He stopped himself, framed his words in Malinke, and said, slowly, haltingly, “It is good you both are here. We have much work. You must translate for me. We will have to sail the ship.”

  The two men nodded, as if they were already resigned to the fact that they would have to put to sea once more.

  The last of the captives climbed up from the hold and stood shielding their eyes from the sun, dazed, staring around. There appeared to be eighty or so in all. James was sure that there had been far more than that when the ship had sailed from Africa.

  Madshaka turned toward the clusters of freed Africans and addressed them in a loud voice, a commanding tone that made them all fall silent and listen.

  He spoke in animated tones, repeating himself in several tongues and the people nodded. James could not follow the words, but he saw eyes darting toward him. And then Madshaka pointed at James, his finger like the barrel of a gun, and along the deck the people sank to their knees, their wide eyes locked on him.

  “He tell them you are their great savior, a great king come to free them,” Kusi explained.

  “Oh, for the love of God…Madshaka, tell them…”

  But Madshaka turned, as if he did not hear, and in a half dozen great strides was back on the quarterdeck. He snatched up a cutlass that had been discarded there, raised it over his head. He gave a cry, a battle cry, a wild, corkscrew of a sound, and in one stroke severed the dead captain’s head from his body.

  Against the rail Joshua turned away, puked with abandon over his clothes, on the deck.

  Madshaka snatched up the head by the hair and held it aloft, dripping blood from the ragged neck, dead eyes rolled back. He shouted something several times in several languages, and the people bowed further. Then with barely a flick of his wrist he flung the head overboard.

  “You are great man to them, savior,” Kusi said.

  Savior. A savior would not have allowed that barbaric display. But it was done, and maybe it would even do some good.

  Think, think. Thoughts struggled like a drowning man, kicking for the surface, desperate for air, but they could not rise.

  Savior. If they were taken now, then their fate would be much worse than what it might have been on a tobacco plantation. He had condemned them all with his uncontrolled fury, and now they looked at him to carry them to safety.

  Think, think, but he could not. They had to go, that much he knew. They had to leave the Chesapeake, leave America, go somewhere. Then perhaps there would be time to think, to organize his mind, to hit on the solution that, like the sky through the surface of the water, he could see, dimly, but could not reach.

  “Madshaka, Kusi, come here. You must translate, tell the others what to do.”

  And then slowly he began to explain to the men, in the simplest terms, how they would cut the cable and set once more the slaver’s flogging, limp topsails.

  She stood across the bedroom, leaning against her vanity. “Oh, dear God, Thomas, pray do not insult me with this rubbish!”

  Her arms were folded across her breasts, her long, blond hair untied, hanging down her back and over her shoulders, one wisp half across her face. She was wearing only her shift and the thin fabric did little to hide her body underneath.

  Men had fought and died for that body. And well worth it, Marlowe thought.

  Lord, but she looked fine. Angry like that, standing defiantly upright, lips pressed together, a slight scowl. She was beautiful at any time, but when she was angry there was a quality that Marlowe could not define, but which he found utterly alluring.

  He had made the mistake of telling her that once, when she was angry. Thought it would soften her mood, make her more pliant
. He had rarely been so wrong in his judgment.

  He wanted to bed her, not fight with her. But fighting was all she was up for that night, and for something so irrational. Damned women, could never understand a thing.

  “Listen, Elizabeth, I shall say it again. Tobacco prices have been falling for a year and more, and you know it. And this war will make it worse, much worse. Francis reckons half the plantations will go under, or their owners will have to take on huge debts, and you know what that means. We discussed this venture, agreed it would be a good chance to save us from all that.”

  Elizabeth sighed, closed her eyes, threw back her head. A damned patronizing gesture. Much more of that and Marlowe reckoned he would not wish to bed her at all.

  “Listen, Thomas, for I too shall say this again… no, wait. I won’t. You do not listen in any event. Just… just for a moment, think about your ship. Picture the second that she came into sight from the carriage, the moment that you leapt out, quite ignoring Francis and me. Have you pictured that? Now, tell me that this damned privateer is just about money.”

  Marlowe scowled, remained silent. Damn her, the insensitive bitch. He glared at her, wanted to leave the room, slam the door, tear it from its hinges. Felt the uncomfortable sensation of looming truth.

  He had been thinking for two months of the feel of a heaving quarterdeck under his feet, the insular world of a ship long under way, the thrill of sighting a strange sail, the brace and leap of boarding some prize.

  He had never once thought of the money he might earn, the booty he claimed might save Marlowe House. Did not even know how much he would need to keep the place running, or how much he already had.

  “We cannot survive the season without I bring in some money from this venture,” Marlowe said slowly.

  “Oh, indeed? And how long can we now go before we must borrow? Tell me, how long can we continue to pay our people before the money is gone? Or are we broke now? Pray, tell me.”

  Marlowe was silent once more. Elizabeth kept the books, Bickerstaff ran the plantation. He just rode around, lord of the manor. Hadn’t a clue what was going on, because he didn’t give a damn about such things as farming and bookkeeping. And so he could not answer that question. He knew it, Elizabeth knew it. Damn her for doing this to him.

  They were silent for a very long time, eyes locked. Two very stubborn people, two people who had learned from hard use never to yield an inch.

  And in Marlowe’s mind, the heaving quarterdeck, the leap over the rail.

  He knew that Elizabeth was right. He was bored. He had spent well over a decade as a pirate-an extraordinary amount of time for that profession-and half of it just to get himself to the place he was now.

  He closed his eyes. Opened them again, gave her a weak smile. “You are right, my love. You are right.”

  “Thomas, do not placate me…”

  “I am not, truly I am not. I want to do this thing because…I want to do it. I do not know what more to say, what I can do to make it better.”

  He saw her anger, her stubborn unwillingness to yield, melt away just as his own had done. She was across the room and in his arms, her head tucked under his chin.

  “My love, my love, I am sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be, Thomas. I understand. You would not be the man you are if you could stay happy at home. I just…I… you must understand. Understand yourself why you have to go.”

  They embraced, and after a minute Elizabeth spoke, her face buried in his chest, her voice muffled. “I am just selfish. I can’t stand seeing your joy at something besides me, and our home. I hate that ship because it is a part of your life that is not a part of mine. It will take you away from me.”

  Marlowe did not know what to say to that, so he said nothing. They just stood there, in each other’s arms, rocking slowly, enjoying that heightened affection that follows an argument, like the bright blue skies that come on the heels of a cleansing storm.

  And then a pounding from belowstairs, an insistent fist on the front door. They both looked up, ears cocked to the sound.

  “What the devil…,” Marlowe muttered. It was well past midnight.

  The pounding came again, and then quiet, and then again. Marlowe released Elizabeth, and stepped quickly for the door, Elizabeth just behind him. Out of the bedroom and down the hall, his slippered feet silent on the rug that covered most of the oak floors. At the top of the wide stairs that flowed down to the front entry Marlowe saw Caesar, the aging house servant, muttering and hurrying toward the door, dressed only in his nightshirt, a flickering candle in his hand.

  Marlowe bounded down the stairs, Elizabeth still behind him, quite ignoring her immodest appearance. Caesar stopped on seeing him, glanced at the door, awaited orders. The pounding resumed.

  “Pray, open it, Caesar,” Marlowe said.

  Caesar grabbed the doorknob, twisted, swung the door back. In the light of his candle stood Sam.

  His clothes were torn, his face and shirt smeared with blood and vomit, his eyes wild. And even before he spoke, Marlowe knew that everything had changed.

  Chapter 5

  Governor Nicholson huffed, cleared his throat, moved objects around on his desk. Squinted and frowned at something on the wide cuff of his coat, picked it off, flicked it away.

  Nicholson generally came right to the point of a matter. When he did not care to, he engaged in the elaborate ritual he was now enacting.

  Marlowe, seated before the governor’s desk, crossed his legs, adjusted his sword, gave a little cough. He looked at the swirling pattern in the flocked canvas covering the walls, ran his eyes up to the ceiling high above, the intricate walnut crown molding that ran around the juncture of wall and ceiling. A lovely room, he had always thought so.

  Nicholson had insisted they meet in his office, the office of the governor, because this was a matter that required such formality.

  The governor’s office was in the Wren Building of the College of William and Mary, a block of rooms that, to College President Blair’s dismay, Nicholson had commandeered until the Governor’s Palace was completed. It was only a few months earlier that Blair had managed to get the whole House of Burgesses out of the Wren Building and into the not-yet-finished Capitol.

  Williamsburg, it seemed, was rising up from the earth, buildings growing between the stakes and strings that cut the open countryside into various lots and parcels, like a garden laid out and waiting only for things to sprout.

  In an upright, slipcovered chair against the wall sat Frederick Dun-more, all but glowing in his white suit of clothes, all vestiges of his Boston Puritan heritage gone. A neat, trim man of no great size. Just the hint of a knowing smile on his face. No need for overt gloating, not when one has been proved so profoundly right.

  His chair was in line with the end of the governor’s desk, not quite in front, not quite behind. A careful choice, Marlowe was certain. Made himself look like he was Nicholson’s right-hand man, without exposing himself to the possibility of the governor asking him what in hell he was doing, sitting beside him.

  “Yes, well, Marlowe, a letter of marque…,” the governor began at last. “Don’t really see how we can do that now…”

  “Governor, there has been a terrible incident, I am certainly aware,” Marlowe said in his most reasonable tone, “but I don’t see how that alters the situation. Slaver or no, there is still the war with Spain…”

  “War with Spain?” Dunmore burst in. “We have troubles greater than that, sir, and in a good part thanks to you.”

  Marlowe turned his head slowly, held Dunmore ’s eyes just long enough to make it clear that his comments were not welcome, and then turned back to Nicholson. “My men, the ones who returned with the sloop, told me of the horror they found on the slaver. I do not know what King James was thinking, but whatever it was I am in no doubt that he had ample reason for doing what he did.”

  That was not true, of course. Marlowe had a damned good idea of what James was thinking, of the ra
ge that led him to slay the white crew. But of course he could not say that.

  “I am hard-pressed to imagine any situation that would justify killing half of a ship’s crew, particularly one in so weakened a state-,” Nicholas began, only to be interrupted by Dunmore.

  “There is no circumstance, sir, that can justify a black man killing a white. It can never be justified. If we find excuses for this, then we undermine the whole structure of our society here in the tidewater.”

  “Our” society? Marlowe thought. Who the hell are you, you bloody Yankee bastard? Marlowe had been in the tidewater three years, was a hero in Williamsburg, and he still felt like an outsider.

  He turned to Nicholson. “What is this son of a bitch doing here?” Turned back to Dunmore, dared him with his eyes to demand satisfaction for that affront.

  “Marlowe, I know you are not happy, but there is no call for that.” Nicholson pulled Dunmore from the fire. “Mr. Dunmore is here as a representative of the burgesses.”

  Marlowe wondered how he had managed that, how he had got the more reasonable faction to let him be the representative at this meeting. Favors called in, debts written off. Dunmore would have done anything in exchange for this moment, the moment when he could sit there and watch Marlowe squirm because he had freed his slaves.

  “There is another concern, Marlowe,” said Dunmore, smug in the governor’s protection. “This example you have set, it puts us all in great danger of our Negroes rising up against us, do you see? And again, there is the war with Spain, which you mentioned. The guns on your ship are property of the crown, and I do not see how under these circumstances we can allow you to keep them. We need them now just to protect ourselves from the danger to which you yourself have exposed us.”

  Marlowe felt the hot flash of anger. Ten years before, Dunmore would not have made it through that speech, would have been begging for his life before he had uttered two sentences.

  But Marlowe was a gentleman now, he reminded himself, and should not kill men but in affairs of honor, and even then it was frowned upon.