by Debra Dunbar
Her attributes are the power of creation and abundance, sensuality and passion, the healing of disease and the feeding of the hungry.
It’s said she manifests as a beautiful, seductive young woman and during rituals she may possess the body of any worshipper, male or female.
But she has a dark side;
it’s also said she is the Goddess of Witches,
and she anoints herself with the blood of her enemies.
Chapter 1
Charles
It was the one point on St. Mark’s island that Charles would describe as reliably comfortable: the very top of Grande Street, above the main town, where the onshore breeze was cooling and smelled only of the turquoise Caribbean Sea.
Charles Frederick Tynes took off his wide-brimmed, cream fedora and let the early morning sun heat his face while the wind riffled his sandy hair, lifting it from his collar and forehead.
He must not allow a hint of the fears assailing him to be visible when he descended the length of the street to the docks, he reminded himself. Not one. They were like sharks smelling blood in the water, the good folk of Drakeston.
So he replaced the light hat, and began to walk down Grande Street with his head high and his smile broad.
He was dressed in his best. His lucky clothes, as he thought of them. Pale and loose, to suit the climate, though his unbuttoned jacket was tight on his broad shoulders. The ivory color of the jacket contrasted with his tanned face and hands. His muscular build and the darkening of his skin was evidence of hard physical work in the tropical sun, and it was all held against him.
In defiance of that, he returned every greeting with a cheerful one of his own. Merchants and chandlers, plantation managers and clerks. A lieutenant from the small fort on the other side of the harbor; the captain of the supply schooner recently in from Antigua. The elderly Reverend Leonard Birkett, his pale eyes even quicker to move on than he was, after his salutation.
At this hour, ladies were absent of course, though there were some strolling women.
Within fifty paces, the scents of the open sea had become mingled with the prevalent Drakeston aroma of cooking fires, which was at least better than the smell which might greet him at the bottom of the hill.
Midway along the street, and not a step before, he allowed himself to look down into the harbor bay to see the ship he’d been told had just arrived from England.
His heart dropped.
So much for the lucky day. Well, there is tomorrow, and next week. Perhaps next month.
As long as it didn’t stretch to the end of the season.
Although he had to squint against the glare of the sun which was dancing off the chop in the harbor, there was no mistaking the long, low, purposeful shape of the newly arrived ship; no missing the swarm of the crew, the neatness of the rigging, or the pale bar that ran the length of the side. The visitor wasn’t a merchantman come bearing good tidings from England to him, but a frigate of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, come to show the flag in troubled times.
He did not let his stride falter. They were watching.
And...it was not unheard-of for a frigate to carry private communications. Naval captains had that discretion. In fact, Lord Willoughby-Lazaure might well have entrusted a vital communication to this most secure form of transport.
His steps quickened at the thought, and presently he plunged into the morass that was the lower town’s Sunday market, taking some comfort from knowing that the mill of people would hide him from the judging eyes.
Around him, the cries of seagulls merged with the calls of street sellers. Yoruba and Ibo, French and Spanish, Dutch and English; citizen, freeman, indentured servant, slave. In this one place, all their voices blended equally together in a cacophony of animated buying and selling. There were mangos and plantain, yam and cassava, cloves and cinnamon. He smelled grilled pork rind, chicken cooking in the spicy smoke of pimento and bay, and the salty allure of fresh-made fish cakes.
The scent of delicious food overwhelmed the usual stench of misery, sewers and poverty, and made his mouth water. On any day there was not a new ship in the harbor, he would have stayed to sample. Instead, he followed a line of women making a hurried progress through the market. They were balancing large woven baskets packed with limes on their heads, heading for the frigate and a sure sale for their produce, if they were quick enough.
The closer he got, the more the crowd swelled, coming together like tributaries to a river, meeting at the docks.
To some, the arrival of a navy ship was an idler’s distraction before church; to others the possibility of selling supplies, or the chance of news from Europe.
To Charles, it was just possibly the difference between his fervent dreams and his worst nightmares.
“It’s like a bloody carnival!”
Without stopping, Charles turned his head to the owner of the voice. George Devieux was on his shoulder, elbowing through the throng to come alongside. He was the manager of the old Jessop Estate, out by Spanish Peak. He was not exactly a friend, but he was not one who judged Charles on his background. George’s face was thin and his gray eyes were cold, but his world-weary, cynical asides often amused Charles.
“Good day, George. How goes your estate?”
It wasn’t George’s estate, of course. It belonged to the absent Jessop family of some woolly market town in Norfolk, who hadn’t been to St. Mark’s in thirty years or more.
“Well enough. I could do without the mutterings of voodou and the depredations of maroons.”
Voodou was a constant background. Even the best efforts of Reverend Birkett made little impact on the beliefs of plantation slaves, and never a day passed without some tales of Enzili visiting sleepers with dreams of love, Legba setting dead men walking, or soucriants sucking blood from victims’ necks.
True bloodsuckers, Charles knew, were more real than were ever met with in the slaves’ most fevered dreams.
As for maroons, the escaped slaves hiding in the thick jungles around Spanish Peak, they were an intermittent problem, and their burden fell more on George than others.
“The maroons? Still?” Charles said.
“If it goes on, we will have to bribe our brave Army captain to do his job and clean them out again.” George barked a sour laugh. “Leave them too long and...well, look at Saint Domingue.”
The large island to the north was still gripped by the most horrendous revolt. Every ship brought more stories to feed the nightmares of people here in the more peaceful Leeward archipelago.
“They have had the example of America to inspire them,” Charles said quietly.
It was an old, exhausted conversation. Folly to let the situation with the British colony deteriorate to the extent it had, and worse folly to then allow the American rebellion to succeed. It was fifteen years on from the humiliating defeat at Yorktown, closely followed by the concession of the government in London, and the echoes had not died—would not die.
Damn the government. And damn the Americans. Damn their rebel Yankee hides.
But they were all just part of the whole.
There would be another war with France, as sure as the sun rose in the east, and as soon as they finished guillotining the rest of their aristocrats. There might even be another war with America. Or Spain. Or the Low Countries. Threats loomed on the horizon like thunderheads boiling out of the ocean.
And the price of sugar perversely sank, just as the risks and costs of transporting it rose and rose.
Charles had the solution, the insight into what it would take to overcome the problem. It was not for the captain to massacre escaped slaves hidden at Spanish Peak, or for George to beat his slaves into cutting even more cane at Jessop’s plantation. A simpler, more modern solution. An enlightened solution. But Charles didn’t have the resources to achieve it, despite every penny he’d sunk into the project.
Every last penny and that £10,000 promissory note.
The thought of that note squeezed his br
eath and chilled him to the bone, so that he shivered, even in the heat of the morning sun. They could call it in at any time. They were watching him. The slightest sign of a misstep and they would pounce. At best, they’d wait till the end of the season, when they’d be able to seize his unsold crop and recoup their investments. He’d go to jail, and he wouldn’t survive there, not even for one month. He’d end up in a pauper’s rough-made coffin, tossed unceremoniously into a common grave. They’d have robbed him of everything, killed him, and profited from it, completely legally. Bloodsuckers indeed, and they walked the streets of Drakeston, brazen as whores.
Or...or...
Or Lord Willoughby-Lazaure—absent, wealthy owner of the Nightwood Estate, the largest plantation on St. Mark’s—had read and understood his letters, and had decided to invest in his scheme and would send him the necessary letters of credit.
All else: maroons pillaging; dead men walking; even spirits feeding on blood in the night; all of it was as nothing, of no consequence.
But he didn’t tell George that. He didn’t tell anyone, except Lord Willoughby-Lazaure.
A month he’d spent, cramped over his table every evening, writing and rewriting the offer. He must not appear too much in need of help, yet not so unconcerned that the earl would ignore his plea. He must appear confident. Assured. A sober, educated man. Not an equal to a peer of the realm, naturally, but neither could he seem so low as to be beneath consideration.
Perhaps the offer of marriage to the earl’s youngest daughter had been a step too far.
The sweat was cold on his brow.
Have I failed by being too presumptuous? An earl’s daughter, for goodness’ sake!
It had been a mere flourish to bring his proposals to a memorable close without a real expectation of success. Now it gnawed at him that it might be the reason for their failure.
“What on God’s earth?”
George’s casual blasphemy jerked his attention back to his surroundings.
There was a terrific hullabaloo beside the frigate. A wooden cargo crane had been pressed into service, with its cradle of blocks and pulleys. A dozen seamen were scampering around, carefully lowering something they’d hoisted from the deck.
Charles stretched and peered, not believing his eyes.
A strange woman was standing beside the frigate, in the shade of a parasol as dark as a raven’s wing. An incredibly beautiful, black-haired woman, so pale he thought he was seeing a ghost, and in front of her...
An icy hand of superstitious dread reached out and squeezed his heart.
A portent? Surely not a portent.
It was lashed to a frame and half-hidden in the tangle of ropes, yet Charles could clearly see what the crew had just unloaded from the frigate: a large, rough-made coffin.
Chapter 2
Lady Margaret
Along with the dense text of his letters, full of power and tonnage, acres and yield, Mr. Tynes had done her the very great courtesy of providing a portrait, so she’d seen him in the crowd before he became aware of her.
The portrait, she admitted, did him no justice. None at all.
Her vision blurred, for no reason to do with him. A wave of nausea hit her. She bit down on her tongue and used the pain to stiffen her spine.
I will not faint! I will not.
She was shielded from the sea breeze by the looming bulk of HMS Crescent, and the heat on the dockside was debilitating, added as it was to the hardships and depredations of the voyage. Having come so far, she would not yield to it. Not here, in front of all these people. She had to appear without weakness to them, else she would not succeed in carrying out her plans. The least hesitation, the slightest misstep, the smallest indication of uncertainty…
“Gentlemen! Gently, please,” she called, proud that her voice remained steady even while her legs trembled like a newborn foal’s.
Grinning at the title, the ungentle seamen ensured the last of her peculiar luggage settled on the dock as softly as a duckling come to rest on the water. She was sure they were happy just to have it off the ship. She’d seen the surreptitious signing of the cross, the hasty aversion of eyes, every time they passed it on the deck.
She stepped forward, checking that no damage had been done. Her hand touched the sun-warmed wood.
Another step on your journey complete, my heart.
Soon. Soon.
That step had attracted attention back to herself. Captain Laybourn, splendid in his blue jacket and white waistcoat, came to her. He removed his bicorn hat and ducked beneath the wide, ungainly parasol that her maid staunchly held above her.
“It may be some time before I am able to organize transport, my lady,” he said, his voice booming.
“Please, Captain, don’t delay yourself. You have done so much for me, not least by coming here to St. Mark’s first. I am most grateful.”
“It’s entirely been my pleasure.” He bowed over her hand. “If you’re sure, I will pause only briefly with the deputy governor here, and then I must hasten to Antigua.”
“Away, Captain, with my profound thanks. There’s not a moment to lose.”
He smiled and moved out of the shade of her black parasol to the base of the gangplank, where he lingered, passing orders to one of his lieutenants. His gaze, curious as ever, rested on her luggage.
Go. Go, she thought. Or I will expire right here, on this dock.
The captain had taken some political risks in sailing first to St. Mark’s, rather than direct to Antigua, where the Governor of the Leeward Islands resided, and where urgent dispatches were bound. Had she not had a letter from her father urging Captain Laybourn to that course, she doubted she would have been able to persuade him. Perhaps that was her father’s last unintended gift to her: his great seal on a letter requesting her to be taken far away, by the most direct route.
So be it.
“You should take a seat, my lady.”
Her African maid, Agnes, completely immune to the heat, was nevertheless sensitive to her plight and concerned for her, quite properly. But she must allow no sign that could even be interpreted as weakness. Besides, there was no time; Mr. Tynes had presumably deduced who she must be. He was approaching.
Good. It seems he has his wits about him. I trust I have mine. This will require the most careful handling.
Chapter 3
Charles
This will require the most careful handling, Charles thought.
He had overcome his superstitious foreboding and walked past the lady’s peculiar baggage. In fact, it was the crest on the coffin that had snapped him out of his funk: the crossed bars, sable on azure; the wolf’s head. Unmistakably, it was the seal of the Earls of Willoughby-Lazaure.
Which made the mysterious woman in the deep shade of her parasol...
“My lady,” he stuttered, lifting his fedora and attempting a courtly bow. “I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Lady Margaret, daughter of Lord Willoughby-Lazaure?”
Gods! She’s a beauty of the kind we’ve never seen in St. Mark’s. Those eyes!
They were so beguiling, he almost lost himself in them as she replied.
“Indeed, I am, sir. Do I take it that you are Mr. Charles Tynes, the manager of our estate?”
“I have that honor.” His heart soared. A visit from the earl himself! “And the earl? Has he disembarked?” He looked about.
“The earl remains in England, Mr. Tynes.”
His heart dropped just as quickly. It had been too soon to celebrate; the earl had not seen fit to come.
And yet, perhaps, there was hope. He clearly had the earl’s interest. Why else would he send his daughter here? She must be bearing letters from her father.
“Won’t you introduce your friend?” she said, her gaze moving beyond his shoulder.
Friend? Charles turned.
“Ah. May I present Mr. George Devieux, manager of the Jessop Estate on St. Mark’s.” He certainly did not want to introduce George, with his pale eyes drinki
ng in Lady Margaret’s beauty. And he did not know exactly how to introduce her. My fiancée? Dare I presume? No! Not without speaking privately to her and learning how the earl had reacted to the proposal. “George, Lady Margaret. The Earl of Willoughby-Lazaure—”
“Owns the Nightwood Estate, of course. Delighted, my lady.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Lady Margaret murmured. “I do hope we have more time to converse at a later date, but I must prevail upon my manager to obtain immediate transport to the estate, and the provision of supplies. A covered carriage for me and my maid. A wagon for my baggage. A group of trustworthy workers to restore the house. Food sufficient for our needs, and the workers’, for a week. And the necessary cleaning materials and tools for repairs.”
Charles’ mind reeled at her swift recitation. She meant to go directly to the estate. And in a covered carriage, for heaven’s sake. In all of St. Mark’s there was one such carriage: the deputy governor’s. If the deputy governor was not this minute making his way into the church, it was because the captain had waylaid him with urgent messages from London. Either way, a discussion about his carriage was going to be delayed.
“And transport for your companions, my lady?” George was craning his neck to see if anyone else was about to descend from the frigate.
Charles berated himself. As George had immediately seen, it was not proper for Lady Margaret to travel with only her maid for company. Presumably she had some elderly relative with her, the earl’s doddering old cousin or some such, who would have been entrusted with the estate’s business matters in St. Mark’s.
“Due to…unforeseen circumstances prior to the ship sailing,” Lady Margaret said, “I am alone at present.”
George recovered quickly.
“I have a pony and trap, my lady,” he said. “A volante, made by the Spanish, and well-sprung specifically for these uncouth colonial roads. There are only two seats, alas, but I would be honored to accompany you.”