“There’s to be a ball?” he asked Polly as they walked back along the lilac-lined path.
“A right grand affair.”
“Sometime soon?”
“Ten days or so. Word came from the Commodore that it couldn’t take place until the magistrate’s affairs are settled in Williamsburg.”
Duncan considered the words with new foreboding. “What affairs would those be?”
“Lord, Mr. Duncan,” Polly laughed. “Surely I wouldn’t know. I just cook the meals and make sure the Commodore’s chambers are washed down with vinegar. His rooms always have to be just so,” the cook said, her voice getting tighter. “Lemon water in basins at each corner. Logs stacked just so in the hearth. He has his own peculiar ways, and may the Lord have mercy on ye if ye don’t respect them.”
Back in his patient’s room Mrs. Dawson sat holding a cold compress to the officer’s head. Duncan examined Lloyd once more, then carefully arranged the medicines he had brought on the nightstand and explained their dosages. “Without the bark, his fever will just have to run its course. The laudanum will help him sleep through most of it. Twenty drops in a cup of tea every four hours should do.”
Mrs. Dawson nodded gratefully. She sank back into her chair and closed her eyes, about to drift off herself. Duncan stepped to the window. The bright, comfortable chamber was something of an oasis, removed not only from the torment of the slaves living half a mile away but from the world outside. He found the woman’s devotion to the sick man strangely comforting. He had been living in a world of murder, torture, and deceit so long he had grown unaccustomed to simple human kindness.
A breeze stirred the curtains, bringing with it the sweet scent of the lilacs. “I wish these days could go on forever,” Alice Dawson said behind him. “In another few weeks we will be getting the hot fetid air off the bay. But today I can smell the lilacs and the bergamot in the kitchen garden. There were wrens nesting in an old shoe on a beam at the back of the cooperage. Polly showed me the tiny eggs. Little seeds of song, she calls them.”
The words sparked an unexpected memory of spring in a different world. To his surprise, Duncan began speaking of visiting eider nests with his grandfather, telling of how they would whisper to the brooding birds to make them comfortable, then take a handful of down from each nest for their winter comforters. She gave a weak laugh and told him of how one of her great joys as a girl was to be taken out on the river by a maiden aunt to watch an island rookery of night herons.
When Nancy entered to check Lloyd’s bedding, Mrs. Dawson whispered to the maid, then turned back to explain with sparkling eyes how a bluebird sang from the window sill the day before. They exchanged more stories, Duncan of waking to a family of young turkeys sitting around his campfire one morning in the Catskills, and she of the amazing mating flights of the woodcocks that inhabited the river islands.
Duncan realized Nancy had returned, and was now extending a tray with a plate of cold chicken, cornbread, and a mound of butter beside a glass of milk. Ravenous as he was, he stared at the food for several long breaths before shaking his head. “I cannot.”
Mrs. Dawson took the tray from the woman and set it on the table at the end of the bed. “Because you are not hungry?”
“Because I am always hungry. Because I have more than twenty companions who will only eat thin gruel and dried fish today.”
“Your devotion to them is commendable, sir. But I can do nothing for the others.” She looked down into her hands as she spoke, and there was a new tightness in her voice. It was the first acknowledgment she had given of the slaves of Galilee. She took a deep breath and looked up. “Would you deny me the opportunity to show compassion for one just because I am prevented to do it for all?” She looked back at the unconscious man on the bed. “We must at least have one healthy physician, sir.”
“Duncan. Just Duncan.” He studied the woman, surprised at the familiarity that had grown so quickly between them. She seemed so strong yet strangely fragile. He had not meant to hurt her. “I would not betray my manners by eating alone.”
She smiled and pulled two chairs to the table, then sat and bit into a slice of cornbread.
“Speaking as a physician, madam, you look exhausted to the point of collapse,” he said after swallowing several bites. “I prescribe sleep. Surely your husband or one of your staff could sit with Dr. Lloyd.”
A melancholy smile lifted her face. “My husband was an inquisitive man, always seeking out modern techniques for farm management. So he traveled. London. Philadelphia. Charleston. He was invited to inspect sugar plantations in Jamaica. Nearly two years ago.”
Duncan lowered his fork. “Surely you made inquiries.”
“Six months after he left here, a portly man dressed like a Tudor prince arrived with a paper that said the plantation was now his, surrendered by my husband to settle gaming debts.” She stared out the window now. “A codicil stated that I was to be provided for, for as long as I lived. Of course I made inquiries. I had never known my husband to gamble, and he would have never risked the title of this plantation he loved so much. One man said my husband had died of the fever in Kingston. Another said he never made it to Jamaica. Lost at sea.”
“If his ship sank there would have been an inquest, with proofs required.”
“Only him. Lost overboard in a storm.”
“But these are matters for a court.”
“The Commodore is a confidant of the governor, even a member of Parliament. His papers are always crowded with seals and stamps.”
Duncan lowered his glass. “Are you saying that the man the brig awaits is the man who stole your plantation?”
She glanced back at the door, as if fearful of being overheard. “He is the owner. He provides for all of us.”
“Off the backs of slaves.”
She did not meet his eyes as she broke off a corner of the cornbread. “We always had field hands, but it was different then. In fair weather we would have meals with them on the lawn every Sunday. My husband would send doctors and pastors to minister to them. We never allowed a lash to be used.”
“Did you have Indian slaves? Scottish slaves?”
“Never a native. Not slaves at all, just indentured servants who were given land at the end of their service.” She looked down into her folded hands and spoke in a voice that grew smaller with each word. “I have nowhere else to go. He brings me lovely dresses and throws balls attended by every plantation owner on the river. He likes his sashes and medallions. Sometimes he calls himself Lord of the Chesapeake, a silly notion but no one would ever dare dispute him.” She grew silent for several breaths, then shrugged. “He wears me on his arm like another ornament.”
Duncan stared at the woman. The elegant Mrs. Dawson was herself a slave.
She had no more words. She did indeed seem about to collapse, as though the confession had used up the last of her strength.
He prepared a draft of the laudanum, which he left by the bed, then touched her shoulder in farewell. She did not look up.
Duncan was alone as he reached the downstairs hallway, and paused again at the extraordinary painting of the document he had noticed before venturing into the largest chamber at the front of the house. Flanking an ornate marble fireplace were shelves of books. Over the fireplace was a large portrait of King George. Over a vase of lilac blossoms on a side table was a painting of a bare-breasted Indian woman on her knees, extending a handful of tobacco to a richly dressed European. Two more paintings adorned an adjoining wall, one of a native in a pose of earnest Christian prayer, the second of a fierce warrior with two eagle feathers extending from the back of his head, one upright and the other jutting at an angle. The warrior was accurately adorned with tattoos and quillwork, dressed in loincloth and leggings. Behind him was a murky forest where the dim shapes of a wolf and a bear could be seen.
He walked along the edge of the room, marveling at how such opulence could exist so close to the squalor of the slave quarters. He bru
shed a bundle of peacock feathers extending from a crystal jar, then looked up and froze. His knees grew so weak he had to hold onto a chair for support.
On the wall before him was a life-sized portrait of the plump, lavishly dressed man who could only be the Commodore, the Lord of the Chesapeake. But Duncan knew him by another name. It was Lord Ramsey, Sarah’s ruthless and reviled father, who had vowed repeatedly to take Duncan’s life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ramsey!” Webb spat the name like a curse. Duncan had just described what he had discovered in the manor house. “I know the bloated prig.”
Duncan felt bile rising up his throat. Seeing the portrait had been a waking nightmare. “He fashions himself as a commodore, and wears a fanciful uniform.”
Webb’s eyes flared. “He owns tobacco plantations in Virginia, indigo plantations in Georgia, and sugar plantations in the West Indies. Cajoled his friend the governor into granting him a commission in the Virginia navy, which at the time had maybe four dinghies and a scow in its fleet. He promised he would get ships seconded from His Majesty’s navy.” The militia officer looked back at the masts extending over the riverbank. “Is that the Ardent? That’s his brig, by God!”
“The brig that sank the committees’ boats, I warrant,” Duncan said. “Meaning he is one of the Krakens. Franklin reported it all started at the Admiralty.”
Alarm built on Webb’s countenance as the words sank in. “The marines. The maritime runners blown out of the water. The pieces fit together.”
“You’ve had dealings with Ramsey?”
“I have sat in the House of Burgesses listening as he lectured us about our obligation to support the merchants and lenders in London and Glasgow, on whose backs all prosperity rests. He was insisting that the Burgesses should guarantee all debt incurred by the planters. I dismissed him as another arrogant, ill-informed member of the brocade-and-lace set. But later I began to glimpse how powerful he is behind the scenes. He works in the shadows. It is said he gained his plantations by acquiring the annual mortgages many owners use to pay plantation expenses before the crops come in, then bringing actions in court for immediate payment when no ready cash was to be had. I know for a fact that he bought the debt of several members of the Burgesses and allows them to remain in their homes at his pleasure, meaning they must do favors for him in the government. It is said he has loaned money to the governor himself. My God,” Webb said as he contemplated his own words. “It must be how he got the commission, and started his little Virginia navy.”
“He stole this plantation, probably killed the rightful owner, and parades the widow on his arm.”
“God in heaven! Not dear Alice Dawson? They used to call her the angel of the Rappahannock for the good works she did for the poor.”
“He is likely the leader of the Kraken Club in America.”
Webb’s anger seemed to give way to fear. “Then our enemy is Satan himself,” he whispered.
“He will arrive in a week or two. He is waiting to settle some business with a magistrate.”
“Business? Ramsey never does business. He does extortion, and never to serve anyone but himself. But what would a magistrate have that Ramsey might desire?”
William Johnson’s warning came back to Duncan. The lie will arrive and they will die. “His signature on twenty-four death warrants.”
DUNCAN WAS SLEEPING HEAVILY, BONE TIRED FROM ANOTHER DAY tending the rapidly growing tobacco plants, when a hand clamped over his mouth. In the dim light of the solitary candle left by the necessary chamber, Duncan nodded at old Jaho. The Susquehannock was holding Duncan’s sack of medicines. He led Duncan to his blanket tent and out into the shadows.
The moon had not risen yet, and Jaho appeared untroubled by the threat of guards. He strode purposefully across the perimeter road and knelt. Chuga appeared, pushing its head against the old man’s chest as Jaho whispered to it. The dog backed away toward the water, and Jaho motioned Duncan toward the fields.
They trotted in the deep shadow of the low ditch that divided sections of the wide field. Jaho knocked on the side of the first building they reached and after a moment the board moved outward and a broad hand reached out to help them inside.
Half a dozen candles were lit along the platforms used by the Africans, and Duncan looked up at more than three dozen wary faces. Ursa, the big slave who had saved Murdo from his misery after Gabriel’s beating, spoke to the others in his native tongue, and several came forward to greet Duncan, led by the man’s wife and son. Duncan introduced himself and Ursa gave his hand a vigorous shake, then pulled his son forward. “Kuwali speak good,” the man said of his son.
The boy gave an awkward smile. “Mrs. Dawson taught me with her children,” he explained in a surprisingly refined voice. “I worked in the manor house until I dropped the Commodore’s decanter one night. We have sickness. In the house they say you are a healer.”
The Africans had divided their sleeping platforms with sacking and even walls of woven reeds so that the building reminded Duncan of an Iroquois longhouse, with compartments set aside for each family. Kuwali and Ursa, clearly the leader among his people, led Duncan along the quarters, first presenting him to an old woman with deeply wrinkled skin, whose eyes blazed like embers. Without thinking Duncan knelt before her. No one moved for a long moment, then she reached out and lifted his hand, running her dry fingers over his palm. She smiled, and as if it were a signal, Ursa pulled him up and pointed to the first of the compartments, where a woman lay cradling a hand with a dislocated thumb. He realized he had been called for his medical skills, and set to work.
He set the thumb in place, then gave four adults with loosening teeth and yellowing eyes instructions to eat a handful of fresh greens—dandelions, wild onions, young poke, though never the larger leaves, which could poison—each day. To be certain they understood, Duncan promised to give Kuwali samples of each when he brought lunch the next day. He set a broken fibula, binding it with the staves of a cask, and with some embarrassment, to Ursa’s quiet laughter, put his hand over the womb of a nearly full-term pregnant woman and opined that the baby seemed healthy. With old Jaho assisting, he dispensed small amounts of his precious medicine, then bound tight a sprained ankle. The Africans, though clearly familiar with Jahoska, were shy with Duncan at first but, with Ursa’s encouragement, they soon warmed to him.
He managed to explain that his people were the Scottish, pointing to himself. “Scoootissh,” Ursa repeated in his rich bass voice, then made a gesture that included most of his audience. “Ibo!” Ursa cried out enthusiastically, then pointed to a man who was much lighter in complexion. “Fulani!” he explained, and gestured to the row of diamond-shaped scars that adorned his own jaw. “Ibo,” he said again, then to the tattoos of fish on the other man’s neck. “Fulani,” he repeated, then asked the name of Duncan’s clan. “Mc . . . Callum,” he repeated several times, making a clucking sound where the c’s intersected.
“Titus in the big house is Mr. Jaho’s old friend,” Kuwali added, pride evident in his voice. “He is Ashanti.”
His eyes gleaming, Ursa led Duncan to a section of the wall covered with a sacking drape and pulled it aside. On the horizontal beam before him was a line of unexpected objects, at the center of which were several human images assembled from carved bone, centered around a woman of slightly larger size. Their arms and legs were just crude suggestions of those appendages, but the heads and torsos had been expertly worked. To the left was a fierce-looking man with jagged teeth, whose wild eyes and mane-like hair suggested a great cat. On the other side was a figure with a pointed face, elongated eyes, and scales of a serpent. In the center, standing on an inverted teacup missing its handle, was a woman with plump, exaggerated breasts and a wide, serene smile. Her body had been stained brown with what looked like walnut juice. Flanking the images were items Duncan took to be offerings—dead beetles, long feathers that appeared to have come from cranes, a turtle shell, several skulls of small mammals, and flowe
r blossoms. At either end of the little altar sat sailing ships expertly carved of bone. Hanging above the woman at the center was a disc the size of his hand, made of red and yellow feathers. He took it to be the sun.
Duncan lowered his head respectfully toward the bone figures, then Ursa pointed to the little quillwork pouch that hung from his neck and thumped his hand against his own heart as if to approve. Jaho grinned, and motioned expectantly to Duncan’s medicine pouch. Duncan opened the sack and extracted one of the little blue mercury pills he had taken from the Ardent, brilliant as a gem, dropped it in an empty vial, and placed it beside the other offerings.
The onlookers murmured their enthusiastic approval. Ursa spoke to his son, who translated for Duncan. “Sometimes our people go to the rolling house to work. Sometimes my mother and I go there with food.”
“Rolling house? You mean the mill?”
The boy nodded solemnly. “Lila is the maid there. She knows their secrets.”
Duncan searched Ursa’s anxious face. “I don’t understand,” he confessed.
“It’s not their god,” Kuwali translated. “It makes their god worried. It’s why they keep it locked away like another slave. One of those men in scarlet jackets painted a cross on the door.” Kuwali spoke for himself now, taking over the explanation. “They send us in there to bring them packets of tobacco and such.” He looked to Ursa who nodded, then the boy motioned to a folded paper behind the goddess. His mother approached the altar, murmured something to the little bone woman, and lifted the paper away for Duncan. “I learned to draw from Mrs. Dawson,” Kuawli added.
Duncan opened the paper and felt his heart leap into his throat. He had only seen the long spirit mask once before, but he instantly recognized the twisted red face and beard of bear claws. The British marines had imprisoned the Blooddancer.
Blood of the Oak: A Mystery Page 27