The King's Exile (Thomas Hill Trilogy 2)

by Andrew Swanston

  ‘You’ll soon get used to it, Hill,’ taunted John. ‘If the slaves can do it, so can you. Stoke the furnace and keep stoking. There’s sugar to be made and plenty of it.’

  Thomas tried again. This time the heat was a little less intense and he managed to get to the furnace. He watched the man stoking it lift a heap of dried-up canes and wood and fork them into the mouth of the furnace. With a nod to Thomas he handed over the fork and joined the team transferring the boiling sugar into smaller and smaller coppers until the crystallized mixture was tipped into a cooling vat.

  As the coppers hung over the furnace, Thomas would be working below them. A splash from a copper and he could easily lose a hand or an arm. The Gibbes watched him fork in three or four loads and then left. The cane was being cut and they would want to make sure it was cut properly. Thomas wiped the sweat from his eyes and bent his back to the forking, one white body among the black ones.

  After an hour he had to rest. His back ached and his arms were shaking. He threw down the fork and went outside. The slaves ignored him and carried on with their tasks. Cartloads of cane were being trundled up from the fields for their juice to be extracted in the mill and gallons of the syrupy mixture were being carried across for boiling. If the boiling men stopped to rest, a backlog would soon build up and the Gibbes would want to know why. The slaves preferred to keep working.

  The injured man still lay outside the boiling house, silent and unmoving. Thomas drank from the well by the mill and tipped a bucket of water over his head. He offered some to the stricken man, who ignored him. He wondered at the slaves’ ability to work for long periods in such a place. Could Dante himself have imagined worse?

  Keeping an eye out for Gibbes, Thomas sat with his back to the well and breathed deeply. He had quite forgotten his nakedness. In the boiling house it had seemed natural; in there any scrap of clothing would have been unwelcome and would have come out reeking of sugar. The light breeze which was turning the sails of the windmill cooled his skin and eased the tension in his back and neck.

  For a moment he closed his eyes and thought of home. In his mind’s eye he was walking by the river with Polly and Lucy. It was a spring day, the oaks were coming into leaf and the girls were picking primroses. He slipped into sleep.

  ‘On your feet, you shitten little worm,’ roared a voice.

  Thomas’s eyes opened in shock. John Gibbes was thundering up the slope, whip in hand. He jumped up and made for the boiling house. He was halfway through the entrance when he felt the sting of the whip on his shoulders. His back arched and he yelped in pain. A second lash drew blood and a third sliced across its mark.

  Then it happened. It had not happened when he had thrown himself at Rush – that was the product of blind, unthinking fury. It had not happened when the Gibbes taunted him or when they had threatened to kill him. But now, after long months of lonely misery, it happened. The thing he called ‘the ice’ – an unshakeable calmness and intensity of purpose. The last time had been in the courtyard of Pembroke College, when a cowardly young captain had goaded him once too often. It was as if his mind had left his body and he was watching himself.

  Thomas moved so fast that Gibbes had no time to react. In one movement he turned and launched himself. The whip dropped from Gibbes’s hand and he fell on to his back with Thomas on top of him. Thomas was on his feet again in a trice. He planted a foot on the man’s throat and bent to speak. ‘Enough, Gibbes. Take your evil ways back to your pigsty and take your brother with you.’ Before Gibbes could get to his feet, Thomas picked up his clothes and strode off up the path to his hut.

  The deed was done and the ice departed as quickly as it had come. By the time Thomas reached the hut, he knew that his Rubicon was behind him. Whatever the consequences, this time he must flee and he must not come back. If he were caught again the Gibbes would flay him to death, Rush or no Rush.

  He stopped only long enough to pull on his clothes, then continued on past the brutes’ hovel to the road. John Gibbes would go and fetch his brother before following him so he might just have time to get away. At the junction with the road down the hill he did something he had never done before and turned left. Instinctively he thought that the Gibbes would look for him in Speightstown or Holetown. If they came looking in the middle of the island, they would soon find themselves on rough paths through dense undergrowth until they reached the hills. He knew this from Patrick and he knew that almost no one lived there. They would not go into the forest. They would head down to the coast.

  He would go to the Lytes and throw himself on their mercy. He had a good idea where their estate was. He knew it bordered the Gibbes’s on the north-eastern side and that their house was at the northern tip of the land. Where else was there to go?

  Thomas could still run. He had always been fast and at Oxford he had outrun all his friends. He found a rhythm and was soon deep in the forest. The road twisted and turned up the hill, wide enough for a cartload of sugar, until he reached a fork where it separated into two narrower paths. He stopped and tried to work out which path to take. This high up, they had both been cut through forest thick enough to obscure any view. He knew that the Atlantic Ocean was in front of him and the Caribbean behind, but that would be so whichever fork he took. The twisting and turning up the hill made it difficult to know exactly where he was. Either path might turn back down the hill or take him deeper into the forest. He might even have already passed the Lytes’ estate. Left fork or right?

  While he was deliberating, a troop of monkeys dropped out of a tree and walked slowly up the right path. Abandoning any further pretence at navigation, Thomas followed them. At least the monkeys would know where to find food. He had not eaten all day and his strength was fading. The monkeys were in no hurry and Thomas easily kept up with them, staying far enough back not to frighten them.

  Quite soon the forest thinned a little and they came to a line of palm trees. The monkeys made for a tree laden with green coconuts. Thomas picked up a fallen nut and weighed it in his hands. It was heavy with water. He looked about for something with which to break the shell, cursing himself for not thinking to bring a knife with him. With a sharp stone he tried to bore a hole in the nut so that he could drink the water. When that did not work he smashed the stone down on the shell, breaking it open and scattering the monkeys in alarm.

  Refreshed by the coconut, he continued up the path. It was not long before he knew that the monkeys had deceived him. The path had been getting narrower and narrower until two men could not have walked along it side by side. Not very clever, Thomas, he said to himself. Chief cryptographer to the king, breaker of the Vigenère cipher, philosopher and now follower of monkeys. No wonder you’re lost. He turned back and retraced his steps down the hill.

  That deep in the forest there was little sunlight and suddenly there was none at all. The storm that swept in from the Atlantic blackened the sky and shook the trees. Within seconds, rain was falling in torrents and Thomas was soaked. Water was pouring down the path, turning it to mud and making each step treacherous. Trying to shelter was futile, so he just stood to one side and waited for it to pass.

  When it did, he set off again very cautiously. He was wet, he was tired, he was heading back where he had come from and if the brutes got their hands on him, he was dead. He did not want to make matters worse by slipping and turning an ankle.

  But at a place where the path turned sharply, he did slip. His feet went from under him and he slid on his backside across the bend and into the undergrowth. The bushes slowed him and he came to a halt a few yards off the path. He got to his feet but his left ankle immediately gave way. He lost his footing and was on his backside again, slipping down the hill. Without warning, the ground under him disappeared and he was bouncing down a stony slope. He flailed about with his hands to find something to hold on to, found nothing and kept on going down. By this time he was flat on his back. His head hit a rock and when he finally came to a stop he was unconscious.

/>   Had it not been for the arrival of another storm, Thomas might have lain there unconscious for hours. He came to when rain began to fall on his face. Water gushed down the hill, bringing debris and mud with it, and he was struck by branches and stones. He lay curled up on his side, his hands protecting his head, until the storm passed.

  When he tried to stand he found that his ankle had swollen to twice its normal size, he was bruised all over and he could not focus his eyes. He seemed to be at the bottom of a deep gully, its walls rising steeply on either side and with a vertical cliff face in front of him, but that was more sensation than sight. Trying to focus on the slope he had tumbled down, he saw vaguely that it was the least steep of the gully sides and would offer some handholds in the form of rocks and shrubs. Ankle or no ankle, it had been his way in and it would have to be his way out.

  It would be foolish to attempt the climb before his vision cleared, so he sat on the sodden ground, rubbed the ankle and waited. He felt all the parts of his body that he could reach to make sure that no bones had been broken. There seemed to be only cuts and bruises, although some were painful.

  When at last he could focus his eyes the light was beginning to fade. In Barbados there was very little dusk and it would soon be dark. At the bottom of this gully in the middle of the forest, neither stars nor moon would shed much light. Despite a throbbing ankle and an aching head, he must try to climb out.

  Using a tree as a support, he stood up and hobbled to the base of the slope. Very cautiously he started to climb. One step up, grab a rock or a bush and heave himself a foot higher. Repeat the process and repeat it again. It was slow and tiring and after five minutes he had climbed no more than ten feet. When he looked up, it was too dark to see the top of the gully and he knew he was not going to make it. One step down, reach for a handhold and lower himself foot by foot until he was back where he had started. Ten feet up and ten feet down, hurting and exhausted. The tiny frogs began to whistle and clouds of insects rose from the ground. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night in the gully.

  And so it was. When dawn at last broke, there had been rain, insects and pain. Of sleep or food there had been none. Using a fallen branch as a crutch, he struggled to his feet and examined himself. His arms and legs were decorated with a patchwork of bites and bruises, he could not say which part of his body hurt the most and he was ravenous.

  And there was, of course, the little matter of the brutes. Even then, having searched in vain in Speightstown and Holetown, they might be climbing the hill after him, whips in hand and thirsting for blood. He had knocked red brute down and humiliated him. He had run away. There would be no mercy. They would kill him and make up some story about his catching a fever. His corpse would be thrown to the dogs. They would laugh as they watched it being torn apart and devoured.

  Enough, Thomas. They have not found you yet. Get out of this gully alive and you might yet survive. You must survive. If you do not, neither will Margaret, Polly and Lucy. And be quick about it.

  He began the climb again. A step at a time, favouring the swollen ankle and carefully testing each rung of his ladder before trusting his weight to it, he made steady progress to a point about halfway up, where he held on to a sapling and paused for a rest.

  But for the birds, the forest was silent. Taking a deep breath, he continued to climb and had almost reached the top when he glanced up and saw a face watching him. He missed his footing and slid down a few feet, scrabbling for a hold with his fingers and luckily coming to rest on the stump of a fallen tree. A shaft of pain shot through his ankle and he cursed. Then he looked up again and laughed. The monkey was still watching. Then it ran off. Probably gone to fetch his friends, thought Thomas.

  He started to climb again and took care not to look up until he reached the top. When he did, he lay on his stomach, catching his breath and wishing his ankle would stop throbbing. Eventually he picked up another branch and set off slowly down the path. It was still treacherous and he took great care. Another slip and another gully might well finish him off.

  When he came to the palm trees, he split another coconut and ate its flesh. Where the path forked, he turned up the left-hand path, offering a silent prayer to any god who might be listening that it would lead him to the Lytes’ estate. He had not gone far, however, when his eyes refused to focus. No amount of blinking or rubbing helped and his legs began to feel heavy. He knew something more than a twisted ankle was wrong and sat down with his back to a tree. His eyes closed and he slid to the ground.

  When he came to, he was lying on a blanket. He struggled on to his elbows. He was in a clearing in the forest where a circle of men and women were sitting cross-legged on the ground, eating, drinking and laughing. Every one of them was naked. Thomas sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked again. About twenty of them, chatting happily and not a stitch of clothing between them. Something stirred in his memory. The little parson in the Mermaid. Was it Mange? No, Strange. He had been talking about these people. Ranters, that was it, Ranters. His brain was fuddled and he could not recall if Ranters were dangerous or not.

  They were not. When one of them noticed that Thomas was awake, he got to his feet, spread his arms in greeting and spoke in a clear, musical voice. ‘Good day, brother. I am Jacob, leader of this family. You will share our food. All are welcome to join the Ranters.’

  When Thomas did not move, Jacob tried again. ‘Do not be afraid, brother, the ways of the Ranters are peaceful. Come and sit with us.’

  Still Thomas did not move, so Jacob walked slowly towards him, arms outstretched, until he could take Thomas’s hand, help him to his feet and lead him into the group. Favouring his ankle, Thomas limped behind him. Every Ranter stood and held out a hand to touch the newcomer. Jacob helped him to sit in the shade of an old fig tree and a slim young woman with long black hair gave him a piece of bread and a fruit he did not recognize. He asked for water and was handed a leather flask. The Ranters sat around him, watching him eat and drink.

  The water did a little to bring Thomas to his senses. He was still befuddled but gradually it dawned on him that he was not where he should be. He had lost his way, passed out and been found by these Ranters. They had given him food and water and they were friendly enough. He looked about. Roughly equal numbers of men and women, not in the least abashed at their nakedness, and perfectly happy to have a stranger amongst them. He wondered if he should take off his clothes, decided they would tell him if he should and sat quietly.

  When Jacob spoke again, the fog was clearing and reason was slowly returning. ‘What is your name, brother?’ the Ranter asked gently.

  ‘Thomas. Thank you for the food.’

  ‘The Ranters believe that nature’s bounty should be shared. We found you in the forest. We have treated your injuries. Where were you going, Thomas?’

  ‘I was running away. Where are we?’

  ‘We are in the hills above Speightstown. Did you come from there?’

  ‘Nearby.’

  ‘Do you work there?’ asked another voice.

  Thomas glanced up. The face and voice were familiar. Someone he had met in the market, perhaps. ‘I do. I am indentured.’

  ‘Indenture is slavery,’ said Jacob quietly. ‘The Ranters do not condone slavery.’

  ‘All men and women are free,’ said the young woman who had given Thomas the bread and fruit. There was a chorus of agreement.

  ‘God is in all of us. Submission to the rule of others is wrong.’

  Not feeling up to a discussion on faith and morality, Thomas nodded politely. The Ranters must have sensed his mood because after a while Jacob began to play a flute while the others danced naked around him. Among the dancers was the man who had asked him if he worked in Speightstown and when Thomas looked at him, it came back to him. The little man with thin wispy hair and watery eyes was none other than the Reverend Simeon Strange himself. The parson who had declaimed so mightily against the Ranters had become one of them. Thomas wondered if any of the ot
her dancers were parsons or even members of the Assembly. For all he knew, Walrond or Bell could be among them.

  He was in trouble. By now the brutes would be searching for him. If they found him they would flay the skin from his back. He knew he should do something but had no strength for it. He looked at the sky. It would soon be dark. Despite his ankle, he should go.

  The music and dancing came to an end and the Ranters gathered up the remains of their food. The young woman who had spoken against submission to the rule of others took Thomas’s hand and helped him to his feet. ‘I am Catherine,’ she told him. ‘It is too late for you to leave now, Thomas. You must spend the night with us.’ She was right. Better a night with the Ranters than another alone in the forest. Thomas allowed himself to be led by Catherine along a path through the trees to another clearing where a circle of neat shelters made of branches and palm fronds had been erected.

  ‘There is a place for you here, Thomas,’ said Catherine, indicating one of the shelters. Thomas ducked inside. It was dry and cool and more fronds had been laid down to make a floor. Even if it rained he would be quite comfortable for the night. When he smelt cooking, Thomas emerged from the shelter and found that a fire had been lit in the centre of the ring and the Ranters were preparing to eat. While the men gathered wood for the fire, two women stirred a large pot simmering over the flames. Thomas breathed in the aroma and realized how hungry he was. When the food was ready it was ladled by one of the women into wooden bowls and handed out by Catherine. Each Ranter sat with their bowl and platter around the fire.